 "Photo: Rebecca Gibson")
Rebecca Gibson Rgibson2@iusb.edu
Have you ever encountered rudeness, either accidental or deliberate, in your daily life? If you wonder how to deal with those people in your life who push your politeness buttons, who trample on the toes of your tolerance, you might relish paying a visit to etiquettehell.com.
A creation of Jeanne Hamilton, better known on the site as Ehelldame, Etiquette Hell has many parts, (dare I say circles), including an extensive database of reader submitted stories and an interactive forum where the reader can sign up with a username and contribute tales of woe and frustration for comment from other readers.
Beginning as a spin-off from a wedding planners' newsgroup in the '90s, Hamilton's declaration that there should be an etiquette hell for brides who would ask for advice and then not take it has evolved into a seething pit of polite and agreeable people.
While those adjectives may seem to not go together, even an etiquette forum can get heated and frenetic. One result of the tendency to post in the heat of the moment is "Scritzy's Coke Rule," named after one of the charter members. The rule is that if something someone posts annoys you, count to ten. If it makes you angry, count to one hundred. If it infuriates you, turn off your computer and drink a coke. You may only come back when you have cooled down.
With such topics as "What to say to friends of toxic relatives," "Making political statements-time and place?" and "The Story of the Special Snowflake and the Broken Engagement," it is easy to see how reactions can get heated, but by and large the forum is self regulatory. Moderators, including Ehelldame herself, rarely step in. They don't have to. Many long time posters, (your author included), will give gentle reminders to those posters whose language, political, religious or personal biases, or behavior edges to the wrong side of polite. After all, it is an etiquette forum.
"I love it when the light bulb goes off in someone's mind and they 'get it'. They then become the equivalent of an 'etiquette evangelist', spreading the message further and further," Hamilton wrote on the site. "The power of a web site to influence people and give them the tools to better their lives is a source of great joy."
However, to Hamilton, it is not only a joy, but a business.
"One thing I really did not grasp when I started the site was that owning and administrating a web site is just like any business," said Hamilton. "…a site that depends almost entirely on user submitted stories also has significant legal obligations to protect privacy, and honor copyrights and grants of rights. To do it right meant investing in lawyers to advise and represent me."
With a variety of products based on the E-hell theme, including those which refer to long-time readers' inside jokes, Hamilton has her work cut out for her.
As much as it may seem, Etiquette Hell is not a forum for constant bellyaching. All categories are focused on a different part of life, from "Family and Children," to "Entertaining and Hospitality," and the "Etiquette School," where ehellions go to learn to have a backbone. Each thread must be actively seeking advice on how to handle a specific etiquette problem encountered in life, or face being relegated to the "Time for a Coffee Break" category where stories are posted more for entertainment purposes. Or even worse, a "rant" might be closed or erased by a moderator. Even so, the forum becomes for its posters somewhat of a community, and users regularly post in the topic of "Ehellions Meet and Greets" where they can ask to meet IRL, (In Real Life), those people to whom the live closest, and the "I Need a Hug!" folder, where the rule about seeking to solve a problem is suspended. There is a large amount of help and love floating around on the internet, and Hamilton's website sometimes seems a distillation of that feeling.
"…my greatest satisfaction is how a web site can multiply the message to more people than I ever could have encountered offline," said Hamilton.
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