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R-3283-NSF/RC

_T_O_W_A_R_D _A_N _E_T_H_I_C_S _A_N_D _E_T_I_Q_U_E_T_T_E _F_O_R _E_L_E_C_T_R_O_N_I_C _M_A_I_L

_N_o_r_m_a_n _Z. _S_h_a_p_i_r_o, _R_o_b_e_r_t _H. _A_n_d_e_r_s_o_n

July 1985

Prepared for the National Science Foundation

Published by The Rand Corporation 1700 Main Street P.O. Box 2138 Santa Monica, CA 90406-2138

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The research described in this report was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ISI-8412367 and in part by The Rand Corporation in accordance with its program of public service.

The Rand Publications Series: The Report is the principal publication documenting and transmitting Rand's major research findings and final research results. The Rand Note reports other outputs of sponsored research for general distribution. Publications of The Rand Corporation do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the sponsors of Rand research.

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PREFACE _______

Electronic mail and message systems are playing an increasing role

in the work we perform. The effects, and side effects, of this new

communication medium can be substantial. This report discusses a number

of issues related to the use of electronic mail and presents a set of

guidelines that should help lead to its effective use.

The report is not an introduction to electronic mail systems,

computers, or communication systems. It does not survey existing mail

systems or compare and contrast them. Rather, it is a discussion of

some important general attributes of such systems, and the effects of

those attributes on the quality and appropriateness of communication.

The authors discuss the "etiquette" of sending and receiving electronic

mail, drawing on personal observation of inappropriate or

counterproductive use of these systems. By presenting some initial

guidelines for their use, the authors hope to accelerate the process by

which social customs and behavior appropriate to electronic mail become

established, and thereby to accelerate the effective use of such

systems.

The intended audience is persons possessing some familiarity with

electronic mail systems, or considering adopting them for individual or

institutional use. The guidelines discussed here may ease their

transition to, and understanding of, this new and quite fundamentally

different communication medium. In addition, the authors hope that the

discussion will stimulate reflection by experienced users on their own

evolving rules, and thus promote an exchange of views on appropriate

electronic mail behavior.

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The report was prepared with support from the National Science

Foundation and from The Rand Corporation using its own funds.

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SUMMARY _______

Electronic mail and messaging systems, and electronic bulletin

boards, are an incredibly powerful and effective means of communication.

Because of this, they will grow and become one of the primary means of

communication for most of us.

These media are quite different from any other means of

communication. Some of the dimensions along which they differ are:

speed (of initiating contact, and of transmitting information once

contact is established); permanence of the message; cost of

distribution, to individuals and to groups; an organization's desire and

ability to filter, channel, record, and control messages; experience of

both an individual and of our culture in dealing with this new medium.

Perhaps the most important phenomenon in electronic mail systems is

the likelihood that the recipient will react negatively or

inappropriately in reading material that might well have been

misinterpreted. The misinterpretation results from several attributes

of the medium that allow casual and formal messages to look

superficially the same; that allow near-instantaneous, rather than

reasoned, response; that don't permit feedback during the delivery of a

message (as in personal conversation); and that require modification to

many old traditions of communication. A related phenomenon is

"flaming," in which emotions are expressed via electronic mail,

sometimes labeled as such, and sometimes not. There is a need, even a

greater willingness, to express emotion in electronic mail; if misused

(for example, in hastily responding to a misinterpreted message), it

impedes or even blocks communication.

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A second very important phenomenon is the noncontrollability of who

will see a message. Electronic messages seem quite evanescent, but in

fact they can live on for years on disk archives, to reappear later in a

variety of printed forms, some of which might be much more formal than

was ever intended or foreseen.

Old rules of behavior in communicating do not automatically apply

to this new medium. Some rules we have found useful for electronic mail

(not all of which are unique to this medium) include:

In sending messages

o Create single-subject messages whenever possible

o Assume that any message you send is permanent

o Have in mind a model of your intended audience

o Keep the list of recipients and Cc:s to a minimum

o Separate opinion from non-opinion, and clearly label each

o If you must express emotion in a message, clearly label it

o Other content labels are useful

o Think about the level of formality you put in a message

o Identify yourself and your affiliations clearly

o Be selective in broadcasts for information

o Do not insult or criticize third parties without giving them a

chance to respond.

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In receiving and responding to messages

o If you receive a message intended for another person, don't

just ignore it

o Avoid responding while emotional

o If a message generates emotions, look again

o Assume the honesty and competence of the sender

o Try to separate opinion from non-opinion while reading a

message, so you can respond appropriately

o Consider whom you should respond to

o Consider alternative media

o Avoid irrelevancies.

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In acting as a coordinator/leader of an interest group

o Perform relevant groupings

o Use uniform packaging, especially in the "Subject:" line

o Exercise reasonable editorship

o Timeliness is important.

Electronic mail is in its infancy, as is our understanding of it.

We have collected some guidelines that seem to point in proper

directions, and have personally used them in our own use of the medium.

Many of them appear to be common sense in a new guise, but they are

included because we've seen them violated in practice too often to

ignore.

Electronic mail and messaging systems have novel characteristics

that will lead toward their becoming a key, even dominant, communication

medium in the coming decades. Understanding the unique attributes of

this medium, and their effect on users, will help us all to avoid

unwanted side effects while obtaining the benefits from this new and

important means of communication.

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CONTENTS ________

PREFACE .......................................................... v

SUMMARY .......................................................... vii

Section I. AN EXAMPLE ................................................. 1

II. WHAT THIS REPORT IS ABOUT .................................. 4

III. ELECTRONIC MAIL IS A FUNDAMENTALLY NEW MEDIUM .............. 7 Speed .................................................... 8 Permanence ............................................... 9 Cost of Distribution ..................................... 12 Organizations' Ability to Control the Medium ............. 13

IV. TOWARD AN ETHICS AND ETIQUETTE FOR ELECTRONIC MAIL ......... 17 Sending Messages ......................................... 18 Receiving and Responding to Messages ..................... 31 Acting as Coordinator/Leader of an Interest Group ........ 36 The Phenomenon of "Flaming" .............................. 38

V. IN CONCLUSION .............................................. 43

Appendix: NETWORK INTEREST GROUPS ............................... 44

GLOSSARY ......................................................... 50

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I. AN EXAMPLE ______________

Recently the following message[1] appeared in the electronic inbox

of one of the authors:

Received: From RAND-RELAY by RAND-UNIX at Fri May 27 20:07:55 1983 Date: Friday, 27 May 1983 20:05-PDT To: ISD-ALL at RAND-UNIX Subject: I'm puzzled! From: hearn at RAND-RELAY

Does anyone know this guy, or the report to which he refers?

------- Forwarded Message

Date: Friday, 27 May 1983 14:15-PDT From: trw-unix!csuf!dlm Received: from rand-unix by rand-relay.ARPA ; 27 May 83 18:48:39 PDT (Fri) To: trw-unix!randvax!hearn@Rand-Relay

Subject: Sun Microstation

I was given a copy of your trip report concerning SUN workstations dated Feb 2, 1983. We are thinking of getting a couple of them ourselves, and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind giving me some updated impressions. Have you dealt with SUN any more since then?

Thanks in advance,

David L. Marks Johnson International ...!csuf!dav

------- End of Forwarded Message

____________ [1]Some of the messages in this report have had names and affiliations altered to protect the privacy of the correspondents. All are based on real messages that have been sent or received by the authors. Any resemblance to actual people and places is probably the result of sporadic editing.

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In many respects, this is a typical electronic message. It is one

of hundreds received each week by each author, and by thousands of other

electronic mail users throughout the country. For example, the

recipient's mail directory around that same time also contained:

260 5/18 tora Re: Danger! Psychologists at Work 261 5/19 francine telephone message <<Please call Mrs. Cutl 262 5/19 talbert Re: /r/anderson/ARPA/sim.modeling ... 263 5/22 norm Editor evaluations <<------- Forwarded Me 264 5/26 norm Darpa visit <<------- Forwarded Message D 265 5/26 To:drezner CPC matters <<(1) One of the reasons I wa 266 5/26 drezner Re: CPC matters <<'m sorry I have not don 267 5/27 To:drezner Latest Version of Draft CPC Report 268 5/27 hearn@RAND-RELAY I'm puzzled! <<Does anyone know this guy, 269 5/29 norm A disappointing issue of CACM 270 5/29 edhall Re: I'm puzzled! <<The letter is from a f 271 5/30 norm Moran's non-reply <<It is of interest to 272 5/31 talbert Re: schedule (revision of previous message 273 5/31 talbert Proposal DARPA Meeting <<Nancy, Please ar 274 5/31 nancy Re: Proposal DARPA Meeting <<I have reser 275 5/31 norm Archival Films <<When Bob Anderson left R

The message is typical because: It illustrates the ease with which

messages can be forwarded to third (or fourth, . . . ) parties; it shows

some confusion resulting from this forwarding, in that the recipient

doesn't know the sender or the context for the message; it contains

rather complex message routing paths, showing that the message has gone

through at least two separate electronic networks (ARPAnet and UUCP);

and it illustrates the broadcast power of the medium--to resolve the

question regarding the context of the message, the recipient (hearn)

broadcast it to all members of the Information Sciences Department at

The Rand Corporation, in an attempt to get an answer. Doing this was no

more trouble than sending it to one person.

