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Re: [at-l] Ethics and E-mail

In a message dated 98-02-03 17:04:57 EST, kahley7@ptd.net writes:

SNIPPET

> Last year I included the text of a private e-mail
>  in a post to the list intentionally.

Don't be too hard on yourself.   Everyone has e-mail problems occasionally.
It is part of being human.

There are a lot of e-mail etiquette considerations, and a lot of things the
sender needs to be aware of.

E-mail, like snail mail, comes under the control of the recipient.

E-mail is more like a post card than a confidential document. It can get read
along the way.  It can get passed around by the recipient.  

If someone really wants an e-mail to be confidential, they should say that in
the e-mail.  Then passing it around would really be unethical.

Don't write anything in an e-mail message about someone that you would not be
willing to put on the office bulletin board with your signature on it. 

Sending a lot of blind CCs is not good.  It will make the recipient of the
blind CC think that you are not trustworthy.  Blind CCs do have their place,
however.  (Blind CCs are CC addresses that are not apparent to other
recipients of the e-mail.  Most mail systems support this.  On AOL you put the
CC address in parentheses.) 

Because there is no face-to-face contact, and no voice contact, innocent
remarks in e-mail can be mis-understood, causing anger.  E-mail wars then
break out.  Emoticons help this.  Emoticon examples are :-)  and  :-(

E-mail on your company system is (is probably) the property of your employer.
Certainly your employer can read it.  So do not use company e-mail for a lot
of personal purposes.  Even if you delete an e-mail message, it may stay
around in some system archive; delete may just mean that it is inaccessible to
you but not to the company techie.  
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