With the first sighting of a car with christmas tree lights in (did I mention people were odd where I live?), comes the trip to Amazon to order the christmas gifts in one effective hit. Something I noticed today whilst buying in bulk was the rise of etiquette books. It really seems like some trendy fad has attacked and landed in a very polite manner. This rise in etiquette is probably a reaction to the loutish lad chav society of the past few years. It has also got me thinking about a few posts I have seen lately online regarding people’s commenting on blogs. Further on from that, it has me thinking about what role etiquette has to play in the web.
There are of course, basic fundamental webtiquette rules to follow. These vary depending on the area of the web. There are various "unwritten" etiquettes on blogs, forums, irc and many other platforms. Coupled with this comes business etiquette and social etiquette. I am brought back to the memory of the irc ASL (age, sex, location) and flaming days. Most of this is of course a given to most who use it and those that don’t choose to follow are generally ignored and dealt with by banning. In the instance of spamming on forums or blogs you can see attempts to rid those unpolite posters.
The areas of any etiquette are always open to argument, deliberation and interpretation. I have noticed a lot of people commenting on why certain people post or comment how they do. This can be seen in maybe a person being rude, obnoxious, blunt or just down right unhelpful. Whether this is right or wrong is again one of those grey areas. I personally believe that if you do criticise something you should be at least polite enough to be constructive. However, in the nature of blogs I really think that maybe just commenting is not a bad thing either. The nature of the blog beast is that one person or (one group of people) opinion. Maybe even saying that person doesn’t have a right to say that goes against webtiquette. It is an old concept but if you don’t like it don’t read it. I am reminded of the people who write to broadcasting complaints organisations to moan about a program they watched and how it outraged them. Just hearing about these people always brings the simple idea that maybe they should have just turned it off. I still can’t believe that unless someone tied them to the chair and stuck their eyes open with matchsticks, they have any cause to complain about something they watched with free will. Just as there is a big off button on TV’s, you can stop any web offence by simply clicking off.
I can’t really sum up what should and shouldn’t be good webtiquette – I also really don’t want to along with don’t think you can. There are basic principles that most stick to which work well. As far as myself goes, I know what I will and won’t do. I also know what I do and don’t like. Maybe that is the point of webtiquette. Aside from the corporate or professional sites, the world of blogs is a personal one. If you think about it like that then shouldn’t that person’s own etiquette be what matters? Who is anyone to say they are wrong without breaking webtiquette? In the case of a forum or community then it is a majority, admin or moderator etiquette that should be the principle. I don’t believe you can whack the "if you can’t say something nice then don’t say anything at all" and other chestnuts onto people’s heads. I personally might believe this, but as anyone else I love a good moan, winge and generally grumpy stick waving behaviour. When it comes down to it I just like it to be personal and my own webtiquette comes into my own sites. Nobody smells your fart in cyberspace after all.