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Our use of this example also illustrates some subtler aspects of

electronic mail. We edited the form of the forwarded message slightly

(but not the content) to fit within the format of this report. But the

reader has no way of knowing how we changed the message before passing

it on. There is a volatility to the medium, and yet a strange

permanence.

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II. WHAT THIS REPORT IS ABOUT ______________________________

The authors of this report have each used electronic mail[1] for

over 15 years. For this particular medium, that is a long time. In the

longer cultural history of us all, it is a very short time. The medium

is in its infancy, and is about to undergo an explosive expansion. Tens

of thousands of people--secretaries, managers, professionals, school

kids--will begin using electronic mail in the next decade, on their

personal computers at home and professional workstations at work.

We believe that electronic mail is a fundamentally new medium. It

is very different from telephone calls, interoffice memos, written

letters, and face-to-face conversations. It has different uses and a

different etiquette, borrowing in many cases from familiar ways of

communicating, but permuting the rules in the process.

As our title suggests, we address both the ethics and etiquette of

electronic communication. Ethics because certain behavior in dealing

with electronic mail can have useful or adverse effects on the society

as a whole and its members; etiquette because certain standard social

norms must be reinterpreted and extended to cover this quite novel

medium.

In this report, we explore how electronic mail is different, and

give guidelines we've evolved or observed regarding its appropriate use.

By doing this, we hope to accelerate a consensus about the development

____________ [1]In this report, we use the term _e_l_e_c_t_r_o_n_i_c _m_a_i_l to cover both "traditional" electronic mail systems and electronic bulletin boards. There may be characteristics unique to electronic bulletin boards that are relevant to these guidelines, but we are not prepared to make that distinction at this time.

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of appropriate rules of behavior for this medium. At the same time, we

intend to make what we hope are interesting observations in general

about the interactions between people and interactive electronic message

systems. As one result, we hope to ease new users' introduction to this

exciting medium, and make the process more pleasurable and useful to all

concerned.

One emphasis in this report concerns the emotions that arise in

both senders and recipients of electronic mail. Of course, emotions may

be positive (e.g., joy, pleasure, pride in work) or negative (e.g.,

anger, disappointment, confusion). We emphasize guidelines that avoid

generating negative emotions, because of their more harmful effects.

We, as well as others involved in the medium, have found that strong,

often negative emotions may arise in continued electronic mail

interactions--emotions that in retrospect may be inappropriate, and

whose transmission (or lack of transmission) via the medium lead to

further misunderstandings. A word, "flaming," has come into use to

represent expressions of emotion in (and often caused by) electronic

mail. We feel that this phenomenon is important, with many

ramifications, and discuss it at some length.

This report is not, however, a tutorial on electronic mail or

computers. We assume the reader is a regular user of interactive

computer systems, and has probably been exposed to at least one

electronic mail system. We do not define electronic mail, or survey

existing systems. For our purposes, an electronic mail system is simply

one that permits (at least) the creation, sending, receiving, filing,

printing, and deleting of electronic messages, where a message may be

one line of text or a multi-page document. Most systems also allow

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forwarding of messages received, scanning of the subject lines of a

series of received messages, and the creation of lists of addressees

that can act as mailing lists to simplify distribution of a message to a

standard group of recipients.

From our examples a more inexperienced reader can pick up many of

the key attributes of the medium. But unless you've used it, you will

probably not understand why we emphasize some seemingly minor points and

harp on rules of behavior that seem either obvious or strange. Until

you've received too much electronic junk mail, or been offended by a

message, or have inadvertently offended someone else (and wondered why),

you will miss part of our message.

Incidentally, all the examples we use are real. We have only

changed names and institutions at times when we could not contact the

author and recipient to receive permission to use their name or their

message.

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III. ELECTRONIC MAIL IS A FUNDAMENTALLY NEW MEDIUM ___________________________________________________

An electronic message often looks very ordinary. What is the

difference between receiving:

Date: Thursday, 19 May 1984 11:45-PDT To: anderson at rand-unix Subject: telephone message From: francine at rand-unix

Please call Mrs. Cutler. 621-3208

francine

and having a pink telephone call slip put on your desk? Seemingly not

much. But then again, you can log in from home or a hotel room while on

a trip and get this message at 11 pm, and you can file it electronically

so that six months later you can retrieve it by the word "Cutler" in

case you mislay the phone number. Are these differences important? Not

always, but at times they can crucially change the way you organize your

work--which has some effect on the way you organize your life.

The most obvious "media" with which to compare electronic mail are

face-to-face conversation, telephone calls, notes, interoffice memos,

and regular mail. (We could add telegrams, telephone answering

machines, etc., but at the risk of making ponderous what we hope is a

brisk, readable analysis.)

Some of the key dimensions along which electronic mail (EM) should

be compared with these other media are:

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o Speed (to generate a message, to transmit one, to respond to

one)

o Permanence (of the resulting message, with respect to both the

sender and the recipient)

o Cost of distribution (to an individual, or a group)

o Organizations' desire and ability to filter, channel, record,

and control messages for the perceived good of the organization

o Experience (of an individual with the medium, and of the

culture in preparing an individual to use it)

o Accessibility

o Security and privacy

o Accountability and attributability.

We discuss some of these dimensions briefly below.

SPEED_____

Telephone calls are nearly instantaneous, _i_f _y_o_u _g_e_t _t_h_r_o_u_g_h. Note

that there are two aspects of speed that we're concerned with: (1) the

time to initiate a communication and (2) the immediacy of the feedback

obtained during or after the communication. Only about 30 percent of

calls reach the intended recipient on the first try. Sometimes

"telephone tag" takes days to reach someone, whereas that same person

might be selectively available--_a_t _h_i_s _o_r _h_e_r _c_o_n_v_e_n_i_e_n_c_e--to read an

electronic message before being in the right place at the right time to

make a telephone connection. Due to the delays often experienced in

establishing a telephone call, EM and telephone calls may be comparably

fast, with EM having a slight advantage in convenience, and telephone

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calls having the advantage if subtlety, humor, or privacy (non-

attributability) is required.

Face-to-face conversation is usually fastest and best, except when

you have to travel to do it. Then it's one to three orders of magnitude

slower. Again, time-to-initiate can dominate time-to-carry-out.

Interoffice memos usually take a day or so; regular mail takes

several days or a week. Given that an electronic message is usually

received by the recipient (if he or she is an active EM user) within 2

to 12 hours--assume an average of 6 hours--EM is from 4 to 28 times

faster.

When it is necessary to conduct a dialog, with repeated to-and-

from messages, both parties check for messages more frequently, and

thereby exchange many messages in hours, rather than weeks' or months'

duration for multiple written exchanges.

We are not saying that EM speed is good in itself, but it is clear

that it is almost always faster than other common alternatives. As we

pointed out, this is only one of many dimensions to consider, not an end

in itself.

PERMANENCE__________

The permanence (or conversely, the volatility) of messages varies

greatly according to the medium by which they're transmitted. This

characteristic of electronic messages is quite unlike any other medium.

U.S. mail and interoffice memos are nonvolatile. Messages sent

this way usually have a responsible author and are "part of the record."

(For example, they usually survive in various paper files and can be

subpoenaed--sometimes years or even decades later--if they are an

important part of some transaction.) Through this permanence, the

author remains accountable for what is stated in print.

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Face-to-face conversations, by contrast, are volatile. They leave

no trace. Telephone conversations are similar; although they can be

recorded, our society has established a set of legal protections against

recording a telephone call without the remote party's knowledge and

permission. Even if recorded, that recording often cannot be used as

legal evidence.

Electronic messages appear on the surface to be quite volatile.

You see them as flickering characters on a green phosphor, as evanescent

as fireflies. But consider the following possible attributes of an

electronic mail system:

o That message might reside indefinitely on a disk file, and can

therefore be recalled.

o The disk file may be backed up each evening onto tape, so that

a copy of the message is now buried in an archived tape in the

recipient's institution, or on an archived diskette on the

recipient's home computer.

o The message can be printed and filed, thereby instantly

achieving some of the attributes of a printed memo or letter.

o The message can be _a_l_t_e_r_e_d, then printed, thereby looking like

a permanent, authentic copy of the received message, but having

altered characteristics.

o The message can be forwarded to third parties (and then fourth,

and so on) at the push of a button, without the original

author's knowledge. It therefore achieves a form of permanence

through its replication in perhaps hundreds of computer systems

throughout the country. But nothing indicates whether those

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are authentic copies or not, even though they might well have

the original author's name attached.

o Printed copies of the message, no longer under the control of

the author, can be laser-printed or typeset. These may appear

much more official and substantial than was ever intended by

the author at the keyboard of his PC late one evening.

