 In the early days of the World Wide Web, a common term that you saw floating around was NEDICAT. What was NEDICAT? It was Internet etiquette. It was basically your set of rules that people were supposed to abide by when they were on the early World Wide Web in those early chat rooms, or if you interacted with Usenet news groups, there was, you know, a certain code of conduct, basically, that people needed to abide by. And these days, people don't have any kind of sense of NEDICAT. People don't know, really, how to interact with others online, so today I wanted to cover a few basic rules of NEDICAT that everyone should be following 100% of the time in their interactions online. By far the number one rule of NEDICAT is no yelling. Never ever type in all caps. It's generally not acceptable to ever use all caps to type something. It's kind of seen as shouting, kind of like in spoken conversation when somebody shouts and written conversation. When somebody uses all caps, what they're trying to do is they're trying to draw attention to their message, right? They're trying to elevate their message above everyone else. Essentially, it's seen as shouting. It's akin to shouting. And just like in real life, nobody likes people that shout, right? You generally just ignore them. You drown them out. You don't even listen to their message. Nobody takes them seriously. It's the same thing online. If you type a message in all caps, 90% of the people that see somebody typing in all caps aren't even going to read it because they already think you're just a complete clown. So never ever shout online. Never type in all caps. The next rule of NEDICAT is stay on topics. So whatever website, forum, bulletin board system, internet, chat, social media sites, wherever it is that you converse with other people, chances are that site or service has a general topic that needs to be discussed, right? So you wouldn't go to something like a dev forum like Stack Overflow and then try to have a religious debate with a forum member there, right? That's not the place for that. You don't go to a web dev forum to debate religion with other people, right? There's a more appropriate place to do that. You wouldn't go to like a Linux support IRC chat and then want to have a Twitter like political argument with people because chances are they're not going to let you do that. You're not going to be around long if you keep posting irrelevant information. So if you ask a question, it needs to be a relevant question. If you post a statement, it needs to be some kind of relevant answer to somebody else's question, gauge the room. When you go to a site, whether it be social media sites or chat rooms or web forums, you know, spend some time, read a little bit before you actually post. You know, figure out what the atmosphere of the room is before you just launch into you posting ridiculous things that eventually lead to you getting banned. The next rule of NEDICAT is to always use proper grammar, punctuation and spelling. So always at least make an effort to use proper grammar, punctuation and spelling. And the problem is that some people make no effort, right? None of us are English professors. All of us misspell words from time to time. All of us write sentences that maybe are not grammatically correct. You know, if there was a college professor grading what I typed, you know, would it pass? Probably not. But at least write sentences where the message you're trying to convey, people can understand it. The problem is online. Many people make really low effort post when it comes to grammar, punctuation and spelling. We've all seen it. This person that writes this huge block of text and every single word is lower case. They didn't capitalize a single word in this gigantic block of text. Not only did they not capitalize a single word. They also didn't add any punctuation. There's not a comma or a period anywhere in that text. And without capitalization or commas or periods, I don't know what's the start of a sentence, the beginning of a sentence. There's no paragraphs. And, you know, he did nothing. It was a complete low effort post. And if this person is going to post something with such low effort, why would I try to respond to whatever question they were trying to ask? I wouldn't if they're not going to put any effort into what they're posting. I'm not going to put any effort into trying to respond to their post. Typically, when people see these kinds of low effort blocks of text with no capitalization and no punctuation to be seen, they're just going to ignore that message. And I don't like to see that because some of these people probably do have something worthwhile to say. And I want your messages to be heard online. So please make some effort to always use proper grammar, punctuation and spelling. The next rule of etiquette is don't ask a question without first trying to find the answer yourself. So this is another really bad habit that way too many people have is, you know, they have this problem and they put zero effort into solving it themselves. They don't go look for an answer. They don't even go to Google or any of these search engines and actually try to type in the problem they're having, which would take all of 10 seconds. They're too lazy to even do that. They want you to do it. They'll post in a chat room or a form. Hey, I just had this problem. Can one of you guys find the solution for me and help me out? No, no, that's not the way it works. Right. I'm not doing your homework. It's like because you're like the lazy kid in school that doesn't want to do his homework instead, he gets somebody else to do his homework for him. I'm not going to do your homework. Now, if you tried to do your homework and you couldn't solve the problem, there's a mathematical problem and you come and show me your work. Hey, I tried these steps here and I didn't come up with the correct solution. Can you help me? Can you point me in the right direction? Absolutely. I always have time to help people that were trying to help themselves. And that's generally the case on web forums, internet chat rooms, is people are there to help most of the time. That's why they're