For me, it was that the Internet never forgets and that you should never enter your real name. In my opinion, both of these rules are now completely ignored.
Don’t be a dick.
Don’t Feed the trolls
Don’t feed the trolls.
Of course nowadays its nearly impossible to tell whos spouting racial slurs to get folks mad and whos doing it because they’re just an asshole.
When reading a long text, disconnect from the internet as soon as it has loaded so you don’t pay for the time you spend reading.
Never trust anything you read on the internet
Social media killed online aliases and I have a hard time deciding if we’re all worse for it.
Instinctively I still stick by that, though, as you can tell by my anonymous profile with no bio, but when I volunteer any amount of personal info these days people are often confused that I’m not sharing openly who I am or where I’m from. Every time someone does that it weirds me out because in the 90s telling (and asking) people those things would have been such a suspicious, sketchy move.
1.0 ratio is the low bar, leech
Don’t pick up the phone if someone is online… I’m old
I can’t remember. Did it make pterodactyl noises or is that just faxes?
oh yes it made the noise.
Don’t meet people from online.
I’m old enough to remember reading about netiquette.
The first rule of usenet.
Make sure you use the right type of search engine for the type of information you want.
Don’t feed the trolls
but then I post on lemmy.world and get so so many repliesStay anonymous
“Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory” was both a lie (typically invoked to defend/justify bigotry, bullying, and such) and it also served to normalize people being assholes on the internet. “Perfectly well adjusted wholesome ordinary people chant nazi slogans when they log onto the internet, for real guys! It says nothing about their character as people because for some magical reason the internet totally has no connections to lived human experiences!”
I’m glad that the so-called rule fell out of use and the excuse rings very hollow for most people now. Also, I noticed that many “ironic asshole” comedians and entertainers from the “le epic trolling” era wound up being actual assholes that hurt people outside of the act. “Million Dollar Extreme” and Justin Roiland come to mind.
That’s crazy. Makes a lot of sense.
I always tried to be the “shockingly nice person to game with” whenever I could. It was a lot more fun than just being mean to people for no reason.
I never understood that impulse to scream epithets over xbox live or whatever.
I’ve found the best way to really infuriate online edgelords was to be patient yet firm with them.
Like a parent.
