Douglas, your post could take years to respond.
I think that one of the most significant problems with on-line messages, such as email and foruns is that this kind of messages stands somewhere between epistolographic and oral communication. This only feature tends to hybridize the style and be a source of many misunderstandings and if one wants to argue, he/she will argue for any reason, as you may have noticed, not far from the point we are now.
I �ll give you one example: an online master �s student of mine, about 45 years of age, was receiving emails from another student, who was sending her pics of himself shirtless, inviting her to work in the same group. Her husband was not very happy about her being taking a masters; in fact, I guess he was somehow jealous, for they were both Philosophy teachers and she was ahead of him in the career.
He was ckecking on her emails, she was getting a lot, which is only normal, when someone is taking a course online and made her quit the master. I must say this was a shock for me, �cause I hate loosing ss, however old they are, and no man would ever make me give up my professional goals by force (I had one who made me stay in Portugal instead of joining my family in the States some 38 years ago, but he made it gently...)
As far as netiquette is concerned, the rules are very similar everywhere, so is the writing in capital letters, bold, big letters, specially in red. It doesn �t mean however, that writing in capital letters, bold, whatever, in the middle of a text should be considered impolite. Big capital letters mean shouting, whatever one shouts, it could be:
I LOVE YOU!
which would mean that someone is shouting his/her love to the world, in case the other guy is death or something and would be able to get the message cosmically...
For instance, Chinese students tend to be very formal, or more formal than American students in an on-line course and from now on I could mostly provide you with some more references, which, I think, you wouldn �t be much insterested in.
Besides, the biggest problems of online communication are due, mostly, to intercultural issues and computer anxiety.
Have a nice day, everybody. I �m quitting office in a few minutes, so I won �t be back again today.
See you around, Douglas and all.
, ishu!