In light of our earlier story about Scott Baio’s ill-advised Twitter joke, along with other recent Twitter-related posts, I thought it would be prudent to share a small guide offering simple suggestions on when you should and when you should not tweet about a given situation. Keep in mind, I’m only touching on a few scenarios here. If you have your own advice, please feel free to share it in the comments.

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Situation 1

You’re out with friends at a bar or restaurant and you’re getting bad service.

When Not to Tweet – At the first instance of poor service. As I wrote in a recent post on “How To Use Yelp Without Being a Jerk,” you should resist the urge to share a scathing review until you’ve had time to consider the situation objectively.

When to Tweet – After you’ve spoken with the manager about the service. There could be a good explanation for the poor service that you didn’t know about, like they were short staffed. If you raise your concerns and they are ignored, however, you are well within your rights to tweet a complaint. Just make sure that you don’t overdo it. Civility can go a long way toward fixing problems.

Situation 2

You’re in an interminably long meeting at work and you’re trying to think of ways to pass the time.

When Not to Tweet – Anytime you’re in the meeting you shouldn’t be tweeting. You may not get caught writing a tweet under the conference table, but remember that all Twitter updates are time stamped. If your manager looks over your Twitter stream and notices a series of updates at precisely the same time they were talking about the quarterly earnings report, you could find yourself packing your bags.

When to Tweet – Like I said before, when you’re not in the meeting. Seriously, unless you’re having some kind of open web event where you’re incorporating Twitter into the meeting, it’s not a good idea to tweet on the job.

Situation 3

Your spouse has gone into labor with your first child and you’re rushing to the hospital.

When not to Tweet – During the actual process of labor. Not only is it inappropriate information to share with the world, but there’s no way your spouse is going to be happy when she sees you fiddling with your iPhone instead of helping with the lamaze breating.

When to Tweet – When your healthy baby boy or girl has been successfully delivered. For maximum cuteness, you can even have a nurse Twitpic a picture of you holding the newborn. Adorable.

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Any other scenarios that you think are worth mentioning? We’d love to hear some thoughts.