Internet Ettiquite

At one time or another each one of us has irratated someone on the internet. It's impossible to aovid it.

Site owners are cranky people and it's hard not to cross them, even by asking a simple question, but there are just a few tiny little things people could do to avoid ticking us off completely.

1. Google.

Okay, I know that Google seems to terrify everyone under the age of 16 but it's really not that complicated. If you have a question like "What's an IP Address?" You can either enter the keywords or enter the whole damn question and look at the great information that comes up.

In the first link I hit I got this " An identifier for a computer or device on a TCP/IP network. Networks using the TCP/IP protocol route messages based on the IP address of the destination. The format of an IP address is a 32-bit numeric address written as four numbers separated by periods. Each number can be zero to 255. For example, 1.160.10.240 could be an IP address."

Which links to a page that reads "Understanding IP Addresses" and has this to say:

Every computer that communicates over the Internet is assigned an IP address that uniquely identifies the device and distinguishes it from other computers on the Internet. An IP address consists of 32 bits, often shown as 4 octets of numbers from 0-255 represented in decimal form instead of binary form. For example, the IP address

168.212.226.204

in binary form is

10101000.11010100.11100010.11001100.

Now, pardon me for saying so but was that so hard? Honestly. A few keystrokes and like four clicks and I can tell you everything you never wanted to know about IP addresses.

2. FAQ's

I have written a fair amount of FAQ's, having composed almost all of HPFF's FAQ's and my own site's knowledge base. That said, it really pisses me off when people don't read before they start e-mailing you.

Now, I know, FAQ's don't just smack you in the face when you log on to a site - usually you have to, ya know, look an inch or so to the left and you'll find a link to them but seriously people. Every site has them and they have them for a reason - because they're Frequently Asked Questions and, guess what, they're asked frequently. Are you that convinced of your omnipotence that you really believe that you have an original question?

Don't believe me?
MSNBC
Pepsi
Toys 'R' Us/Amazon
Nascar

Four sites. Four clicks to their help pages and they all have knowledge bases.

Seriously, just a quick page scan for the words "Customer Service", "Help" and "FAQ's" go a long way toward keeping people like me from killing you.

Hey look, i'm publishing this with blogger and you practically have to trip over the Help button to get anywhere.

Then, I suppose it doesn't matter how many FAQ's you post - how easy you make them to understand - if people in this universe don't learn how to READ i suppose things will never get better.

New Rule: You must be This --- intelligent to use the web.