AIM Etiquette

 

 

 

 

 

1.)                Never quote only yourself in your profile.

2.)                Don’t use internet shorthand such as “o,” “lol,” and “ur.”

3.)                Don’t misspell words because you think it’s cool. (e.g. “kewl” and “wut?”)

4.)                Your away message should never be “I am away from my computer right now.”

5.)                Your away message should never be “I am not available because I am playing a computer game that takes up the whole screen.”

6.)                Avoid saying things that can be misinterpreted through inflection.

7.)                Use pseudo-tags to denote inflection. (e.g. <sarcasm>text</sarcasm>, <hate>text</hate>, <chinamanaccent>text</chinamanaccent>)

8.)                Don’t IM someone as soon as they sign on.  Give them a minute or two.

9.)                Your profile should never be an actual profile.

10.)            Never answer the question “a/s/l?” with “who are you?” because they, clearly, don’t know you.

11.)            Your screen name should not contain any of the following: hottie, flirt, babe, or 69.

12.)            Don’t use caps lock to “shout.”

13.)            Punctuation is necessary only when it alters meaning and/or interpretation. (e.g. “hell” vs. “he’ll”)

14.)            Emoticons should be used sparingly.

15.)            Your buddy icon should never be one that AIM provides.

16.)            Avoid sending 5+ IMs without a reply unless to achieve a desired effect.

17.)            Avoid correcting yourself more than once.  People usually get what you were trying to say anyway.

18.)            Don’t add extra vowels to words to emulate drawing them out. (e.g. “sooooooooo coooooooooool”)

19.)            Don’t use the warn button.  It’s childish.

20.)            If you are masturbating, do not put it in your away message, or profile, or anything else for that matter.  We don’t need to know.