A theme pervades consideration of the permanence of an electronic

message. It is not clear to whom it belongs: the sender? receiver?

the organization owning the computer and paying for the service? As

multiple copies are made and filed, possibly on different machines, the

issue becomes even murkier. Again, we have no answer, but raise the

issue for consideration.

Given the strange permanence yet volatility of electronic messages,

Colonel David Russell (USA)--when Head of the Information Processing

Techniques Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and a

heavy user of electronic mail to communicate nationwide with various

project leaders and institutions--had a simple rule: Never say anything

in an electronic message that you wouldn't want appearing, and

attributed to you, in tomorrow morning's front-page headline in the _N_e_w

_Y_o_r_k _T_i_m_e_s.

One of the authors once violated this rule, and made some rather

derogatory comments in an electronic message about someone far away in

another organization. Through some path, that message found its way to

the subject, causing considerable embarrassment. What was said in haste

and in some anger at a particular moment did not disappear into the

ether as would a phone conversation; the potential permanence of the

remarks in electronic form was overlooked, providing a valuable lesson

at considerable cost.

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COST OF DISTRIBUTION____________________

It costs 22 cents to mail a first-class letter, as of this writing.

After the letter is produced (perhaps costing several dollars' worth of

secretarial time and overhead), the cost of sending 50 copies is about

50 times that of sending one. And it's not a very interactive medium;

replies dribble back from within several days to several months.

Interoffice memos can be mass-reproduced and distributed at small

cost, because interoffice distribution systems are already in place

within an organization. However, interactivity is again poor and

cumbersome.

A telephone call distributed to a group (a conference call) is

difficult beyond three or four participants. And if the group is

geographically distributed, the cost and time to initiate become

important factors.

Electronic mail, by comparison, allows communication with a wide,

geographically dispersed set of respondents. The communication can be

highly interactive, if recipients are expecting mail and frequently

check for new messages. If ordinary telephone lines are used, the cost

is not burdensome, and can be borne in part by the recipients, not the

sender. (For example, the message may be deposited in an information

system by the sender, but each recipient dials up and thereby incurs the

cost of the call to read the message.) At 1200 baud, a 400-character

message (seven or eight lines) can be transmitted or received in

3-seconds' time over a telephone line.

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Often, within modern organizations, the infrastructure for

electronic mail is already in place, using either central computers with

hundreds of terminals attached, leased phone lines, or satellite links,

so that the incremental cost of electronic mail is nearly zero.

Many heavy users of electronic mail within the United States,

primarily at research institutions, use the ARPAnet. The cost of this

important network is heavily subsidized by the U.S. Defense Department,

so that the true cost of using it is hidden from the user. In that

sense, artificial patterns of use are springing up. On the other hand,

an earlier form of communication network was also subsidized in its

formative stages by the Defense Department: the Interstate highway

system. (And earlier: railroads, telegraph, etc.) So the ARPAnet is

not so artificial; rather, it is exploratory. And as the medium begins

to mature--if that is not a contradiction for computer-based

technologies--self-supporting systems will arise that pay their own

costs, but have the same characteristics of ARPAnet pioneering systems.

Notable among these latter systems is the UUCP (Unix-to-Unix

Communication Protocol) system that links many computers throughout the

nation. It permits a loose, heterogeneous system through which

thousands of messages flow daily, with costs shared among all the

participants as a natural result of its heterogeneity.

ORGANIZATIONS' ABILITY TO CONTROL THE MEDIUM____________________________________________

Traditionally, organizations have channeled and filtered their

message flows along corporate hierarchical lines. For example:

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o You do not send a memo to your supervisor's boss without a copy

to your supervisor, and usually not without explicit prior

permission.

o Secretaries filter incoming mail, telephone calls, and

interoffice memos. For senior executives, ALL communications

(other than in meetings and conferences) pass through this

important filter.

These mechanisms have evolved to support the corporate structure,

and to conserve the time and attention of its executives. Comparable

mechanisms are not yet in place for electronic mail. Executives working

in the evening at personal computers at home can send messages without

"copying" their secretaries, resulting in those secretaries being "out

of the loop" on matters of which they're normally aware. A junior

executive can send a message to a senior executive, bypassing several

levels of control. Electronic mail tends to be more "democratic" (some

would say "anarchic"). Already, there is the electronic equivalent of

junk mail:

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Received: from brl-tgr.arpa by rand-unix.ARPA; Sun, 6 Jan 85 Received: from usenet by BRL-TGR.ARPA id a008108; 6 Jan 85 5:43 EST From: Joan Smith <grant!ggs> Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Subject: ancient history Message-Id: <1078@grant.UUCP> Date: 5 Jan 85 15:05:27 GMT To: unix-wizards@BRL-TGR

For those of us who are TOPS-10 alumni, today is a tenth anniversary. What were the rest of you doing on January 5, 1975? --

Joan Smith AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Phone: (201) 582-1256 Internet: ggs@grant.uucp UUCP: grant!ggs ( {allegra|ihnp4}!grant!ggs )

Of course, one person's junk mail is another's important message.

The above message was sent to a group called "unix-wizards," at least

some of whom may have been interested in the message's contents. But

for many, it might well be the equivalent of junk mail. Also in this

category are notices about cheese buying clubs, upcoming ski trips, and

so forth that clog the mailboxes of people who aren't interested in

those topics.

Do we need unlisted electronic mailboxes? Will there be

authorization lists (electronic files, of course) showing who can send a

message to whom within the organization? Should message systems

automatically send an information copy to the author's secretary, unless

explicitly overridden by the sender? Will "back channels" of

information flow, made much easier and in some cases more anonymous by

electronic mail, erode the traditional corporate structure? Is this

good or bad? For whom?

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We don't have answers to all these questions, but as use of

electronic mail grows within traditional organizations, their answers

will evolve along with the medium itself. The medium is capable of

supporting filtering, gateways, permission lists, and other constraints

if they are necessary. And yet the explosion of use of, and interest

in, electronic mail is certainly tied to some extent to its freedom, its

interactive broadcast capabilities, and its democratic nature. All we

can say now is that it is a fundamentally new medium with significantly

new characteristics, that cannot be treated with the old rules alone.

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IV. TOWARD AN ETHICS AND ETIQUETTE FOR ELECTRONIC MAIL _______________________________________________________

People have had about 50,000 years' experience in the use of speech

and gestures, 5,000 years' experience in writing, and about 100 years'

use of the telephone. This cultural history should not be taken

lightly; the entire fabric of our society has been shaped in significant

part by cultural accommodations to our means of communicating.

As individuals of the species, living within a particular culture,

we have a particular messaging history: From birth, we learn speaking

roles and rules from conversations. By age 4 or 5, some basic telephone

habits are learned (such as: "Say something when you pick up the

receiver after it rings--don't just stand there silently"). By age 7,

we are writing nontrivial messages. The average adult has accumulated

hundreds--perhaps thousands--of rules of behavior regarding telephone

and written ethics and etiquette, from practical experiences with these

tools since those early years.

We have tried to indicate that electronic mail is different. Part

of what we mean by that is that the old telephone or letter-writing

rules of behavior do not automatically transfer over to this medium and

work. You don't write business letters as electronic messages;

messages are usually more informal. And yet electronic messages are not

printed telephone conversations either. What we find is that the medium

is different enough, and the average user's experience has been short

enough, that problems arise. Meanings are misunderstood. Tempers flare

and cause ill-conceived responses to be written. Many recipients' time

is wasted reading content-free or irrelevant messages.

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What we need is a new set of rules: how to be a constructive,

courteous sender and receiver of electronic messages. We certainly do

not have this set of rules, all tied up in a tidy package. We do,

however, feel it is important to hasten the cultural evolution toward

this goal. What follows, then, is a discussion of some of the important

guidelines we've observed from experience. They are discussed in

separate sections for Sending, Receiving, Responding, and Leading an

Electronic Interest Group.

There is some overlap in these categories, but they provide

structure to this complex topic. Within these categories, we highlight

the issues related to the emotional impact of electronic messages, since

the immediacy of the medium, and yet the remoteness of the participants,

leads to some unique problems in this regard.

SENDING MESSAGES________________

Create single-subject messages whenever possible________________________________________________

You may have three separate things to tell your intended recipient.

We argue that three short separate messages are better than one. Some

reasons:

o Each of the messages can be filed, retrieved, and forwarded

separately by the recipient (and sender), depending on the

content.

o Subject lines in each message can be descriptive of the

contents of each message, allowing more meaningful scanning of

header listings of the messages in one's inbox.

