Imagine that you are a weakling in high school. For no reason, you get whacked, bullied and have to undergo several mental torture that were forced onto you by your fellow peers. Sad but true in today's civilized society, even though we have preached about human rights and disgraced barbaric acts, these bullying situation does not just stop. In fact, it does not just happen in one part of the world! Every countries, every nations' schools and childcare, there are such problems existing. So much so, I would called it a global phenomena. The problem got so bad that in Japan, the government had to step in and have to look into their educational system.

These weaklings for the case of Japan, commit suicide, thinking that it is their only way out into this world. For others, they just merely enclosed themselves into their only corner and hide. Of course for today's topic, we are looking at a niche group of these weaklings, the groups that went on to become cyber bullies. Instead letting our emotions get the better of us, we should sometimes think for a moment for these guys. You have to feel sorry for them that they have to resort to such acts to satisfy themselves.

Of course in the connected world, cyber bullies aren't just the only ones around. You will see lots of characters. You have the atheists, the racist, the idiots etc. Besides the cyber bullies being one of the most prominent character, you will also get to see the 'rule enforcers' occasionally. One thing is for sure that these group of rule enforcers need not be the moderators or administrators, they could be one of those people who are not even in any official position but yet they forced their beliefs onto you and if even if you make a little mistake, they will report it to the authorities. I have been in the net long enough. These those non-official 'rule enforcers' would just be clowns or even bootlickers.

Even academics have to offer some guidelines on how we should behave online.

Quote Originally Posted by Terry Mohan from 'Communicating as Professionals'
... Virginia Shea, author of Netiquette, has developed ten 'Rules of ethical behaviour in using the Internet' (www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html).

1) Remember the human.
2) Adhere to the same standards of behaviour online that you follow in real life.
3) Know where you are in cyberspace.
4) Respect other people's time and bandwidth.
5) Make yourself look good online.
6) Share expert knowledge.
7) Help keep flames under control.
8) Respect other people's privacy.
9) Don't abuse your power.
10) Be forgiving of other people's mistakes.

We would like to add an eleventh and twelfth:

11) Be just as careful in cyberspace as you would be in a foreign country
12) Don't be a yobbo in cyberspace! ...
To be frank when I read this portion of the text, I have to say that I myself is no angel. I have flout most of these 'Rules of ethical behaviour' in my ten years of Internet usage, particularly Rules 4, 5, 7, 8 and 10. How many of those rules have you broken in your entire life of Internet usage? And what incidents did you do to break them?

Damn those communication academics for making me feel guilty now.

All of us should focus our attention on Rule 2. Do we believe the same way as we are on the net as in reality? Not so sure about you dudes, but I am pretty much the same. Anime otaku and all. How about you?