netiquette
Microsoft – Essential online etiquette I recently discovered this article. There is more to say, but it’s pretty good. You should read it, especially the part on email. I’d like to highlight this point:
- Don’t send or forward virus warnings. These might be hoaxes.
You can check these as well as other ‘hoax’ emails on Snopes.com, and some viruses have been propagated through email disguised as warnings.
Also, if you are not the geekiest person on your contact list you never need to send an email about a virus. If there is a real threat, your geekier friends have already heard about it. Let them send out the email warning if necessary.
One guideline I would like to add. Never send anything to everyone in your email address book. If your email is so general that it can’t be targeted to a specific group of contacts, then it’s probably unnecessary to send at all. It’s very unlikely that your email is relevant to everyone. Really, you shouldn’t forward email at all.