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o Replies can be tailored to specific messages, so that the

reply's subject line accurately reflects the content that's

being replied to. Also, others can be copied on the responses

that apply to them, without being burdened by the parts that do

not.

Assume that any message you send is permanent_____________________________________________

The message will be sitting in someone's private files, or in a

tape archive. Through the miracle of computer networking, it can reside

on computers elsewhere in the world that you don't know about, forwarded

there without your knowledge or consent. It can appear in any form from

dot-matrix-printed to typeset at any time in the future. If this has a

chilling effect on the content of your informal, chatty messages, that's

probably appropriate. At the very least, make a quick assessment of the

risks and benefits of what you type, and act accordingly.

Have in mind a model of your intended audience______________________________________________

When your message says, "Would you please review the draft document

appended to this message, and give me your comments by noon tomorrow?"

does that mean only people listed in the "To:" field, and not the "Cc:"

recipients? Have you used more computer jargon in your message (lulled

into techno-talk by using an electronic medium) than is appropriate to

your audience?

Part of the model of your audience are some pertinent details such

as their correct electronic mailing address. It is all too easy to send

a message to "bob" because that's the one you know best, and ignore the

fact that there are eight other "bob"s in the organization. In one

- 20 -

company known to the authors, the login name "bob" belongs to the first

Bob that joined the company; others are "bobe", "bobw", etc. It is

impolite to send electronic mail to unintended recipients, if only

because they then feel obligated to take action, like notifying the

sender or attempting to forward the message to the right party.

Do you know the recipient well enough, and have other channels of

communication with him or her, so that attempts at electronic humor or

irony will not be misinterpreted? These attempts usually don't work,

and appear quite differently in the cold light of a new day, a new

computer, or a new context.

Keep the list of recipients and Cc:s to a minimum_________________________________________________

In one sense, it is too easy to send electronic mail. Electronic

mailboxes fill up with peripheral material that needs to be scanned and

continuously culled. If one of your recipients decides that someone

else needs to see a message, it can be forwarded at that time.

Consider an extreme but possible case: A message contains a

distribution list of 20 people. Let's say the message asks for comments

on a position paper. Each of the recipients responds, copying all the

original recipients. (Note that in many message systems, copying of all

recipients is the normal practice, which must be explicitly overridden

to prevent it from happening!) Each of those answers is in turn

commented on by each original recipient, copying all original

- 21 -

recipients. This process generates 421 messages _i_n _e_v_e_r_y _p_e_r_s_o_n'_s

_i_n_b_o_x, with the total system containing 16,421 messages.[1] If each

message takes an average of 100 characters, this process has used up 1.6

megabytes of disk storage. This is in addition, of course, to the

social cost of all the human time and effort that has gone into this

electronic correspondence.

Since answers to messages often copy all original recipients, try

to avoid the combinatorial explosion by not proliferating recipients.

Shoot with a rifle, not a shotgun.

There is a special case that is worthy of note: Most EM systems

allow a number of recipients to be accessed by a single name, which

becomes a kind of "distribution list." In this manner, communicating

with a group is even easier: Typing "project_alpha" gets you 20 names,

and with a higher likelihood that they're all spelled right. The bad

news is that one can forget that typing, or responding to, or copying

this simple name can proliferate messages unconscionably.

A related phenomenon is the "special interest group," a named group

of recipients having a common interest, and exchanging messages on that

topic, across computers and across the country. Within these groups, a

common means of reducing message proliferation is for a message author

to ask, in the message itself, that replies be forwarded directly to him

or her; the original author will summarize in a later message the

replies received for the benefit of the group. This is a good idea that

should become a common protocol, invoked by a commonly understood

keyword or phrase in a message. ____________ [1]We assume in this example that copies of messages are made by the computer system, not just pointers to a "master copy" of a message.

- 22 -

The following guidelines in sending electronic mail relate to

issues with special emotional attributes. In other words, they can lead

to bad feelings or misunderstanding quicker than normal, and much

quicker than one might expect.

Separate opinion from non-opinion, and clearly label each_________________________________________________________

Your recipient, and especially unintended recipients further down

the forwarding path, might not know you as well as your friend in the

adjoining office, and may not know about the subject matter of the

message well enough to distinguish opinion from fact.

If you must express emotion in a message, clearly label it__________________________________________________________

As mentioned above, sarcasm, humor, and irony often do not work in

a message. Someone who knows your acerbic wit less well might not "get

it."

This doesn't mean every message must be dry and humorless.

Especially on the ARPAnet, a whole tradition of "flaming" has developed,

in which emotions are vented, but labeled as such. For example:

(Message inbox:431) Received: by rand-unix.ARPA; Fri, 15 Feb 85 15:22:07 pst From: John Schwartz <schwartz@rand-unix> Date: 15 Feb 85 15:22:02 PST (Fri) To: randvax!anderson Subject: Re: Danger! Psychologists at Work

Just read the article in the Computer Journal about Frederickson's studies on man-machine interfaces. What cr*p!! They're measuring what can be measured, not what's important. I'm so tired of reading this kind of tripe that I'm cancelling my subscription. (Flame, flame). Perhaps a rational message about this will follow after I calm down! John Schwartz

- 23 -

The tradition of labeling emotions has developed for two good

reasons: (1) People feel strongly about many subjects, and want to

express the strength of their feelings, and (2) there have been many

examples of misinterpreted messages, in which emotions were

misinterpreted or confused with the other content of the message.

Labeling attempts at humor, anger, or sarcasm as such allows those

feelings to be transmitted, but with less misinterpretation. Again, it

helps to remember that there could well be readers of your message at a

different place and time for whom even your labeled emotions might be

inappropriate. Flaming is discussed further, below, in the subsection,

"The Phenomenon of Flaming."

Other content labels are useful_______________________________

In addition to labeling an emotional outburst as "flame," there are

three other common labeling conventions of which we are aware[2]:

o A "smiley face" symbol, typed as ":->" or ":-)" (turn the page

a quarter-turn clockwise for maximum effect), indicates the

author intends something as a joke, or less frequently as an

ironic smile.

o The keyword "spoiler" is used in the subject field of messages

that reveal the plots of movies or the like.

o There is a convention of using public encryption for messages

(including spoilers or obscene jokes) that might be offensive

to casual readers. The keyword "rot13" is used in the subject

field to indicate the use of a standard encryption algorithm. ____________ [2]Our thanks to Jeff Rothenberg for reminding us of these conventions.

- 24 -

All of these labels reduce shock, surprise, or disappointment in the

reader that are normally avoided by other social conventions in face-

to-face interactive conversations. They thus contribute to an expansion

of normal etiquette into this newer medium.

Think about the level of formality you put in a message_______________________________________________________

Consider the following message:

(Message inbox:291) Received: by rand-unix.ARPA; Fri, 21 Dec 84 11:40:18 pst From: Bob Anderson <anderson@rand-unix> Date: 21 Dec 84 11:40:12 PST (Fri) To: randvax!anderson, randvax!gillogly, randvax!norm Subject: meeting ..

we need to setup a meeting bet. jim you and i -- can you arange? i'm free next wed. thks.

Much about this message conveys its informality: lack of careful

capitalization in the subject field, informal grammar, lack of specific

form, content that appears to have been typed hurriedly (although this

lack of rigor might well be deliberate).

Here's another example of a message:

- 25 -

(Message inbox:292) Received: by rand-unix.ARPA; Fri, 21 Dec 84 11:48:09 pst From: Bob Anderson <anderson@rand-unix> Date: 21 Dec 84 11:48:02 PST (Fri) To: randvax!fowles, randvax!martin, randvax!wilson, randvax!adamson Subject: MEETING ON FY86 PLANNING, 2PM 12/28/84, CONFERENCE ROOM 1

There will be a meeting of the FY86 planning task force in Conference Room 1 on December 28, 1984 at 2pm. The Agenda for the meeting is:

----------------------------------------------------------- Topic Presenter Time ----------------------------------------------------------- Strategic Business Plan John Fowles 30 min. Budget Forecast for FY86 Sue Martin 15 " New Product Announcements Peter Wilson 20 " Action Items for 1st Qtr FY86 Jane Adamson 25 " -----------------------------------------------------------

The formality of this message can been seen from the care that was

put into it. It wasn't just dashed off some midnight before logging

off, but rather was probably entered, then edited, using a word

processing program.

Why do we care about the level of formality of a message? Simply

because the content of the second message should be given more attention

and care when received than the first. Words were chosen in the second,

and therefore could be expected to be chosen carefully to convey the

meaning intended. In the first, informal, message, the words might well

have been dashed off, and should be taken quite lightly. You should not

try to read deep meaning into a hasty note. (In our other written

correspondence, we have other clues: Scribbled notes on the back of an

envelope are treated more informally than typed letters. However, on

your terminal, all electronic messages in one sense look the same, so

greater attention must be paid to what clues there are to their level of

informality.)

