GeekSugar

Back to Basics: What's Your Take on Internet Etiquette?

GeekSugar — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:30:30 -0700

If there was a test based on Internet manners and etiquette most of us would fail. People sign on Gchat, but stay invisible. Others friend you on Facebook hoping to scope out your albums, but don't ever engage with you. And don't even get me started on people who announce their makeups, breakups and hookups via status updates. Where do you stand on the Internet etiquette divide? Find out before you offend someone.

Online Etiquette: Acceptable Instant Messenger Behavior	Miss Manners Says It's Cool to Ignore Friend Requests	Have You Ever Had to Defriend Someone Online?
How Do You Feel About Relationship Status on Facebook?	Do You Set Status Updates on IM?	The Worst Commenters on the Internet...It's Really That Bad

Vintage Geek Satire: Facebook Manners

GeekSugar — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:04:15 -0700

Put our Tech Dating 101 series back about 50 years and you get this crackly black-and-white etiquette video of Alice and Timmy demonstrating Facebook relationship rules. Oh, and from now on, my laptop is my "computing machine" and FB is "the electric friendship generator."

Have You Ever Had to Defriend Someone Online?

GeekSugar — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:00:22 -0800

Did you get defriended by someone hoping for a free cheeseburger? The New York Times reports that the reason Facebook pulled a Burger King app promising a free burger if you defriended ten friends was that it sent a notification that you were no longer someone's friend (usually, there's no annoying status update, unlike the glaringly public breakup announcement). How rude!

In my cavalier MySpace days, when it seemed like adding as many people as you could was the right way to go, I eventually had to defriend people, mainly based on the fact that we weren't really friends in the first place. Now that I only add people to my Facebook account that I actually know and am friends with in real life, I haven't had to defriend anyone. Nor has a burger encouraged me to do so.

But what if you have a falling out with someone? Or you don't want someone having access to your info? Tell me: Have you ever had to defriend anyone?

Source

How Do You Feel About Relationship Status on Facebook?

GeekSugar — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:15:12 -0800

By living part of our social lives on the Internet, we've come to have to do things online as well as in real life. If you make a new friend, the world knows you're now buddies because you'll add them on Facebook, too.

But it's not always harmless alerts about friendships - sometimes you have the unhappy duty of reporting that you're no longer in a relationship. Even when it's someone else, it's awful signing into Facebook and seeing that one of your friends went from being "in a relationship" to "single."

Britain's Prince Harry is the latest victim of a loud Facebook announcement; when he and his longtime girlfriend Chelsy Davy recently split, the news media found out about it from Davy's Facebook status change.

To hear an argument for not displaying relationship status, read more.

And it's not just celebrities for whom the invasion of privacy is awkward; people comment on the change for all friends to see, inboxes are filled with "what happened?" messages. If you've chosen to display your status when you're in a relationship, you pretty much have to change it to single. For this reason, I wonder if it's better to not share that information at all. (Especially if you're in the "it's complicated" bracket and have a tendency to change to back and forth from single to in a relationship and back again - just keeping up with those is exhausting!).

Your close friends that you have interactions with beyond Facebook will know about your personal life, and there won't be any uncomfortable messages from people you rarely speak to asking if you're OK. It may seem extreme, but keeping mum could be best for everyone.

Where do you stand on displaying relationship status on Facebook?

Source

Gmail Tip: Never Forget Anyone in a Group Email

GeekSugar — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:01:11 -0800

It can be embarrassing to forget someone in a big group email - when you remember, do you forward the whole string, or resend it to everyone? To avoid alienating anyone, Gmail can help.

From home, open up Contacts. Start checking off people you'd like to add to a group (which you can edit to add more or delete later), and then click on the Groups drop-down to the right. Click Add to New Group, and a field will open asking what you'd like to name the group. Maybe you'd like a group for your book club, or everyone you usually invite to events. After entering the name, you've just created a Gmail group.

When you go to compose your next invite, just start typing the name of the group, and everyone in the group will get your email.

Miss Manners Says It's Cool to Ignore Friend Requests

GeekSugar — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:00:45 -0700

Take it from Judith Martin, Miss Manners herself, that when it comes to friend requests on social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace, you don't have to feel obligated to accept these invitations - especially when it involves mixing business with pleasure. The columnist in the Chicago Tribune recently said this about turning a blind eye to certain invitations:

Miss Manners is not one to suggest ignoring invitations, but this is more of a commercial solicitation. Even messages such as these from people you know socially are so widely distributed as to resemble the sort of open invitations that teenagers post on trees when their parents are out of town.

