Internet DRAFT - draft-rfcxml-general-the-new-webiquette
draft-rfcxml-general-the-new-webiquette
Internet Engineering Task Force K. Kate, Ed.
Internet-Draft 26 February 2022
Intended status: Informational
Expires: 30 August 2022
The New Webiquette
draft-rfcxml-general-the-new-webiquette-00
Abstract
The inspiration for this document came from RFC 1855 ("Netiquette"),
which is now partially obsolete and no longer maintained. A lot has
happened on the Internet since then (social media, video
conferencing, deepfakes, ad networks), which should be applied in a
netiquette. Like in RFC 1855 this is only a minimal standard.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
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Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on 30 August 2022.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2022 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components
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provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Status of the Memo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. User Guidelines" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
4. One-to-One-Messaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
5. One-to-Many-Messaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Videoconferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
7. The Internet Use in General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
8. Admin Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
10. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
11.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1. Introduction
A Webiquette to make the internet a better place.
1.1. Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
2. Status of the Memo
This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.
3. User Guidelines"
For making the Internet a place where many people feel comfortable,
it needs some rules. What you can do in particular as a regular user
can be found in section 1.1 to 1.4.
4. One-to-One-Messaging
We are talking about a direct conversation with a person (in
writing). This can be via email, chat, private message in social
media or similar.
* If you Do not have anything important to say, say nothing.
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* Ensure you are calm before you reply. If needed try to wait a
night before reacting to a text.
* Avoid sentences that are written exclusively in capital letters.
This looks as if YOU ARE SHOUTING.
* Use smilies or emojies to convey emotions in a message. Use them
wisely and not excessively ;-)
* Use irony and sarcasm wisely. Your counterpart does not see you
and your text might come across as overly agressive.
* Speaking of language. Do not impose your language on other
people. Do not (impose to) correct other persons' way of
speaking.
* If someone is using a nickname/pseudonym/username, respect the
users privacy, even if you know the person. Do not use the real
name online without permission.
* Assume when you write an email or a private message on social
media that it can be read and analyzed by third parties. Think
carefully about what you write or use proper encryption.
* Your counterpart may have another cultural background, other
values, speaks other languages or has a different form of humor
than you do. Keep that in mind when communicating.
* Keep in mind that people may be located all around the globe when
communicating online. Do not assume an immediate response. The
person could be sleeping, at work, or busy otherwise.
* Do not expect strangers on the Internet to help you with general
technical questions. Do not just write to people you know on the
Internet and expect a response to help you. If you have technical
questions, turn to appropriate internet forums, mailing lists,
chat rooms etc. who are there to help.
* Do not send chain letters. Just do not.
* Do not send an unsolicited wall of text. People are busy and do
not have the time to read through unfiltered content. If you can
not avoid a long text: Proofread it, make it more readable (e.g.
add more paragraphs) and check if the context makes sense before
you send it. If necessary include a short summary.
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* If you answer to a longer text or a couple of days later make sure
you Do not send TOFU (Text Over, Fullquote Under). Always refer
or quote the paragraphs you are answering to and shorten your
reply by skipping the unnecessary parts.
* Do not send SPAM e-mails. A lot of countries have Anti-Spam-Laws.
* Do not distribute pornographic (e.g. nude pictures) or violent
material. Not even if it is already on the Internet. You never
know if the people who are on the pictures know about it or if the
recipient wants to see it.
* Some social networks push you via gamification to send a picture
every day to people close to you, which leads to many pictures of
shoes, trains and other things just to achieve this goal. A
friendship is not bound to such things. Remember that you can
disturb other people in public and/or violate privacy laws. Also
remember that the picture you send to your friend also consumes
bandwidth and money.
* Always check if your messaging a single person or a group of
people before sending.
* Implement the RFC rule RFC760 and RFC791: In general, an
implementation should be conservative in its sending behavior, and
liberal in its receiving behavior for Messages: In general, a
message should be conservative in its sending behavior, and
liberal in its receiving behavior.
5. One-to-Many-Messaging
This can represent a conversation with several participants via mail,
mailing lists, chat, forum, microblogging services, social media or
similar. All rules from One-to-One Messaging also appear to One-to-
Many Messaging but One-to-Many also includes:
* Read the comments in a room before you participate in a
discussion. When the atmosphere is already heated up, do not put
oil in the flames.
* Do not hijack a topic or post. Thread hijacking means when
someone opens a thread on a forum or comment a certain topic that
a single person or more use this thread for off-topic, have a
conversation within the conversation or point or use it for other
opportunities e. g. other cases (or making money). This is rude
behaviour. Open a topic by yourself about what you would would
like to talk about, but do not use a popular topic for your own
profit.
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* Before you ask a question use a search engine. Do not expect
anyone to serve you the answers, especially if they are easy to
find. But do not do it if it is a personal question.
* >Adapt your language to the subculture you are joining. If you
talk in a very high-pitched way in a casual forum, no one will
take you seriously. Just as you should remain formal in a
professional business forum.
* Ask permission before reposting any text. With a #followerpower
or similar tag you can usually assume that the text can be
reposted.
