The online Etiquette

After a brief period of twitter and facebook experience, I thought I should share and discuss the usage, do and donts of online social networking. I humbly disclaim upfront that this is not a generalized article nor a guideline. This just an effort to share and invoke a productive discussion on what are the things to and what are things that to be avoided.

Instant Messaging and Chatrooms
Once the IM and Chatrooms were the most attended online activity. Followed by the high rate of abuse and identity theft lead to a downtime of this platform. Many of the popular providers stopped the service as well. The mobile version of the IM are now very common in India.

Friendship Platforms
Currently, the online media is very powerful that it can easily spread information among the users all over world and the users are engaged in discussion/criticism and arguments over a variety of subjects.

Online friendship platforms like Facebook, Orkut, Hi5, etc are catching the widespread attention among the users. In this platform mostly the known users are connected and really helpful in connecting with school/college mates, professional associates, etc. The group feature will help to promote an stuffs/events of common interests.

blog
Blog are really helping to share the information on Experience, Literature works, writings, scribblings, experiences etc where the communication is limited. Even though the comment features are available, it can be set to certain privacy settings which will prevent unsolicited/irrelevant comment postings.

Micro Blogs
Micro blogs are the grapevine in the current online scenario where users are limited to post with in a specified maximum characters, mostly up to one short message character limits. Twitter is a popular micro blogging service. Micro blogs are very much popular because of the possibility of interacting with famous personalities and celebrities and the convenience to post the current thoughts running in your mind instantly. There are other micro blogs like digg are also getting widespread attention.

Advantages of Online Communities
Online communities helps the user to improve their inter personal skills, knowledge on a subject matter, getting new relation ships etc.
Briefly, we can list some of the advantages as the following: (not limited to:)

1. A knowledge sharing platform
2. Recreation
3. Discussion Platform and News source
4. Friendship & Time pass
5. Networking (This is one of the main reasons, which can help business men finding clients, jobless to find new job prospects etc)

Disadvantages of Online Communities
Just like any other stuff, this media also have several disadvantages. Users are more exposed of their personal details and this can lead to the potential problems of mis utilization of identity, Spam, financial loss (with the provided details, one can hack bank accounts), Unsolicited marketing activity etc.

Some tips for a Safe online Entertainment

To avoid the above mentioned issues, it would be nice to follow some of the advices given by the legal authorities and visionaries.

•  Keep your account password very safe with strongest Password.
• Never share your personal details to anyone you don't know personally
• Never share your's and other's photographs, that may lead to miss use in a variety of ways
• Never share your date of birth. You may share the Birth date and Month but never give anyone a chance to know the full date of birth. Most of the banks use this information as a security answer. This may open a potential problem of theft.
•  Never engage in any financial dealings with anyone in the networking sites unless you know them personally.
•  When you are working with groups, always inquire about the members, their motives etc before joining hands with them
•  Social Networking is not a place where you can get personal issues sort out. You may consult with your known friends/family/relatives to get this done
•  Never share your official/Professional contact details (Office/Business Emails, Telephone numbers, etc) over the networking platforms - It may invite potential issues of spam
•  Always change the passwords frequently. The more you are known to others, the more chance arise to get your password guessable.
•  Never put photos of your vehicle which showing the Registration Numbers
•  Never engage in any activity in the networking sites which can not be shared with your close relatives/spouse/parents. Your activities and the people whom you are connected should be known to your close friends/spouse/parents. This will help you to prevent unintended experiences.
•  Promote these points among your pals and encourage them to follow.
•  Never use abusive words when you post your thoughts, writings, comments etc. All of these activities are for amusement, not for abuse.

If you found any points missing, or incorrect please share your thoughts. Also feel free to share these information and promote it.

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