Thought this would be a decent and fun topic as I'm seeing more and more people coming here saying they love 2000s internet, wherever they lived from it or are just into the trend. I only started actively using the internet in 2010 when I was 12 but even then I remember there was a lot of unspoken rules on how you should act online or else you'll get met with other users annoyed with your presence.
So what do you think the unspoken rules of online etiquette are? Or do you have any personal rules you follow but don't expect others to do the same?
I think this may be more of a personal rule these days cause I never see it enforce anywhere anymore within the past several years. But no spamming of any kind, it is very annoying to bloat anything for any reason. Now days spamming seems to be watered down to not repeating the same or similar messages in a short span of time but back when I was online this seemed to also include pointless messages that add nothing of value to a conversation.
Examples I can think of is let's say you're in a chatroom of some sort like a discord channel. Everyone is talking but there's that one user who only posts "lol" "cool" or "okay" in the conversation. Or maybe Youtube comments where they only say "hahaha" or the dreaded -insert what was literally said in the video and is the punchline here- comment. Or dare I bring up the "I love rainbows" forum post incident or whatever it was.
I would view these as spam cause they add nothing of value and requires no thought and effort, it's as if some people feel the need to force themselves to be involved in everything they see as if they're suffering from main character syndrome and I find it to be disruptive to conversations and browsing. People may argue it's engagement but my counterargument is it's not engagement if there's nothing there in the first place that makes you want to engage. If no one wants to comment due to no value being there then it's bloat.
A personal rule for myself is to message someone once, if they don't reply then move on, either they're busy or don't want to talk and I should respect that. There is no reason to keep messaging someone "Are you there? Did you see my message? Hello?" Just send one message, it will be seen, there is a reason if you're not getting a reply back right away. Unless someone gives you permission to message again if they're easily distracted or whatever I find it to be very rude. I will read the message once I am online and will reply if I can. If I log in and see someone left me three messages+ demanding my attention I am instantly unfriending. If my time can't be respected then I want nothing to do with you.
