Don't send junk mail. Just because it's easy to send-mail to 10,000 people doesn't mean that it's a good idea. You can expect to find your mailbox clogged, minutes later, with 10,000 irate responses.
Don't send advertisements. Traditionally, Internet E-mail is used for noncommercial purposes. It's perfectly okay to talk about work related topics, but don't send out unsolicited ads to drum up business. If you do, expect to receive buckets of hate mail.
Don't send junk news either. It's technically not difficult to send 10,000 copies of a message to every possible user, to make sure that everyone in the world who reads news will see it. That's known as spamming (after the Monty Python "I don't like Spam" skit) and is universally loathed. Expect 10,000 irate messages.
Don't send chain letters about dying boy wants greeting cards, the modem tax rumor, make big bucks with a chain letter, or the "two fifty" cookie recipe. Everyone has heard them all and doesn't want to hear them again.
DON'T SEND MESSAGE IN ALL UPPERCASE LIKE THIS BECAUSE PEOPLE ASSUME THAT YOU'RE SHOUTING AND YOU'RE TOO DIM TO FIND AND TURN OFF THE CAPS LOCK KEY ON YOUR KEYBOARD. Use upper- and lowercase just like on a real typewriter. Some E-mail users evidently feel that neatness no longer counts, but they're wrong.
Don't forget: E-mail always comes across ruder or more obnoxious than you intend. Over and over, people have discovered this important fact the hard way. E-mail is a funny medium, not really like the phone or paper mail. And it's unexpectedly easy to fly off the handle in response; so easy that the term for this is flaming. Don't flame. If you do, people assume that you're a flaming . . . . . . um, well, you know what we mean.
From the InterNet for Dummies, Second Edition, by John R. Levine & Carol Baroudi, published by IDG Books.
Always include a copy of the original message, trimmed down to the minimum needed, when you respond to a message.
Always spell check your message. Messages with errors reflect poorly on the individual and on the institution.
Users receiving your attached documents may not have the same word processor you have. Consider converting your document to WordPerfect DOS, Version 5.1 before sending (WPF format).
