Contraction of
Internet etiquette, the etiquette guidelines for
posting messages to
online services, and particularly
Internet newsgroups. Netiquette covers not only rules to maintain civility in discussions (i.e., avoiding
flames), but also special guidelines unique to the electronic nature of
forum messages. For example, netiquette advises
users to use simple
formats because complex formatting may not appear correctly for all readers. In most cases, netiquette is enforced by fellow users who will vociferously object if you break a rule of netiquette.
