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Listen. I understand that for some people- this is still a fairly new means of communication, but we really need to set some ground rules here.

1. DO NOT send a message saying “yt”, which for the uninitiated means “Are you there?” , and then immediately walk away from your computer. If you are asking if someone is there, give them a minute or two to respond before leaving your computer. This behavior is amazingly discourteous.
2. DO use an instant messenger progran that keeps a history of past chats. I do not wish to re-hash something we have already discussed or “send you that link agan” because you are using an application that doesnt save our previous conversations. Trillian and Skype are both free and both save chat history.
3. DO NOT type in some crazy ALL CAPS, gigantic, tiny, or otherwise unreadable font. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. It does not make for a pleasureable chatting experience.
4. DO NOT invent and use acronyms as if everyone should know aht you’re talking about. ykwya (you know who you are)
5. DO NOT ask “how are you?” at the beginning of every IM conversation. This is especially true when you have already talked earlier in the day and no one has died since then. You didn’t really care the first time you asked, but that was ok. Asking every single time is just a waste of time for everyone involved.

There it is. Short and sweet so you can commit them to memory. Make sure you tell all your dumb friends so the world can be a better place.