In online communities there are many unexplained customs that are just part of being a good person. Particularly in the blogging and social networking communities, there are many unwritten rules of the Internet. Well I wrote some down.

1. If someone writes an interesting, fun, or educational blog post that you enjoyed take the time to post a comment, they did after all take the time to write it. Even better still, link to their blog or write a post about how much you enjoyed it.
2. If someone writes a meaningful comment on your wall/blog/or site, the proper etiquette is to make an effort to reply to their comment. This rule has various degrees and depends on the comment written, a simple “lol” comment doesn’t need a replay, a “Happy birthday” gets a “thanks,” and information of value or discussion should get a more thought out response. Match your response to the comment given, when in doubt write more.
3. If someone you know pokes you, poke back.  Repeat until one of you dies or gets a “serious” boyfriend/girlfriend and the flirtatious nature of poking could be considered an attempt to home-wreck.
4. If someone you don’t know pokes you, your response is based on how you rank their profile, hot and cool gets an IM, decent gets a poke back (let them come to you), creepy and scary: block sender, ignore all, mark as spam, report abuse; all of the forementioned are fair responses.
5. If you get an invite to a friend’s party or birthday and you can’t make it, be sure to send an elaborate message as to why you can’t make it so they at least know you care enough to send a message and don’t forget to wishing them well on the actual day.
6. Anyone can write “happy birthday” on a wall, people who really care take the extra time to write at least one more personalized sentence. When in doubt make fun of them for getting older.
7. If you use someones plug-in, widget, theme or code the least you can do is give them the credit by leaving the links intact. Afterall, they did go through a lot of effort to bring the function to you.
8. If you find a dead link/photo/error/ or virus on someones site do the right thing and let them know so they can fix the error. Really nice people also suggest possible solutions.
9. If you log on to a public access computer and someone else automatically logged in on a site by mistake, the polite thing to do is log them out and make sure you change the Internet settings so it doesn’t save your password.
10. Check your emails more then once a week, in some industries everyday is ideal but don’t do it too frequently as people will begin to expect that your checking it every second.
11. Tone, body language, expression, and sarcasm are very difficult to read from emails and websites. Mix it up by trying to communicate through webcams, podcasts, telephone, or I don’t know… maybe in person face to face! There is still a lot of value in an actual conversation with someone.
12. Text messages are great!  Sometimes  a phone call can save 30 text messages. Sometimes one text message can save a phone call. Know which to use.

Mr. Vaughan
 Http://www.MrVaughan.com