So there you have it. You can ignore those little invites and not feel guilty about it. Why? 'Cause Miss Manners said so.

The Worst Commenters on the Internet: Hope I'm Not on There

GeekSugar — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:01:07 -0700

Sometimes things just hit too close to home - which makes them funny because they're true! I recognized all eight offenders on Cracked's list of the most obnoxious commenters on the Internet.

There are the usual suspects, like the Defender (sometimes also known as "fanboys/girls"), The Ninja, who posts one comment and then mysteriously disappears, and the Macho Man, which is a nicer euphemism for the kind of aggressive guys who freak you out in real life, and can still do so in 2D form.

As a passionate commenter, I thankfully did not recognize myself, but check out the rest of the post for a laugh!

Source

Do You Set Status Updates?

GeekSugar — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:00:12 -0700

One of my biggest pet peeves is people who recklessly ignore acceptable online etiquette and fail to start their instant messages with a friendly "Hi!"

What I do adore are status updates that let you know if friends are away from their computer and when my chat buddies put up quirky status notes or share the song they are listening to. Do you set status updates on IM, Google Talk, or another chat platform?

Online Etiquette: Acceptable Instant Messenger Behavior

GeekSugar — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:00:33 -0700

I got a cheap laugh out of the instructional How to Behave in an Internet Forum video last week, but soon realized there's never been any real etiquette on this wild Internet.

I've put together a list of tips for acceptable instant messenger behavior that addresses some of my biggest pet peeves. This one goes out to all you iChat, AIM, Yahoo messenger and Gchat regulars.

Start with a "Hello" or some sort of greeting: I am on iChat all day long for work and readily available to anyone who IMs me, but I still think you should say "hey!" to someone before you start asking them a question. Call me old fashioned, but it's like starting an email with "Can you please do this for me" instead of a nice greeting.

There are more rules, trust me! Just read more!

Try not to trail off: It's always awkward when you are engaged in a conversation with someone on iChat and they suddenly stop responding to you. If you're chatting with someone and busy, just let them know with a simple "BRB" or "one sec." It will calm their insecurities that you are ignoring them.

Use your away message: Sure, you may have set your chatting preferences to make it look like you are always online to keep your boss happy, but that doesn't mean your friends know it. If you leave the computer or don't want to talk to people, put up an away message. If you use AIM for work be courteous to your co-workers by letting them know when you are in a meeting, grabbing lunch or at the gym. That way you won't return to your desk and have 16 unopened windows.
Back at your computer? Change your away message!: When you return from being away change your away message back to available. You don't want your boss thinking you took a six hour lunch break or your boyfriend thinking you spent four hours at the dentist. People might start to worry about you.
Be smart about screen name exchanges: Don't give your screen name to someone unless you want them to know it. And IM you. Often.
Don't want to be bugged? Go Invisible: Most chatting services allow you to set your online status to invisible. If you do, you will have to initiate contact with friends online but you won't have people bothering you when you're busy.
Some things are best said in an email or (gasp!) in person: If you have a lot of important stuff to say (particularly if it's for work or an important project) put it in an email. It's much easier to have all the information in one place for future reference than to go back and forth and try and make sense of a chat chain.
Let people know when you're signing off: Okay, so this one isn't as important, but if you have been chatting with someone for a while and are getting offline let them know! A simple "TTYL" (as in, Talk to You Later) will do the trick. You wouldn't just hang up on someone on a phone call, would you?

Twitter Etiquette: Don't Twitter TMI

GeekSugar — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:35:07 -0700

Although the whole principle of Twitter is to quickly describe to the world what you're up to, you don't want to go overboard with the "personal" info. For example, nobody wants to hear the intimate details of last night's date, the fact that you're in the bathroom right this minute, and hey, maybe you should keep the whole "in labor" thing to yourself.

You've already shared what you consider unacceptable Twitter behavior (bathroom breaks and anything you wouldn't want your mom to know are a given), so let's just make Twitter TMI a steadfast no-no and add it to our etiquette rule book. Obviously your followers are interested in your life and your thoughts about the world around you (otherwise they wouldn't be following you), but there are some details that should remain strictly between friends . . . or perhaps between you and the bathroom wall. Have you been a victim of Twitter TMI?