WEEK 13 GROUP REPORT


Hey kids, welcome to another installment of weekly group report stuff. This week I looked into the topic of etiquette on the net or "netiquette". The two search engines I engaged (doesn't that sound really cool, engaged) were Power Search and Metacrawler. I just thought (actually hoped that I would find something so I wouldn't have to look up more help manuals [because the kids were screaming for change]).

Ok, first the Power Search results. This gave me some accurate hits and some rather interesting things to look at. The first document I looked at was Netiquette, Cybertoon Home Page. This homepage basically talked about the development and copyright of a new cybertoon named Netiquette. It was kind of brief, a little non-specific, and I have no idea if this will be funny or not (we'll see). Well I suppose if done in such a way, cartoons can provide a running commentary on social psychology issues, in terms of relationships, attitudes, etc.

The next thing I looked at was called Netiquette, by Virginia Shea . This turned out to be a big fake out, it was an add for her book, and they teased you with the table of contents (that really drives me insane). It seeme d rather light and conversational and easy to read but I don't know, go buy the book. I do suppose that this would come under the heading of helping others (although I don't know how magnanimous this help is [it's a rather crass form of commercialism if you ask me]).

One last link I too k a look at in Power Search was PolitenessMan's Guide to Netiquette . Pretty funny, light, and mildly entertaining but brought to you by AT&T, I don't quite know what they're in it for (but it's got to be something). As for social psychology, helping others (but for what gains).

Okey, dokey, on to the Metacrawler. I found one thing that I will talk about, because this seems to be the basis for netiquette pages around the web. This document is User Guidelines and Netiquette, by Arlene Rinaldi . This Arlene Rinaldi seems to be the author when it comes to netiquette, she wrote the guts of most of the above documents and seems to have quite a grasp on the subject. The tone was semi-humorous, conversational, easy to read but I think the most important thing that comes through is the sincerity with which this information is presented, unlike the above pages, Rinaldi seems to do it, because she is genuinely trying to help other people out. That's really cool, it reaffirms my belief in humanity. Until next week kids.

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