Read First! Guidelines To Good Posting

As posted by Lord Zlob on The Pyramid Vault


How to type properly and not single yourself out as a mentally incapable individual:

The main reason you should follow the Golden Tips of Posting is that everyone enjoys reading an attractive, well thought out post.

These aren't hard and fast - Just general guidelines of what is considered good practice across the Internet and throughout the world. Use them wisely.

Tip 1 - Do not type in l33t, text message speak or any derivative thereof. It just looks stupid.

Tip 2 - Do not use numbers, or single letters in the place of real words. Eg: "I am going to" should not be typed as "I m going 2" or "I am going to be good" should not be typed as "I m going 2 b good."

Tip 3 - Capital letters go at the start of every sentence and every time you type "I" by itself, and in conjunctions thereof. (I, I'm, I've etc.) Capital letters are also used at the start of proper nouns, names, places and things. (England, Lizardmen, Chaos)

Tip 4 - Do not type in one solid block of text. It is difficult to read. Use the return/enter key to insert paragraphs, it makes posts more attractive, look longer, and people may actually read them without suffering a seizure. Headers and subject lines are a good idea also.

Tip 5 - If you're unsure how a word is spelled, copy and paste it into word and run spell check. If it's a GW oriented word, or one unlikely to be in the dictionary, check reference material.

Tip 6 - Spell things out. Do not post shortcuts other than commonly accepted truncations. (Like Etc for 'Etcetera') For instance: The word "People" is spelled P-E-O-P-L-E. NOT "ppl."

Tip 7 - Do not drag out words: use Bold, Underline or Italics to make a point rather than adding extra letters to words. (E.g. - No Waaaaaaaaaaaaay!!) It instigates the "Horizontal Scrollbar of Doom", which is annoying and evil and makes me sad

Tip 8 - Don't quote really long posts and just add a smiley or a single word reply. That is spam. Only ever quote the relevant part of a post, and reply to it.

Tip 9 - Use inventive thread titles. They should still however, indicate the main content of the thread. Make sure you apply the same rules to them as to your posts, correct spelling etc. (Note - vB Code DOES NOT work in titles)

Tip 10 -Use the smiley faces provided. Not ones like o_o. They just look out of place and make most people look down on you as a newbie. And most don't convey any real emotion.

Tip 11 - A and An go in front of different words. They are NOT interchangeable. If a word begins in a vowel, (A, E, I, O, or U) "An" goes in front. ('An Eldar') If it begins in a consonant (Everything else) "A" goes in front ('A Space Marine')

Tip 12 - Although you can quote a post directly with the appropriate button, bear in mind that you will have to post your response either entirely seperately from what your quoting, or inside the quote box. If the latter, it is hard to tell what's quote and what's response. Use the [ b] and [ /b] tags to make your comments stand out. Alternatively, make a normal reply and use the [ quote] [ /quote] tags to show the quote, and respond beneath. Then quote the next bit, respond, and so on.

Well thought out posts are more difficult to guideline. Read through your post before you click 'Submit' and make sure that someone's not going to think "What an idiot." or "What a newbie." Then and only then can you truly say you can post above a Games Workshop Forum level...

One thing that really needs to be brought up is the topic of Homophones (or homonyms). These are words that sound alike when spoken but are in fact totally different words complete with different spelling and different usage. Here is an example:

their- belonging to them
there- a place
they're- contraction of "they are"

This is probably the biggest infraction of proper english I see on the site. If you're not sure of which form to use, check out this List of Homonyms to see if it offers any help. There are many more like it out there as well.

I will go around and phantom edit posts that I see with homophone infractions. If I see it a lot from a member or flagrant use of the wrong word at the wrong time, please don't be offended, but I'm going to PM you the above link and ask that you fix your post yourself.

The only little problem is that my computer, much to my dissapointment, has Linux instead of Windows, and instead of word they have something called OpenOffice, and it's spellcheck is not reliable.

A simple Google search will suffice. It generally corrects mispelled words, and if not, you can go to dictionary.com.

Or, you could you use the amazing new invention that I have christened......"The DICTIONARY!"

These are so nice - would you mind me posting them on other boards? (with due credit)

-Gary N

Not at all. I'd love the see the quality of posts go up across the board. (Board in a figurative sense here, not just this board)

Indeed, I would encourage you to pass them around. Any site/forum/messageboard/blog can benefit from these guidelines.

I am in complete agreement with the original post of this thread. I've worked in human resources for a few years, and I'm also an employer. How do I sort through hundreds of applications? I weed out the illiterate. Anyone who cannot coherently and legibly express themselves does not get a call back. Those applications go in the trash.

Shawn G.

http://gprime.net/flash.php/postingandyou

Some good advice on how to post!

Its been ages since ive seen that!
Good memories

Azel