Never send an email message that you wouldn't want printed on the front page of the local newspaper. Take it from one who knows. Something posted in haste can come back to haunt you at a  later date. This is especially true when posting messages on public forums.

This is a point of Netiquette. The Internet has a culture of its own and many sub-cultures within it. If you want to be a productive citizen of the net you will  have to learn about the places you travel and what is expected of you.

One way to do this is tolurk. Lurking is simply sitting back and observing how a group functions. Rather than jump right in with posts and participation, you read and  watch, getting a feel for the nature of the group. Once you are comfortable, you can then join in the discussions and activities.

Another way is to read about being a good citizen. There are sites throughout the net that have done a good  job of providing this type of information. Here are a few places you can visit to find out more about netiquette.

She claims not to be the Miss Manners of the net, but Arlene  Rinaldi lets you know just about everything you need to know about good manners and the net. You make up your own mind.

The relaxed atmosphere of email can promote poor writing habits. People don't expect polished messages that look like  they were done by a professional writer, but they should follow basic rules of grammar. Remember, people can't see you face to face, so they make judgments about you based on the content of your mail. Take the following sentence...

 our trip to washington the other day was fun I saw the whitehous and met the president

That sentence says something about the author. Doesn't it?

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