h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Communications Etiquette - A74227854
Author: Tiggy - U14386849

Bit of a rant. Inspired by a conversation thread.

Sorry I'm too busy to talk now. I'll post later.

Looks great... as I mentioned on the thread which inspired it, I shall be printing this off an including a copy of it with each Christmas card I send out this year

One thing, would it 'look better', were you to have the sections where they're 'quotes' (like peoples speech, or the answer phone message etc), starting on a new line in its own paragraph for each? Just to me it'd seem to help seperate out those bits from the main body of the articles text Didn't notice any obvious mistakes and it read well as I went through it from start to finish and it all seemed to read smoothly with no having to double read any bits that didn't make sense on first read

Hi Tiggy. I liked this a lot. I don't think it is a rant, more a lesson in common courtesey and etiquette.


BMT Scout

It does seem OK in all aspects, considering you wrote it so quickly, too - well done!!

Perhaps the title could be a little more exact - it is only about Communications by telephone - not about written or person-to-person communications.

Title needs changing to Mobile Phone Etiquette.

Can't I leave formatting it to someone else?

Hi Tiggy

you ask if you can leave the 'formatting' to someone else, I am guessing that you mean can you ask a sub-ed to put it into GuideML. The answer of course, would be yes - as you are a new author to PR.

However, you should make any edits that are suggested here (as long as they are reasonable and you agree with them that is)


My primary thought on reading this is that sometimes emergency calls and texts *are* sent ( for instance on the death of a relative or a serious accident) It would be callous to ignore such calls. So maybe you should ask for the sender/caller to use common sense? Rather than the recipient just plain ignoring all incoming messages and calls.

An example of this is when someone sends one of those annoying forwarded jokes at 6.30 in the morning. There is no excuse for this sort of texts.

Title changed, some more formatting done.

Re: emergency texts. I'm not a doctor, or a fireman, or a policeman.

I can't think of ANY situation where it matters when I find out about it, plus or minus three hours. The mobile phone allows me to find out about it RIGHT NOW, but does it matter, even a little bit, if I don't find out until later?

Furthermore, I don't think I've said one should IGNORE messages, necessarily. Just that one need not feel the urgent need to REPLY to them instantly, and, crucially, nor should one expect instant replies to one's own messages. I think I'll make that more explicit. Thanks.

Nice entry

I think some of the points near the end apply to all telephone calls not just mobiles.

There's a few other ones I can think if:

- don't assume that because someone owns a mobile that they will want to have a conversation with you on it. Many people own prepay mobiles so they can txt and don't have enough credit on their phone to call you.

- if you own a mobile but no landline, please bear in mind that people who make phone calls on landlines are paying good money if they have to phone you. Because of the cost often people consider mobiles as a way of touching base rather than having the full discussion about something. Don't expect other people to pay for the call when you want to talk with them.

Agree about 'emergency phonecalls', I always turn my mobile off at night, and I've before had people say 'but what if there's an emergency'....
The most serious emergency I can think of would be a relative ill or having died; I can't see what good finding out about this at 4 AM, when I'm not going to be able to do anything about it (like travel etc), so, finding out when I'm up in the morning wouldn't be any less useful..

F2875549?thread=7755726&post=100711684#p100711684

I can see I posted this point today in the wrong thread.

So you don't have to follow the link if you don't want. I have wondered for years why they can't just build a wire mesh (aka a Faraday cage) into the passenger sections of public transport vehicles' bodywork so that mobile phones simply can't pick up a signal whilst onboard. Tricky on old rollingstock/vehicles, but easy on new ones I'mthinking...
One could easily install a public payphone in carriages of trains for those who really can't contain themselves.

Some updates.

Deliberately interfering with mobile communications is illegal. Not sure if that applies to deliberately building a vehicle so the things don't work inside it...

Regarding the last points: you could add that if you see someone speaking on a phone, then you shouldn't start a conversation with him. Really, it has happened to me before and it's almost as annoying as it is baffling. Not to mention rude towards the person at the other end of the line, who cannot speak as loudly.

In the spirit of rule 14: I guess that offering tea using an obvious gesture could be acceptable.

Oops, apologies for post 14 in a PR thread, wrong thread again...

As you say though, a Faraday cage is not affecting the phone signal itself - otherwise lifts are illegal.

post 10 I mean.

Ooh, good point, toybox, that's going in.

One addition I would make to an otherwise excellent article by the way is this one:

If you really _do_ manage to forget to silence or turn off your phone in a situation where it should be off/silent (e.g. in the theatre, at a wedding/funeral etc - and we all do forget occasionally) and it goes off then, in addition to not answering, TURN IT OFF NOW! Don't wait for it to ring AGAIN and interrupt proceedings a second time. Once is just about forgiveable, twice should be punished by being repeatedly thwacked with a dead haddock.

Really I've known this happen on more than one occasion.

Excellent entry... Sorry, but I just have to ask...

What's the shrimp joke?

I could post it, but it would get removed.

I'll post the first line and the punchline.

There were these two guys who worked in a mortuary.
...
"Oh," said the first one, "well, it tasted of shrimp."

>The most serious emergency I can think of would be a relative ill or having died; I can't see what good finding out about this at 4 AM, when I'm not going to be able to do anything about it (like travel etc), so, finding out when I'm up in the morning wouldn't be any less useful.. erm<

How about, '2legs! The building's on fire and the fire alarms are out...'?
That might be useful to know at 4 am...

I have actually break the very bad news of a relative's sudden death, and in one case the daughter steadfastly refused to answer her phone, for nearly 48 hours, or respond to urgent texts because of her belief in her right to only talk to anyone when *she* felt like it. In the end we had to track down a flat mate to insist we spoke to her. We couldn't knock on her door - we were thousands of miles away.

Obviously there was no suggestion that we rang her in the middle of the night.


My point is that there should be a caveat in this entry that suggests that there are occasional phone calls that should be treated with respect and answered appropriately. It would make it more balanced in my opinion.

Lanzababy Scout