Read -> Comprehend -> Post

The same people who warned us about the dangers of the internet and not to believe everything, are now the ones readily falling for and spreading conspiracies and lies from social media.

It's tragic.

Don't meet people from online.

Don't share your personal information online.

Yeah that's definitely not being followed anymore.

Don't give your credit card details over the internet.

Nowadays people have them saved in their damn browser for convenience.

A/S/L should be replied when you join a chat room

"Don't believe everything you read on the internet." -Abraham Lincoln

Social media, a gorilla getting shot, two US elections, and GenAI later, we have completely fallen off this one simple rule.

Basic forum etiquette. It's horrifying at work seeing teams "teams" (forums) used like chats, all the cross-posting and thread necromancy, people completely unable to keep topics confined to the appropriate sub-forum, etc

You should use the Internet to get info out of it, not put your info there. If you do want to put info, it should never be traceable to you.

I just don’t get why people want so much of their life online…

Don't talk to strangers.

Searching things is easy so don't post something without checking it. People now don't make the slightest effort to verify a rumor or conspiracy crap.

The rules for abbreviations.

IIRC YMMV bc IANAL

Netspeak fluency has generally given way to textspeak.

I learned as a kid playing star craft that there are noobs and newbs. Newbs are people new to a game who need help learning. And a noob is someone who has played for a while and refuses to learn and would rather troll.

As in real life, it's pretty sound advice to ignore, block or otherwise disengage from trolls and other forms of belligerents. Even in the '90s when I first started using the internet, the phrase of the day was "don't feed the trolls". But people just can't help themselves. They will even reply saying "I know you're a troll, but...".

The Steam forums are a great example, where every other thread is a fake "is this game woke??" screed. The fact that you can be rewarded for being a cunt there with jesters (which translate into points that can be spent to buy profile items) just makes it a thousand times worse. You get 'paid' to be a troll on Steam. It's insanity.

The only anti-troll weapon that works or is needed is oblivion. Let their steaming turd of a post curdle in solitude. Don't even downvote it. Being downvoted is a victory for them, an acknowledgement that they exist and that they've gotten your attention and that they've annoyed you. Shadowban them from your mind. Block them so that no future posts of theirs will infect your screen. Report them so mods can remove/ban them. Just don't engage directly with the post or the user. Don't say "blocked and reported" in the troll's thread/post. Just do it silently.

When you share something cool, link back to the original creator or where you found it from.

Most of them. Don't believe everything you see, don't give out personal information or real-life pictures... the usual.

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.