- 26 -

The following three guidelines are especially relevant in sending a

message to a bulletin board or interest group, where some or all

recipients might not know each other personally.

Identify yourself and your affiliations clearly_______________________________________________

This helps your recipients put your message in some context. If

you put in a company affiliation for identification, and yet are

expressing personal opinions, not company policy, that should be made

clear. If you comment on a product, you should make clear any

affiliation with that product and its manufacturer or distributor.

(Some of these identifications are traditionally handled by the use, or

deliberate non-use, of a corporate letterhead in sending a message.

Many electronic mail systems have no equivalent yet,[3] so explicitly

labeling the affiliation becomes more important.)

Here's an example of poor labeling of affiliation:

Received: from brl-vgr.arpa by rand-unix.ARPA; Sun, 14 Oct 84 15:28:36 pdt Received: from mit-mc.arpa by BRL-VGR.ARPA id a029687; 14 Oct 84 18:17 EDT Date: 14 October 1984 17:31-EDT From: Eric Peters <PETERS@mit-mc.ARPA> Subject: Great Plotting Program! To: INFO-CPM@mit-mc, INFO-MICRO@mit-mc, INFO-PC@mit-mc Cc: PETERS@mit-mc, MIT-SPEECH.LARSON@mit-mc

I must share with the net my enthusiasm for an item of commercial software that I bought recently.

Lark Software's PLOTTER program produces amazingly good charts and graphs (line diagrams, scatterplots, mixed line and scatter, bar graphs, pie charts) on a large number of dot-matrix printers, including Anadex, BMC, Centronics 739 C.Itoh Prowriters, ____________ [3]Electronic storage and use of letterheads _i_s becoming available, however. One example known to the authors is MCI Mail (MCI Communications, Inc.).

- 27 -

Epsons, GE 3000 series, IBM< with graftrx, IDS, Mannesman Talley 160/180. NEC 8023, Okidata, Panasonic KX 1901, Star Gemini10x,15x.

Versions available for CP/M 80 and 86, PC DOS and MS DOS. The order blank lists every format I ever heard of, plus!

The program is extremely user friendly. Menu driven questions guide you in designing your chart/graph. Of course, to keep the menu from being ridiculously long, the options are somewhat limited. But the author has included quite a bit of background data in separate sections that -- if you study it -- will let you change to suit your own tastes virtually everything that the menu-driven program sets up.

The cost is reasonable, $99 for all types of graphs. One can buy the line chart pkg and the BAR & PIE charts separately, at $69 each, but that is pointless -- you'd surely want them all for the $20 difference.

Address: LARK Software, 7 Cedars Rd, Caldwell NJ 07986, phone (201)226-7552. An enterprising student with one of those printers might make good money doing charts for other students, and even faculty -- the output is plenty good enough for publication.

I have started to dress up my reports with charts that I could previously only dream about. My guess is that this program is going to be a classic.

Eric Peters

Is the writer merely a consumer of the product, or does he have another

connection with the company? Does he have affiliations with MIT

(mentioned often in the message header)? If so, as a student, worker,

faculty member?

Here's an example of what we believe is an appropriate labeling of

affiliation:

Received: from brl-tgr.arpa by rand-unix.ARPA; Thu, 4 Oct 84 03:43:14 pdt Received: from brl-vgr.arpa by BRL-TGR.ARPA id ab06286; 4 Oct 84 6:04 EDT

- 28 -

Received: from sri-unix.arpa by BRL-VGR.ARPA id a006563; 4 Oct 84 6:02 EDT Received: from Usenet.uucp by Sri-Unix.uucp with rs232; 4 Oct 84 2:43-PDT Date: 2 Oct 84 0:18:18-PDT (Tue) To: info-unix@BRL-VGR From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!foros1!rhino!larkin@UCB-VAX.ARPA Subject: Re: Is System V going down the tube? Article-I.D.: rhino.213 In-Reply-To: Article <205@ucbopal.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>

- 29 -

An interesting question regarding the statistics Jim Averill quoted [vis. Xenix 77% Version 7 20% System III 3% (System V must be 0%)] is, to what do these statistics pertain? Is this a measure of the development genesis of the systems, of the licensing path taken by the various manufacturers, or what? One would expect that several thousand (yes, THOUSAND) Un*x installations would show up SOMEWHERE in the above figures, yes? And yet, Fortune Systems ("For:Pro") is nowhere listed. UNLESS, of course, we talk about the licensing agreements, in which case For:Pro is included in the Xenix figure.

Note that For:Pro is NOT a Xenix re-port. Neither is For:Pro Xenix based. For financial reasons, though, Fortune's LICENSE is based on the Xenix license.

As far as the technical port is concerned, For:Pro is V7 based, with many of the 4.1 commands included. Fortune has made many kernel modifications, including several to the scheduler, new I/O drivers, and a mechanism for automatically determining the device controllers attached to the system and accessing the appropriate device drivers dynamically.

(Note that these statements are NOT official Fortune positions, merely observations based on my experiences.) -- Peter Larkin Fortune Systems, Redwood City, California ...!{ihnp4, ucbvax!amd, hpda, sri-unix, harpo}!fortune!rhino!larkin

Be selective in broadcasts for information__________________________________________

The real power of this exciting new medium can be glimpsed in its

broadcast capability. Do you need the answer to a question: How many

megabytes does the new IBM cartridge tape cassette hold? Does the

Sperry PC run Lotus 1-2-3 without modification? No need to rummage

around libraries looking in books. The answer is at your fingertips:

Broadcast a message to "networkland" (or within it, to some special

interest group in that topic of interest) and replies will come flowing

in at the speed of light--or at least the speed of electricity in

copper. It's fun, it's fast, and anyone can play.

- 30 -

The only problem is that the medium will sink under the weight of

all these messages. If through your membership in network special

interest groups you start getting 100, 200, or more messages a day, you

will either drop some or all of the groups, or else scan and quickly

discard many of the messages--often from their subject lines alone.

With the current state of video display technology, you simply cannot

scan 100 electronic messages as quickly as you can 100 pieces of printed

mail, because there aren't as many clues (bulk rate postage, obvious

form letter, colored headlines leaping out at you telling the essence of

the message in 20 words or less). So you stop paying a lot of

attention, even when you might have been the person that could have

supplied the best answer to someone's question. And then no one's

paying much attention when you ask, either.

The solution is clear: Use the power, and revel in it, but use it

with discretion. In particular, before you broadcast all the things you

want to know about a subject to the interest group on the subject area

you've just joined, take the time to scan the message archives of the

group to see if the questions have been asked and answered dozens of

times before. This may be obvious advice, but we see counterexamples

literally weekly.

Do not insult or criticize third parties without________________________________________________ giving them a chance to respond_______________________________

If you think the hard disk or expansion board made by XYZ

Corporation is faulty, you perform a service by telling a relevant

interest group about it. But you might also be wrong. You might be

using it incorrectly, or not have the latest version, or it might have

- 31 -

been dropped off the loading dock on its way to you, and not be

representative.

If you are privileged to have access to an electronic mail medium,

or electronic bulletin board, remember that the rest of the world did

not necessarily join when you did. If you've got something negative to

say about someone or something, say it if you feel it's appropriate, but

copy the person or company at the same time, either electronically or by

sending a hardcopy via U.S. mail. If, perchance, you get a response

that shows you were wrong in some fact, or that you flamed

inappropriately, you owe it to your recipients and the possibly

aggrieved party to keep your respondents informed.

We've seen a lot of critiques and criticism on the nets, much of it

deserved. But it's also much easier to be a critic than a builder. The

labors of dozens of people trying to build a company or product out of

only ideas and hard work can be destroyed by casual critiques written in

a moment of anger (like when you lost three days' work when the disk

crashed), when the criticism might have been inappropriate or answered

effectively. It is especially sad when the company doesn't even know

what the rumor mill is saying about them, so that they can't respond.

RECEIVING AND RESPONDING TO MESSAGES____________________________________

Receiving messages is easier than sending them. If you want, you

can just be a passing observer of the scene. Responding to messages is

usually easy, as most systems provide a "reply" function that

automatically creates the appropriate header for the response. In

addition to the guidelines mentioned here, note that all "sending"

guidelines apply while responding to a message.

- 32 -

One rule that we don't provide is: When is it rude _n_o_t to respond

to a message? For example, if you receive the message, "The meeting has

been postponed `til 2pm," should you make the sender aware that you've

received it on time? It probably depends too much on local context,

such as whether the message system provides an automatic "receipt"

message to the sender when you access a message.

