Conversing intelligetly online

The internet today isn't an alternate source of communication anymore, infact it is THE communication medium for communication whether its chatting on yahoo to your friend about the movie on sunday or making a Million Dollar deal with an industry hotshot. Although no one would have thought it 10 years back but internet is an integral part of life. Conversations over the internet whether real time or not have one major difference from communication in real life, the only thing that gets over to the other side are words(Video and voice over internet may change this but its a long way off).But sadly most of the people I've met do not seem to realize the fact that the way you use your words make a deep impression on the person you are conversing to. Just as your expressions and posture are important when you converse in real life, the way you write something in an online conversation may make you gain or loose the respect of the other person. You have got to to get your listner to take you seriously and respect you to have a meaningful conversation. Unfortunately online conversations have become quite a nightmare for me where new 'slang' is invented everyday to just look 'cool' or save a few microseconds of time. To be respected you need to follow some basic stuff which can be though of good manners on the internet. Here are some things you should definately follow in conversations over the internet. Do not use all CAPS it is the web equivalent of shouting and should only be used when you really want to emphasize something. Even in that case do not capitalize more than one or two words in the sentance. Use proper capitalization. It just takes very little effort to press the shift key for a tiny fraction of time while you type the first word of your sentence."How are you?" looks much better than "how are you" in my opinion. Use proper punctuation. Always end your sentences with a period '.' or '?' if you are asking a question. Using commas in appropriate places can be a real relief for the reader. Compare "Thank you for the dinner last night, it was great." to "thank you for dinner last night it was great" and you would know what I mean. Do not repeat alphabets to represent your excitement. I see a lot of people using "hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii how are you" to represent their excitement on meeting a friend. I would ask wouldn't "Hi! how are you?" suffice? Use simple smilies and don't overuse them. "Hi :)" this shows all your emotions, you definately don't need to resort to something like "hiiiii :)))))))))" which is plain stupid. Don't overuse abbreviations. Using abbreviations like RTFM or IMHO is ok if you don't overuse them but using "u r" for "you are" or "c" for "see" is an overkill and sometimes the reader might have trouble understanding you. Don't use numbers in place of alphabets like '3' for 'E' or '1' for 'I'. IMO this is the single most irritating thing on the internet and has even earned itself a name, '1337' speak or 'leet' speak for those unaware. But the most common misuse of freedom of online conversations is cutting short words. I do not understand what purpose it serves. How much time would it take to type "Regards" instead of "regds" or does saving the time required to hit one key to make "gud", "good" give you any major benefit? Practicing what I mentioned does not take a lot of effort and no skill whatsoever, but the advantages you gain are huge in the form of respect from the people who read you.