there. They want to help people that are deserving of help. Unfortunately, you're not deserving of help if you can't even put a little bit of effort into trying to help yourself. Otherwise, all you are is a user. You're trying to use these people. You're trying to manipulate them into doing your work for you. You're a leech, right? I would never let somebody like that manipulate me in real life. I'm not going to let somebody like that manipulate me online either. The next rule of etiquette is that sarcasm generally doesn't work on the internet. Sarcasm really doesn't work in plain text and written text. It works fine and face to face conversations because I can make some kind of sarcastic remark to you. And because of the inflection of my voice or my facial expression or my body language, you know, you can get the hint, right? Yeah, oh, he's just joking. He really didn't mean that. He was poking fun at me. But when you say something sarcastic online, you're trying to be funny or trying to be humorous, don't be surprised if that other person finds it offensive or rude or takes it as a personal attack because he doesn't have voice inflection and body language and things like that to judge whether you're trying to be sarcastic or not. All he has is the words on the screen that he's reading. And more times than not, when you're trying to be sarcastic, it's going to come across as offensive to somebody. So just don't use sarcasm because millions and millions of flame wars on the Internet have been started over sarcastic remarks. And, you know, it's just best in most online venues. Don't use sarcasm. And for some reason, you do say something in a sarcastic way and somebody takes offense to it. Understand that that person is not to blame for that. All they had to judge you on was the text you wrote, the text that they read on the screen. Don't blame them for misunderstanding what you wrote. Sincerely apologize to that person and move forward. Another rule of etiquette is to think before you post. Now, this is very, very important because you never want to act on emotion. So one of the things I've learned working for large corporations, sometimes in supervisory roles where I had to fire people, you know, terminate people from their jobs is when somebody does something that makes you angry, me personally angry and they've done something where I know I am in the right. I could actually let them go right then. I don't do it right then while I'm angry. That that's not the right time to do that, right? Give it 24 hours. Come back to it the next day when you're not about to flip your lid and then let that person go. Because if you do it right then, you're really emotional, right? You're really angry at that person. You might say something to that person that you really shouldn't say. And it would cause some issues for you down the road. Same thing online. Now, if somebody says something on social media, post some message that angers you in some way, maybe it's not even directed towards you. Maybe it is. I don't know. But it angers you in some way. It just, you know, makes you completely lose your mind and you want to respond right then. Don't do that. Think before you post. I would put some serious distance in between you and that response. So give it an hour or two at least or maybe even a day. So when somebody says something online or even through email that really makes you mad, never respond immediately because the response is going to be overly emotionally charged. And you're probably going to say something that you're going to regret. And the final rule of etiquette is to just be respectful to others. Also be respectful to yourself. So when you're online and you're interacting with people on these forms and chat rooms, social media and things like that, just be a little more formal in your conversation. I know it's a casual platform, mostly the Internet, right? But how do you typically greet strangers in real life? You know, think about your greetings and your salutations and your interactions with these people. You know, would you be so informal online if this was a person you met in real life on the street? Probably not, right? You would be a little bit more professional in your attitude. When you ask for something, you would ask a person, please, right? If you receive something from somebody, you're going to thank them. You're going to actually give them a thank you. Do all of this online, too. Most of us treat people with this kind of respect and face-to-face conversations in real life. But for some reason, many of us have it kind of twisted. We think, well, being respectful, it's optional on the Internet. No, no, no, that's not the case. Because acting in a rude or an abrasive manner to others online, it's not only disrespectful to these other people, you know, these people that you're treating in this manner, it's also disrespectful to yourself. Because, honestly, when you sit back and think about it, you know, if you had treated somebody in real life the way you just treated these people online, you'd probably be ashamed of yourself. Why is it different online? It really shouldn't be. So, you know, whether in real life conversation or in an online conversation, please, always be kind, respectful, and professional in your manner. Now, before I go, I need to thank a few special kind and professional people here. And then for these guys, they're very respectful. I'm talking about Absi Gabe, James Mitchell, Paul West, Akami Allen, Chuck Kurt, David Dillon, Gregory Heiko, Erion, Alexander Peace, Archon Fodor, Polytech Scott, Raver, Steven, Willie, I got some stuff out of order there. But these guys, they're my highest-eared patrons over on Patreon without these guys. This episode about Neticut would not have been possible. The show is also brought to you by each and every one of these ladies and gentlemen as well. All these names you're seeing on the screen right now. These are all my supporters over on Patreon. Because I'm supported by you guys, the community. If you like my work and want to support me, please consider subscribing to DistroTube over on Patreon. All right, guys, peace. And stop overusing emojis.