If you receive a message intended for another person,_____________________________________________________ don't just ignore it____________________

It's not good citizenship to ignore a message, or hit the "delete"

key. The sender will assume the intended recipient got it, and wonder

why he or she didn't get a reply. The intended recipient(s) won't know

something they were intended to know. And so on.

If you know from the content of the message (of course you read it,

even though you knew after two sentences it was missent) who the correct

recipient is, you could forward it with a cover note explaining the

error. If you're not sure, use your system's "reply" capability to

notify the sender, preferably attaching the errant message to your

response.

Avoid responding while emotional________________________________

See the following guidelines, which explain why it might be

inappropriate to respond in an emotional state of mind. See the section

"The Phenomenon of Flaming," below, regarding how to respond when you

decide to.

- 33 -

If a message generates emotions, look again___________________________________________

One of the most surprising things about electronic mail is the ease

with which misinterpretations arise. People are used to reading "body

language," voice intonation, and numerous other cues when interpreting

messages delivered in conversation, or even on the telephone. Those

cues are missing in electronic mail, and what was meant as a casual

comment, or an attempt at humor or irony, is misinterpreted. Even small

misinterpretations have a tendency to mushroom. Messages between two

correspondents may become more stilted and formal, until what started as

a casual exchange of messages becomes a set of diplomatic communiques.

So it is easy to become angered at something in a message ("Boy,

that was a dumb thing to say." "How could anyone be so silly.").

We've found that the reader should pause and reread the message.

What at first glance was offensive can often be interpreted, on

rereading, as merely a poor choice of words in a hasty message--words

that might have been casually used, then forgotten, in a face-to-face

conversation, but that linger on the printed page (or phosphor screen).

It might help to consider the message as a written verbal communication,

rather than real writing.

It also helps to consider the source. The sender might be a

graduate student (or high school student) hacking away on some remote

system, using a colloquial way of expressing him- or herself that is

customary in that person's peer group, but that is inappropriate in the

recipient's circle of communicants.

- 34 -

As we've mentioned, the most likely explanation is that an attempt

at humor or irony went awry. Try to interpret the message that way

before firing off your own cynical reply, thereby escalating the process

to higher levels of misinterpretation. There is danger that your

response can cause a chain reaction of emotional responses, or

"flaming," that is very counterproductive.

Assume the honesty and competence of the sender_______________________________________________

Giving someone the benefit of the doubt isn't a bad rule of thumb,

especially when they're 3000 miles and three time zones away. (This

rule may seem too obvious to mention, but we have observed numerous

examples of replies to messages that appear to assume the original

sender is an idiot, whereas the recipient might well have misunderstood

the context or intent of the message.)

Try to separate opinion from non-opinion while reading______________________________________________________ a message, so you can respond appropriately___________________________________________

The sender, of course, should have labeled opinion as such. In

case he hasn't, it is worthwhile trying to unravel opinion from fact,

since your reply will benefit from making the distinction.

Consider whom you should respond to___________________________________

If the message was sent to a distribution list, do you really want

your answer to go out to that same list? Wouldn't it keep the

electronic clutter down to respond only to the sender, even if that

means editing out the name of the distribution list in the "Cc:" field

your text editor so helpfully supplied?

- 35 -

There's a nice compromise: Send an answer only to the sender, with

the P.S.: "If you think this response merits wider distribution, feel

free to do so." That way, the original sender can batch together

responses received, and provide a coherent update to the issue (giving

you credit, of course, for your insightful contribution to the debate).

Consider alternative media__________________________

Can you walk down the hall, or pick up the phone, and respond

better? Was there something in the original message that needs

clarification, so that a real conversation might well cut through to the

heart of the issue, rather than starting a string of messages and

responses?

Recall our earlier caution that a string of messages and responses

tends to become brittle and may lead to misunderstandings in a way that

personal conversations do not--a fertile field for behavioral analysis.

The lack of additional cues, in our experience, almost invariably leads

to misinterpretation, especially between parties who do not know each

other very well. So consider reaching out and really touching someone.

Avoid irrelevancies___________________

Respond to opinion with contradictory evidence, or facts that are

relevant. The medium seems to have a "chatty" nature, since it is

harder to write succinctly than to ramble on. But given the limited

phosphor window we have onto this electronic universe, succinctness and

relevance become prized attributes. The message that makes its point

and fits on one screen does its job best, and you will be well regarded.

- 36 -

ACTING AS COORDINATOR/LEADER____________________________ OF AN INTEREST GROUP____________________

We've mentioned the growing role of special interest groups in

electronic mail networks. They perform several very useful functions:

(1) focus on one subject matter, so that there is continuity and

coherence to the dialog; (2) bring together diverse individuals or

institutions interested in a common subject matter; (3) provide a

repository of expertise in an area that can occasionally be tapped by

others.

The activity and diversity of these groups are illustrated by a

list of special interest groups within the USENET community (as of

November 1984). (The first 20 groups are listed here; a complete list

is given in the Appendix.)

net.abortion All sorts of discussions on abortion. net.ai Artificial intelligence discussions. net.analog Analog design developments, ideas, and components. net.announce Moderated, general announcements of interest to all. net.announce.newusers Moderated, explanatory postings for new users. net.arch Computer architecture. net.astro Astronomy discussions and information. net.astro.expert Discussion by experts in astronomy. net.audio High fidelity audio. net.auto Automobiles, automotive products and laws. net.aviation Aviation rules, means, and methods. net.bicycle Bicycles, related products and laws. net.bio Biology and related sciences. net.books Books of all genres, shapes, and sizes. net.bugs General bug reports and fixes. net.bugs.2bsd Reports of UNIX version 2BSD related bugs. net.bugs.4bsd Reports of UNIX version 4BSD related bugs. net.bugs.usg Reports of USG (System III, V, etc.) bugs.

- 37 -

net.bugs.uucp Reports of UUCP related bugs. net.bugs.v7 Reports of UNIX V7 related bugs.

The success of these groups is often highly correlated with there

being a coordinator or leader who takes responsibility for group

communications. It's not a simple or easy job, but it is a valuable

service. (For example, the ARPAnet IBM-PC interest group now has three

different editors, on a rotating basis, to handle the volume of

messages.)

We've listed below some key guidelines for the performance of this

coordinator/leader job. It's a role that will be even more commonplace

and important as the volume of electronic communication increases.

Perform relevant groupings__________________________

It is helpful to readers when messages received on a common topic

from diverse sources are grouped together in a "packet" message.

Readers may well detect common threads or issues that would otherwise

have remained obscure. Also, the packet can be filed by subject matter

as one unit, not many.

Use uniform packaging_____________________

If some part of the message header of messages routed within an

interest group have some key word or phrase in common, these messages

can be filtered out and organized by recipients using "scan" and "file"

functions common in many message systems. Perhaps this can be as simple

as the "To:" line containing the name of the interest group.

- 38 -

Exercise reasonable editorship______________________________

Perhaps a world without censorship would be nice, but we're not

there yet. Messages that are not relevant should be excluded, as should

ones that are sufficiently tasteless to be offensive. But it is

important that opinions (preferably labeled as such) be given a hearing.

There also tends to be much redundancy of messages and questions in

these interest groups. New people are joining all the time, and asking

questions that have been answered before. The group coordinator

provides a very useful function by excluding these messages from

continued widespread distribution, and pointing the sender

(individually) to the group archives for the answer. If it is a topic

that appears to be of extreme continuing interest, periodic broadcast

messages can alert new participants to the relevant archives.

Timeliness is important_______________________

This medium permits rapid communication, and that rapidity should

be retained. The coordinator should not sit on collections of messages

too long ("I'll just wait until I've got six messages to send as a group

on this topic . . ."). Electronic dialogs that retain their momentum

depend on this immediacy. In most cases, a 48- to 72-hour holding

function for editing and grouping purposes should not be exceeded.

THE PHENOMENON OF "FLAMING"___________________________

Perhaps the attribute of electronic mail systems that most

distinguishes them from other forms of communication is their propensity

to evoke emotion in the recipient--very likely because of

misinterpretation of some portion of the form or content of the message--

- 39 -

and the likelihood that the recipient will then fire off a response that

exacerbates the situation.

We have touched upon various possible causes for this phenomenon.

They are:

o It is difficult to tell the level of formality of a message

from its appearance; to a considerable degree, they all look

the same. The cues are more subtle than telling the difference

between a scrawled note and a formal memorandum.

o Partly because of the lack of cues to the level of formality,

because of the nature of writing, and because most participants

are not professional writers, attempts at humor, irony,

sarcasm, and wit are often misinterpreted.

o Immediate feedback from body language, interruptions, or other

cues we have developed as a society to aid the

intercommunication process is lacking in this medium.

o Normally in written communications, time intervenes to blunt

the edge of a response, or to allow reconsideration. A written

letter that is received may lie on the desk several days or

weeks before it is responded to. In contrast, the ease of

creating an immediate "reply" to an electronic message (often

easiest to do immediately upon viewing the message) biases the

EM user to respond immediately, "off the top of his head."

o Telephone calls and personal conversations that have involved

hasty or ill-chosen words fade with time. Electronic messages

containing similar infelicities have a permanence to them:

They sit around in electronic inboxes, or are printed out and

remain tangible, and can even be printed in a manner (inkjet,

- 40 -

laser, or typesetting) that gives them an aura of formality and

importance that was never intended.

