earthshyne
Senior Don Juan
Making an Effective Post
In my relatively short time posting here (though I’ve been lurking for a while), I’ve seen good posts, excellent posts, mediocre posts and downright bad posts. So, in my usual patronizing and pedantic style, I offer to you, free of charge:
Earthshyne’s Guide to Effective Posting
In my relatively short time posting here (though I’ve been lurking for a while), I’ve seen good posts, excellent posts, mediocre posts and downright bad posts. So, in my usual patronizing and pedantic style, I offer to you, free of charge:
Earthshyne’s Guide to Effective Posting
- Search, search, search: There are tens of thousands of posts on thousands of different topics. Before you start a new thread, do a quick search to see if your questions have already been examined. The fine folks hosting this website actually have to pay for bandwidth usage, and multiple posts on identical topics are bound to get deleted, so save yourself and them some hassle and use the search function. If you’re not sure how to use it, contact a mod or RTFM (Read the Friggin’ Manual);
- Spell check: Effective posts are spelled properly. Pretty self explanatory;
- Learn the Difference Between “You’re”and “Your”: The contraction “you’re” is simply a shortening of the two words “you” and “are”. The word “your” is possessive; that is, it relates to the ownership of possession of an item or trait that you have. The phrase, “Your nuts” refers to the nuts that are in your possession. The phrase, “You’re nuts” means that you think the person is nuts (“You are nuts”). This is grade 8 grammar, folks. If you haven’t mastered it yet, learn. Otherwise, people will have a hard time taking your writing seriously. Yes, really;
- Punctuate: Some thread sentences go on and on and on and on and what was started in the thread has no relation to how the sentence ends so learn where to put commas and periods and colons and semicolons and dashes and other peculiarities of the English language before spending a lot of time writing out stream of consciousness sentences which are good fun and you can learn a lot from them but they are very hard to read even though you know what it means no one else will. Capice?;
- Avoid the slammer (exclamation point): Slammers (!) are for comic books. If you must create emphasis, use bolding or italicizing instead. If you’re not sure how, there’s a link at the bottom of the page which shows you how to bold, italicize, underline, etc.;
- Humour: What may be a joke or a light-hearted jab at someone in person can easily be misinterpreted online. You don’t have to be deadly earnest in everything you post, of course, but if you’re going to use humour, keep it gentle;
- There is no place, including here, for hate: Racial or ethnic slurs say more about the poster than the intended target. Take the hate someplace else, it's not wanted here;
- Citing sources: If you are making an argument about something, just saying so does not make it so. Back up your argument, and provide a link if possible. “I wish I was taller, because tall men get more women http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1175/is_3_33/ai_62215068. But I can’t change my height. How does a short guy like me get more success with women?”;
- This is NOT the place to discuss suicide or self-harm: If this is an issue for you, call a crisis centre. See your doctor. Other readers and posters (largely, anyway) are not trained to deal with these situations, and your life is too important to trust non-professionals;
- Limit your time: This isn’t about posts per se, but it is about the fact that the more time you spend online (or in front of the TV or the video game or whatever) means less time beyond the walls of your place meeting some beautiful, sensual and wonderful women. Just as you won’t get rich thinking about it, you won’t find women if you’re in the house all day.
