From this entry on Interconnected I found 14 Principles of Polite Apps.

Some of the ideas are interesting, though difficult to implement, but I think that the article is marred by remarks like Call a nerd Mike when he calls himself Michael and he likely won't answer, because you couldn't possibly be referring to him. and a general dismissal of the ability of programmers to design and implement usable software. The people I work with try very hard to make usable/polite software, but that's only one of the things our software has to be. Sometimes it comes down to having to trade off functionality against usability/politeness, especially when a function is first introduced.

Finally, one principle in particular. Polite Software Has Common Sense. I'm sure the author can't really mean common sense. That's one of the most difficult things for a program to exhibit. You can write programs that are experts in deciding where to drill oil wells but "common sense" is much harder than that.