All these factors taken together create a novel situation that must be

taken into account repeatedly in using electronic mail systems.

One additional factor often mentioned is anonymity. It would

appear that persons sending electronic mail to others over a network who

are not known in person might be freer in communicating feelings than to

friends or associates. If no one knows who "fritz at cmu-ca" is, fritz

can say almost anything. In fact, we have not observed significant

difference in "flaming" between remote correspondents who don't know

each other personally, compared with communication among people who know

each other. The anonymity factor does not appear to be an important

one.

What can be done to minimize the problems of escalating emotions

that arise? A number of the guidelines and suggestions we have listed

earlier are relevant to this issue. To summarize:

o A phenomenon called "flaming" has appeared on electronic mail

networks, in which messages are sent having a deliberate

emotional content, but usually carefully labeled as such.

Sometimes just the annotation "Flame! Flame!" alerts the

reader to the fact that the writer knows he or she is being

emotional. The intent is that the reader should take that into

account and not assume this is a carefully reasoned statement

(although it might be; the two are not mutually exclusive).

- 41 -

o Resist the temptation to fire off a response. Go ahead and

write the response, but file it away instead, and wait 24

hours. Reconsider the response later, in the light of a new

day (and perhaps a rereading and reinterpretation of the

original message).

o Use alternative media to break the cycle of message-and-

response. A telephone call or personal conversation can do

wonders, when body language, eye contact, and all the other

cues we've developed can take effect. This is especially

important if electronic communications seem to be becoming more

formal and stilted than seems natural.

Much of the problem seems to stem from the paucity of cues that

electronic mail affords its readers. Perhaps the technology that

spawned electronic mail will go further to help with the

misunderstandings it creates. One can imagine message systems in which

the boldness of the characters displayed is a function of the force with

which the keys are hit; in which the speed at which it is typed is

reflected in the character spacing (or color, or size, etc.). Or

providing a set of standard forms to be selected, ranging from "Note

from the desk of . . ." to "Corporate Memorandum" to give additional

cues to the level of formality intended. Perhaps the most informal

messages will be displayed in the handwriting of the sender (even though

keyboarded for convenience) as an additional cue to its informality.

More certainly (because the systems are in prototype form already) there

will be systems in which the cold green (or amber, or whatever)

characters will be accompanied by voice annotations, so that the

- 42 -

humanity and state of the sender will be retained and "read" by the

recipient.

In the meantime, caution, awareness, and an evolving ethics and

etiquette of electronic communication will certainly help.

- 43 -

V. IN CONCLUSION _________________

Electronic mail and messaging systems, and electronic bulletin

boards, are an incredibly powerful and effective means of communication.

Because of this, they will grow and become one of the primary means of

communication for most of us.

These media are quite different from any other means of

communication. Many of the old rules do not apply.

This discussion does not supply a new set of rules for this new

medium. Electronic mail is in its infancy, as is our understanding of

it. We have collected some guidelines that seem to point in proper

directions, and have personally used them in our own use of the medium.

Many of them appear to be common sense in a new guise, but they are

included because we've seen them violated in practice too often to

ignore. These guidelines are suggestions, intended to generate

reflection and stimulate discussion.

With the new power of electronic mail comes the need for

responsibility in using that power. We can all enjoy the power and

benefit from it if we find new forms of behavior--even etiquette--that

are appropriate. The alternative is a rising tide of irrelevant

messages and electronic junk mail that will turn off most thoughtful

users. By evolving a set of guidelines such as those presented here, we

can all use the incredible power of the medium and benefit from it.

- 44 -

APPENDIX ________

NETWORK INTEREST GROUPS _______________________

This list of interest groups was contained in a message broadcast

on November 15, 1984 by Gene Spafford, School of Information and

Computer Science, Georgia Tech. There are three basic subcategories of

netwide newsgroups; they are prefaced by the codes _n_e_t, _f_a, and _m_o_d.

_N_e_t consists of USENET bulletin board newsgroups that are circulated

around the entire net. _F_a is a set of groups that are gatewayed to

USENET from the ARPAnet. The _f_a groups consist mainly of digests,

though there are some bulletin boards. _M_o_d groups are moderated. They

can only be posted by mailing to the group moderator. UNIX is a

trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories. DEC is a trademark of the Digital

Equipment Corporation. VAX is a trademark of the Digital Equipment

Corporation. Ada is a trademark of the Ada Joint Program Office of the

U.S. Department of Defense.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Newsgroup Description

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

net.abortion All sorts of discussions on abortion. net.ai Artificial intelligence discussions. net.analog Analog design developments, ideas, and components. net.announce Moderated, general announcements of interest to all. net.announce.newusers Moderated, explanatory postings for new users. net.arch Computer architecture. net.astro Astronomy discussions and information. net.astro.expert Discussion by experts in astronomy.

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net.audio High fidelity audio. net.auto Automobiles, automotive products and laws. net.aviation Aviation rules, means, and methods. net.bicycle Bicycles, related products and laws. net.bio Biology and related sciences. net.books Books of all genres, shapes, and sizes. net.bugs General bug reports and fixes. net.bugs.2bsd Reports of UNIX version 2BSD related bugs. net.bugs.4bsd Reports of UNIX version 4BSD related bugs. net.bugs.usg Reports of USG (System III, V, etc.) bugs. net.bugs.uucp Reports of UUCP related bugs. net.bugs.v7 Reports of UNIX V7 related bugs. net.chess Chess and computer chess. net.cog-eng Cognitive engineering. net.college College, college activities, campus life, etc. net.columbia The space shuttle and the STS program. net.comics The funnies, old and new. net.consumers Consumer interests, product reviews, etc. net.cooks Food, cooking, cookbooks, and recipes. net.crypt Different methods of data en/decryption. net.cse Computer science education. net.cycle Motorcycles and related products and laws. net.dcom Data communications hardware and software. net.decus DEC Users' Society newsgroup. net.emacs EMACS editors of different flavors. net.eunice The SRI Eunice system. net.flame For flaming on any topic. net.followup Followups to articles in net.general. net.games Games and computer games. net.games.emp Discussion and hints about Empire. net.games.frp Discussion about Fantasy Role Playing games. net.games.go Discussion about Go. net.games.pbm Discussion about Play by Mail games. net.games.rogue Discussion and hints about Rogue. net.games.trivia Discussion about trivia. net.games.video Discussion about video games. net.garden Gardening, methods and results. net.general *Important* and timely announcements of interest to all. (Note the description of net.misc.) net.graphics Computer graphics, art, and animation. net.ham-radio Amateur Radio practices, contests, events, rules. net.info-terms All sorts of terminals. net.invest Investments and the handling of money. net.jobs Job announcements, requests, etc. net.jokes Jokes and the like. May be somewhat offensive. net.jokes.d Discussions on the content of net.jokes articles. net.kids Children, their behavior and activities. net.lan Local area network hardware and software. net.lang Different computer languages. net.lang.ada Discussion about Ada. net.lang.apl Discussion about APL. net.lang.c Discussion about C.

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net.lang.f77 Discussion about FORTRAN. net.lang.forth Discussion about Forth. net.lang.lisp Discussion about LISP. net.lang.mod2 Discussion about Modula-2. net.lang.pascal Discussion about Pascal. net.lang.prolog Discussion about PROLOG. net.lang.st80 Discussion about Smalltalk 80. net.legal Legalities and the ethics of law. net.lsi Large scale integrated circuits. net.mag Magazine summaries, tables of contents, etc. net.mail Proposed new mail/network standards. net.mail.headers Gatewayed from the ARPA header-people list. net.mail.msggroup Gatewayed from the ARPA MsgGroup list. net.math Mathematical discussions and puzzles. net.math.stat Statistics discussion. net.math.symbolic Symbolic algebra discussion. net.med Medicine and its related products and regulations. net.micro Micro computers of all kinds. net.micro.16k National Semiconductor 32000 series chips. net.micro.432 Discussion about Intel 432's. net.micro.6809 Discussion about 6809's. net.micro.68k Discussion about 68k's. net.micro.apple Discussion about Apples. net.micro.atari Discussion about Ataris. net.micro.cbm Discussion about Commodores. net.micro.cpm Discussion about the CP/M operating system. net.micro.hp Discussion about Hewlett/Packards. net.micro.mac Material about the Apple MacIntosh and Lisa. net.micro.pc Discussion about IBM personal computers. net.micro.ti Discussion about Texas Instruments. net.micro.trs-80 Discussion about TRS-80's. net.micro.zx Discussion about zx's. net.misc Various discussions too short lived for other groups. Also items of a general nature not important enough for net.general or net.announce. net.motss Issues pertaining to homosexuality. net.movies Reviews and discussions of movies. net.movies.sw Discussions about the Star Wars saga(s). net.music Music lovers' group. net.music.classical Discussion about classical music. net.net-people Announcements, requests, etc. about people on the net. net.news Discussions of USENET itself. net.news.adm Comments directed to news administrators. net.news.b Discussion about B news software. net.news.config Postings of system down times and interruptions. net.news.group Discussions and lists of newsgroups. net.news.map Postings of maps. net.news.newsite Postings of new site announcements. net.news.sa Comments directed to system administrators. net.nlang Natural languages, cultures, heritages, etc.

