Email Etiquette Resistance?

Today I will write off the cuff about an email I received.

Resistance is a word bandied around quite a bit lately. For example, I received an email informing me that the person was part of “the email etiquette resistance.” Who knew?

They went on to say that I should succumb and shut this site down.

At first, I giggled and thought it was a joke.

But they ended with, “Prove you invented email, @#&*!%!”

Wow — don’t know where that came from!

But that got me thinking…

How should I reply, if at all? Well, I have this blog — so here we go!

Email Etiquette is online etiquette or, as I explain with my tag-line:

Using technology with knowledge, understanding and courtesy.

What is so wrong with that? Who would want to resist that concept?

Starting from the Start

First, let’s note how long email has been in existence. Did you know that email is 50 years old?

The history of modern Internet email services reaches back to the early ARPANET, with standards for encoding email messages published as early as 1973 (RFC 561).

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network was an early packet switching network and the first network to implement the protocol suite TCP/IP. Both technologies became the technical foundation of the Internet. The ARPANET was initially funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States Department of Defense.

An email message sent in the early 1970s looks very similar to a basic email sent today. Email had an important role in creating the Internet,[3] and the conversion from ARPANET to the Internet in the early 1980s produced the core of the current services. Wikipedia

So I didn’t invent email (I never said I did). Rare is the person reading this who even owned a computer in 1973! Look how far we have come in such a relatively short period.

I started this site waaaay back when I thought it would be a limited-time engagement. Who would have thought that the topics I discuss on this site decades later are still those that folks are interested in, need to improve upon, and want to refer to as needed?

I still receive emails daily from genuinely concerned onliners about their situations, asking, “What should I do?”. And I answer every one personally.

Decades of Everyday Email Later…

After a solid two decades of folks using technology and email, there are still those onliners who resist the concept of Email Etiquette. Why, I’m not sure. Is it education? Laziness? Is it that they do not care how they are perceived?

Who would have thought suggesting that communicating with proper sentence structure, case, and courtesy would require “resistance”?

Maybe it’s that folks get scared off by the term etiquette as though it is some stuffy fancy-schmancy practice. When in fact, it is just about communicating in a way that is effective and helps build relationships.

Let’s start over…

et-i-quette: noun

1. conventional requirements as to social behavior; proprieties of conduct as established in any class or community or for any occasion.
2. a prescribed or accepted code of usage in matters of ceremony, as at a court or in official or other formal observances.
3. the code of ethical behavior regarding professional practice or action among the members of a profession in their dealings with each other: medical etiquette.

As you can see above, etiquette is about thinking before doing and behaving in a way we would also like to be treated. By embracing the straightforward tips on this site, you can contribute to being perceived favorably and, in some cases, avoid misunderstandings.

So why be rude?

I’m sure you have received rude emails where you’ve had to think before responding. However, sometimes, I know the person and know they aren’t rude individuals.

Or, I can tell the Sender isn’t purposely trying to be rude. A little email etiquette forethought, and that perception can go away.

Then there are the downright, purposeful, rude emails like the one I received this week. In part, we live in a culture that is so busy thinking “all about me” that we don’t stop to think of courtesies or considerations for others. I hope that changes.

Whatever you call online etiquette, netiquette, or Email Etiquette, it is simply understanding the technology you are participating in and then taking that knowledge to use technology properly with consideration and courtesy to others.

To those who are part of the Email Etiquette resistance who think Email Etiquette can be disregarded or ignored, you are doing yourself and those you communicate with a disservice.