Internet forum do's and don'ts

[Silverlady]

I find all caps or no caps rather irritating, but not using periods after a sentence, abbreviating a lot of words, or just flat-out abominable misspelling, or a combination of all of the above, really should receive a mention from a moderator.

from TREVOR WHADDAYA meen yew dont laaik all CAPS or NO CAPS & abb. lotz of wudz. MI SCHPEEllings is KO and not related to the Abominable Snowman. 

[Raffine]

from TREVOR WHADDAYA meen yew dont laaik all CAPS or NO CAPS & abb. lotz of wudz. MI SCHPEEllings is KO and not related to the Abominable Snowman. 

I love that Afrikaan language. 

[ulthar]

Thread hijacking is another big no-no, or should be.

On another forum I frequent, we have one dude who chronically hijacks threads.  Someone will post a message, ten people respond on-topic, and then this guy replies an unrelated question or comment that sidetracks the discussion from what the OP posted.

He's also notorious for posting "me too, me too" type comments, typing long wordy answers to questions that have already been answered in previous posts.

He also posts incorrect information - it sounds smart and it might actually be technically correct but completely WRONG for the context.  He's pretty good at using Google and Wikipedia, but not so good at actually evaluating the info he finds on the 'Net.

In summary, if a post does not really contribute to the discussion...don't make it.  No one gets points on the Intarweb for the most words typed in useless messages in a year.

(Note: the bad movies forum is for entertainment so is FAR more open and lenient in regard to this stuff...the other forum is an informational forum where incorrect info could potentially get someone killed).

[Flick James]

People Who For Some Unknown Reason Capitalize The First Letter Of Every Word They Type In A Sentence.

Seen quite a few people do it (not here), including one guy who was a moderator of a forum. Where did this come from, Is it some kind of recognised system of writing?

Top spelling annoyances:

"loose" instead of lose. This just looks so dumb, no offence.

"then" instead of than. e.g. He was better then you.

Any variation of 'Definitely'...this word is so rarely spelled correctly, and a little bit of my soul is crushed whenever 'Definately' or 'Defanitely' decide to gatecrash the party.

How Do You Know They Weren't Typing a Title?

[Allhallowsday]

Top spelling annoyances:
"loose" instead of lose. This just looks so dumb, no offence.

My top spelling annoyance is "offence" instead of "offense".  

[Nightowl]

Don't over abbreviate. What's the point of shorting your sentences down if nobody can understand them?

[Sleepyskull]

Top spelling annoyances:
"loose" instead of lose. This just looks so dumb, no offence.

My top spelling annoyance is "offence" instead of "offense".  

I might be wrong, but I believe "offence" means the same thing as "offense", the only difference being "offence" is the British spelling.

I'm not trying to insult you AHD, I just thought it was worth mentioning. 

[Allhallowsday]

Top spelling annoyances:
"loose" instead of lose. This just looks so dumb, no offence.

My top spelling annoyance is "offence" instead of "offense".  

I might be wrong, but I believe "offence" means the same thing as "offense", the only difference being "offence" is the British spelling.

I'm not trying to insult you AHD, I just thought it was worth mentioning. 

You get an "A" as both are considered correct.     I was just trying to be funny.   

[Raffine]

I once mocked an album for having the word 'Marvellous' misspelled on the cover. I was mocked right back for not knowing that's the correct British spelling of 'Marvelous'. 

Bah! Other than Billy Crystal's Fernado, who uses the word 'marvelous' anyhow?

[The Gravekeeper]

People making multiple threads about the exact same topic/question. It doesn't take long to just check to see if the topic came up in the past few weeks; just click back a couple of pages and see. If you have the luxury of free time to post on a forum, you've got time to see if your burning question was already answered a while back.

While I'm at it, it's just good internet etiquette to haunt a forum you'd like to join for a little while so you can figure out what that particular community is like, how to avoid seriously p**sing off members, and whether or not it's a forum you'd like to join. Some online communities are extremely intolerant of anyone breaking both official and unofficial rules even if that person is brand new, after all (thankfully we seem to be a pretty tolerant and laid-back bunch).

[Jack]

Over on the video game review website, people are constantly posting "What game should I buy?"  Good grief, how in the world should I know what kind of games you like?  Don't some of them look more interesting to you than others?  Since it's a review website, and games cost $60, couldn't you at least type the names of various games into the search engine and see what kind of scores they got?  And if you're feeling really ambitious, maybe hit the "play" button on the video review?   

[ulthar]

People making multiple threads about the exact same topic/question. It doesn't take long to just check to see if the topic came up in the past few weeks; just click back a couple of pages and see. If you have the luxury of free time to post on a forum, you've got time to see if your burning question was already answered a while back.

I agree, but...

I'm a mod on another forum, and we actually merge threads that are 'repeats.'  We have a small number of topics that come up repeatedly, and it seems like everyone and their brother wants to start a topic on one or the other.  We merge these into the existing threads so all the info is in one place (this is an informational forum, so we try to keep information easily searchable).

Well, we have lost members over this.  Folks get mad because they thought that we thought they were not "important" enough to have their own thread...even though the existing thread was 10 pages and the topic THOROUGHLY discussed from many angles.

This in turn led to a rather big behind-the-scenes debate by the mods about what to do and what is 'right.'  There's no easy answer.  Fragment the info, and no one can ever find all of what they need.  Merge threads and what seems like about 20% get angry because the thread is too long to read, etc.  We've batted around just about every conceivable solution to this and there is NO answer that satisfies everyone.

Ah, the sociology of Internet forums...

As for do's  and don'ts though, we do have a clearly stated rule to Search First, post in an existing thread if there is one, start a new thread only if it is really a new topic, so any action taken by the mods is justified withing the frame of that forum.  The issue, and what I find personally remarkable, is that so many people REALLY dislike this rule, and it's not always "they are too lazy to search."

[Jack]

This is an actual quote from a guy on another site:

tha would be awesum. if htey redesign wut do uthnk there actualy gona do with it

For chrissakes, if I lost both hands in an industrial accident I'd still be able to type better than that with my stumps!

[Trevor]

This is an actual quote from a guy on another site:

tha would be awesum. if htey redesign wut do uthnk there actualy gona do with it

For chrissakes, if I lost both hands in an industrial accident I'd still be able to type better than that with my stumps!