- 47 -

net.nlang.celts Group about Celtics. net.nlang.greek Group about Greeks. net.notes Notesfile software from the University of Illinois. net.origins Evolution versus creationism (sometimes hot!). net.periphs Peripheral devices. net.pets Pets, pet care, and household animals in general. net.philosophy Philosophical discussions. net.physics Physical laws, properties, etc. net.poems For the posting of poems. net.politics Political discussions. Could get hot. net.puzzle Puzzles, problems, and quizzes. net.railroad Real and model train fans' newsgroup. net.rec Recreational/participant sports. net.rec.birds Hobbyists interested in bird watching. net.rec.boat Hobbyists interested in boating. net.rec.bridge Hobbyists interested in bridge. net.rec.coins Hobbyists interested in coin collecting. net.rec.disc Hobbyists interested in disc activities. net.rec.nude Hobbyists interested in naturalist/nudist activities. net.rec.photo Hobbyists interested in photography. net.rec.scuba Hobbyists interested in SCUBA diving. net.rec.ski Hobbyists interested in skiing. net.rec.skydive Hobbyists interested in skydiving. net.rec.wood Hobbyists interested in woodworking. net.religion Religious, ethical, and moral implications of actions. net.religion.jewish Group about Judaism. net.research Research and computer research. net.roots Genealogical matters. net.rumor For the posting of rumors. net.sci General purpose scientific discussions. net.sf-lovers Science fiction lovers' newsgroup. net.singles Newsgroup for single people, their activities, etc. net.social Like net.singles, but for everyone. net.sources For the posting of software packages and documentation (cf. net.wanted.sources). net.sources.bugs For bug fixes and features discussion pertaining to items in net.sources. net.space Space, space programs, space related research, etc. net.sport Spectator sports. net.sport.baseball Discussion about baseball. net.sport.football Discussion about football. net.sport.hockey Discussion about hockey. net.sport.hoops Discussion about basketball. net.startrek Star Trek, the TV show and the movies. net.std All sorts of standards (e.g., ANSI, IEEE). net.suicide Suicide, laws, ethics, and its causes and effects. net.taxes Tax laws and advice. net.test For testing of network software. Very boring. net.text Text processing. net.travel Traveling all over the world.

- 48 -

net.tv The boob tube, its history, and past and current shows. net.tv.drwho Discussion about Dr. Who. net.tv.soaps Postings about soap operas. net.unix UNIX neophytes group. net.unix-wizards Discussions, bug reports, and fixes on and for UNIX. Not for the weak of heart. net.usenix USENIX Association events and announcements. net.usoft Universal (public domain) software packages. net.veg Vegetarians. net.video Video and video components. net.wanted Requests for things that are needed. net.wanted.sources Requests for software, termcap entries, etc. net.wines Wines and spirits. net.wobegon "The Prairie Home Companion" radio show. net.women Women's rights, discrimination, etc. net.women.only Postings by women only (read by all). net.works Assorted workstations. net.works.apollo Discussion about Apollo workstations.

fa.arms-d Arms discussion digest. fa.arpa-bboard ARPAnet bulletin board. fa.bitgraph The BBN bitgraph terminal. fa.digest-p Digest-people digest. fa.editor-p Editor-people digest. fa.energy Energy programs, conservation, etc. fa.human-nets Computer aided communications digest. fa.info-mac Apple MacIntosh micros. fa.info-terms All sorts of terminals. fa.info-vax DEC's VAX line of computers. fa.info-vlsi Very large scale integrated circuits. fa.laser-lovers Laser printers, hardware and software. fa.poli-sci Politics and/versus science. fa.railroad Real and model train fans' newsgroup. fa.tcp-ip TCP and IP network protocols. fa.telecom Telecommunications digest. fa.teletext Teletext digest.

mod.map Announcements and software concerning maps and routing. mod.map.news Maps of the USENET network of news sites. mod.map.uucp Maps from the UUCP mapping project. mod.movies Moderated reviews and discussion of movies. mod.motss Moderated newsgroup on gay issues and topics. mod.music Moderated reviews and discussion of things musical. mod.newslists Postings of news-related statistics and lists. mod.singles Moderated version of net.singles. mod.sources Moderated postings of public domain sources. mod.test Testing of moderated newsgroups--no moderator. mod.unix Moderated discussion of UNIX features and bugs. mod.std Moderated discussion about various standards. mod.std.c Discussion about C language standards.

- 49 -

mod.std.mumps Discussion about standards for MUMPS.

- 50 -

GLOSSARY ________

_A_R_P_A_n_e_t. An electronic network linking computer facilities throughout the United States, and selected installations in other countries. Used primarily by research institutions performing work for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and related military institutions.

_B_r_o_a_d_c_a_s_t. Sending a message to a group of recipients at once; often this is facilitated by using a named distribution list.

_E_l_e_c_t_r_o_n_i_c _B_u_l_l_e_t_i_n _B_o_a_r_d. A central repository of messages (within a computer system) on which messages can be posted, scanned, replied to, and removed.

_E_M. Electronic Mail (or Electronic Message) system. It is distinguished from an Electronic Bulletin Board in that messages can be addressed to one or more individual recipients.

_F_l_a_m_i_n_g. Expressing emotion in an electronic message. The emotion is often explicitly labeled as such.

_S_p_e_c_i_a_l _I_n_t_e_r_e_s_t _G_r_o_u_p. A group of respondents within an electronic mail system that limit communications within the group to a particular subject matter. It is usually preferable to have a leader or coordinator of the group to perform editing, filtering, collection, and administrative functions (such as maintaining a message archive) for the group.

_U_N_I_X.[1] A popular operating system developed at Bell Laboratories in the early 1970s, available on many minicomputers and microcomputers.

_U_S_E_N_E_T. A loose but effective informal association of computer users forming a network for distributing electronic messages. Messages are broadcast as general news items, not point-to-point. It relies heavily on dial-up telephone lines and the UUCP protocol.

_U_U_C_P. UNIX-to-UNIX Communication Protocol. A standardized means of sending and receiving information between computers running the UNIX operating system, often using standard telephone lines and modems.

____________ [1]UNIX is a trademark of Bell Laboratories.

If you have a moment, please fill out the short survey below and and return to:

Electronically: RAND-DOCS@Rand-Unix.ARPA or US Mail: Rand-Docs Publications Dept. Rand Corporation 1700 Main Street Santa Monica, CA 90406

Thanks!

ARPANET QUESTIONNAIRE

1. How did you hear about the availability of this document?

a) word of "net" b) bulletin board c) word of mouth d) newsletter e) serendipity: _______________________________________ f) other: ____________________________________________

2. How do you intend to use this document?

a) print a copy and review/read it b) review/read text on your terminal c) other: ____________________________________________

3. How long are you likely to store the file? _____________

4. If you plan to keep it with your personal files, will you

a) store the full text b) store only selected portions c) add indexing terms or keywords d) add other retrieval information (specify) __________ e) print it and keep the hardcopy f) other: ____________________________________________

5. If indexing terms or keywords were included in the document, how would you use them?

a) to help determine relevance of the document b) as retrieval aids in your own file c) not at all d) other: ____________________________________________

6. Is the lack of tables/graphics

a) of no concern b) an inconvenience c) a serious problem d) comments: _________________________________________

7. If you need to see the tables/graphics, will you

a) order a copy from the Rand Publications Department b) locate a copy in your library c) other: ____________________________________________

8. What is the likely distribution of this document?

a) you alone b) you and selected colleagues c) it will be made available on request to a wide audience d) other: ____________________________________________

9. If you will distribute to others, are you most likely to

a) send the file electronically b) print and send hardcopy c) other: ____________________________________________

10. This document has been formatted for printing on most line printers. Would you have preferred a UNIX TROFF source?

a) Yes b) No

11. If we were to make electronic copies of the tables/graphics available, what form(s) would be most useful to you?

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12. Have you received other electronically-distributed documents?

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