The transmission of unsolicited or prohibited advertising or other content through electronic mail or inappropriate Usenet postings is forbidden. The use of QGM assigned servers for unsolicited mass mailings or postings (commonly known as "Unsolicited Bulk E-mail or SPAM") by any customer will cause that customer's services to be terminated immediately and without warning, and the customer will be held legally responsible for the damages to QGM assigned servers, both monetary and in reputation. The use of any other service to make such a mailing or posting, with any reference to QGM (including but not limited to mailboxes, autoresponders, and Web pages), shall also be grounds for account termination as described above.

The practices described here can permanently destroy an online reputation overnight, and easily taints any organization associated with the guilty party.

Never give your userID or password to another person. System administrators that need to access your account for maintenance or to correct problems will have full priviledges to your account.

Never assume your email messages are private nor that they can be read by only yourself or the recipient. Never send something that you would mind seeing on the evening news. In additiona to QGM system administrators, Sytem administrators at any intermediate system along the e-mails path could conceivably read your e-mail. While this is indeed rare and also contemptable, it should be noted.

Keep paragraphs and messages short and to the point.

When quoting another person, edit out whatever isn't directly applicable to your reply. Don't let your mailing or Usenet software automatically quote the entire body of messages you are replying to when it's not necessary. Take the time to edit any quotations down to the minimum necessary to provide context for your reply. Nobody likes reading a long message in quotes for the third or fourth time, only to be followed by a one line response: "Yeah, me too."

Focus on one subject per message and always include a pertinent subject title for the message, that way the user can locate the message quickly.

Don't use the academic networks for commercial or proprietary work.

Include your signature at the bottom of Email messages when communicating with people who may not know you personally or broadcasting to a dynamic group of subscribers.

Your signature footer should include your name, position, affiliation and Internet addresses and should not exceed more than 6 lines.

Capitalize words only rarely to highlight an important point or to distinguish a title or heading. Capitalizing whole words that are not titles is GENERALLY VIEWED AS NEEDLESS SHOUTING!

*Asterisks* surrounding a word can be used to make a stronger point.

Use the underscore symbol before and after the title of a book, i.e. _The Wizard of Oz_

Limit line length to aproximately 65-70 characters and avoid control characters.

Never send chain letters through the Internet. Sending them can cause the loss of your e-mail priveleges.

Because of the International nature of the Internet and the fact that most of the world uses the following format for listing dates, i.e. MM DD YY, please be considerate and avoid misinterpretation of dates by listing dates including the spelled out month: Example: 24 JUN 96 or JUN 24 96

Be professional and careful what you say about others. Email is easily forwarded.

Cite all quotes, references and sources and respect copyright and license agreements.

It is considered extremely rude to forward personal email to mailing lists or Usenet without the original author's permission. Current court rulings also appear to acknowledge copyright ownership of e-mail statements. Publicly posting a private e-mail is a possible copyright issue with legal ramifications.

Attaching return receipts to a message may be considered an invasion of privacy.

Be careful when using sarcasm and humor. Without face to face communications your joke may be viewed as criticism. When being humorous, use emoticons to express humor. (tilt your head to the left to see the emoticon faces)

:-) = happy face for humor
:-( = Frown or dissaproval
=:O = Surprise

Acronyms can be used to abbreviate when possible, however messages that are filled with acronyms can be confusing and annoying to the reader.

Examples:

IMHO= in my humble opinion
FYI = for your information
BTW = by the way
LOL = Laughing Out Loud
ROFL = Rolling on Floor Laughing
FWIW = For What It's Worth
TTYL = Talk To You Later