* Do not take screenshots of forum posts, posts, video conferences
and share them with third parties (not even in a "private" chat)
without first asking permission from all concerned.
* Do not participate in flamewars and shitstorms. Neither by
posting or reacting to one.
* Make sure your posts are readable. Use proper punctuation. Also
Do not (ab)use special characters for your sentence to look
"cooler". This is important for all people who use a
screenreader. Avoid too many special characters in your text such
as / * : + # - remember this will also be read by a screenreader
in most cases
* Speaking of screenreaders: If you add a picture to a post, use an
alternative text to describe its contents, so someone who can not
see also has a chance to grasp its context.
* Do not post information of others (also called doxxing) such as
names, photos, contact information without explicit permission.
Also keep in mind that a lot of countries have strict privacy
laws.
* Do not publicly ask users for their name, age, gender, ethnicity,
place of residence, religion, sexual orientation, political
interest or even indirectly for skin color. Personal information
of other users are none of your business and they will tell them
to you if there is any need to do so.
* In contexts where you are unsure about the used nick for someone
or when unsure if all know that person's identity try to avoid
such explicit markers.
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* When discussing books, series, movies or games that others may not
have read, seen or played, add the word "SPOILER" at the beginning
of the sentence before telling story parts. Others should still
be able to look forward to the content.
* Respect copyrighted material.
* Do not publicly archive content without permission. If the owner
puts his content offline, respect that. Also, you may be
violating copyright and privacy laws in some countries.
* Treat people as individuals. Do not write about to which group of
people you do not want to talk to. This comes across as
aggressive.
* Check if it is allowed to advertise on platforms before doing so.
6. Videoconferences
Video conferencing has become an integral part of our daily lives, so
it's important that we use courtesies here as well.
* Do not record video or VoIP conferences without consent or
permission. Violation of this rule is a criminal offense in some
jurisdictions.
* If you are not speaking, mute yourself.
* Check your audio setup before entering conferences.
* Use a headset to avoid background noises.
* Respect if people Do not want to switch on their camera.
* If you have personal belongings in the background e. g. photos of
your family or friends consider moving them away or blurring the
video stream.
* If you are in two or more video conferences at the same time or
you lurking around in a conference just in case someone shows up,
make sure you mute one conference when you're joining another.
Best would be you only join one conference at a time.
* Mute yourself when you sneeze, cough, burp. If you can not mute
in time, apologize.
7. The Internet Use in General
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* Do not use other people's voices or video files to create
deepfakes, even if you do not intend to post them publicly. You
do not know how responsibly the program and the AI behind it
handles people's data. Always get permission first.
* If you post something in modeated places and it doesn't show up
right away, wait and do not post it again. Some posts need to be
approved first.
* Do not film or photograph people in distress (accident, argument,
etc.) without permission. In many cultures, this is considered
rude and illegal. Especially when you want to put it online
afterwards. Always ask for permission.
8. Admin Guidelines
* As an administrator and moderator you are a role model. Act like
one.
* Check your websites privacy and security BEFORE you put it online.
* Provide contact information and check your mail regulary.
* Respond quickly to user concerns, especially when there is illegal
content involved.
* Make sure that your privacy policy and your imprint (if required)
are easy to understand and complete.
* Deliver on what you promise in the privacy policy.
* Remove personal user content, if your user asks for it. Observe
the developments regarding data privacy laws in affected
legislations and countries.
* Have a postmaster and a root alias address.
* Provide a security.txt in case security researchers find
vulnerabilities in your system.
* Provide a robots.txt or/and adjust security settings against
crawlers, if you provide personal information on your page.
* Make sure you have an FAQ page, if necessary, and you update it
frequently.
* Have guidelines on how to deal with unlawful behaviour. Ensure
consistent application of those rules.
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* Monitor your systems.
* Time passes quickly: What is current today can be outdated
tomorrow. Ensure to date your articles, posts and other
materials.Keep your documentation up-to-date. If you know
information is out-of-date make sure to mark it as such or delete
it. If someone is new to a topic or otherwise unfamiliar with
specifics this may otherwise lead to people relying on those old
information and thus making bad or even incorrect decisions based
on it. In extreme cases this may even lead to security risks or
even injury.
* When managing an community always act as just as possible and make
your decisions transparent. Be impartial in your decisions and
apply them equally in comparable situations.
* Last but not least: Treat users fair.
9. IANA Considerations
This memo includes no request to IANA.
10. Security Considerations
Security issues are not part of this memo.
11. References
11.1. Normative References
[RFC1855] Hambridge, S., "Netiquette Guidelines", FYI 28, RFC 1855,
DOI 10.17487/RFC1855, October 1995,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1855>.
[RFC0760] Postel, J., "DoD standard Internet Protocol", RFC 760,
DOI 10.17487/RFC0760, January 1980,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc760>.
[RFC0791] Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791,
DOI 10.17487/RFC0791, September 1981,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc791>.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
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[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
Acknowledgements
I thank my beloved coffee machine for providing me with magic potion
while writing.
Author's Address
Kate (editor)
Germany
Email: kate_9023+rfc-editor@systemli.org
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