Posting in online fori...

Gang -
I frequent a number of online fori. I also pillage around online doing a great deal of research. I've noted a few things...

1) "Text-talk." Guys, please ditch the silly abbreviations! Most online bulletin boards don't have limits on text - if they do, it's usually something silly like 60Kchars, and most people won't hit those (except perhaps me - I do tend toward verbosity at times.) Those asinine abbreviations may go down fine with your high school buddies when you're texting, but they make your prose online more difficult to read, not less. There is a time and a place for such things, please learn the difference.

2) Grammar. When you're online, how you write is a reflection of who you are. The printed word - generated by you - will be all that your boardmates will have to know you by. Make that image a good one, hm? Learning to construct a proper sentence goes a long way toward respect online.

3) Punctuation/capitalisation. just try reading sentences where ideas run together and that aren't separated visibly by periods and capital letters. maybe a period every now and then. but ideas running together is a problem. (If you're at all like me, that was the most difficult part of this posting to read. Hell, I had a hard time writing it!) You get the idea. Break sentences down so that each one contains a single idea. If you have to take a breath reading it aloud, it's too long. The periods, commas, and other punctuation characters are visual cues toward organising information. Capitalisation serves to show proper nouns and where sentences start.

4) Spelling. This is a huge one with me - moreso even than "text talk!" Try to spell properly, especially on any sort of technical board. Why? Because chances are, someone else is going to have the same problem you had. The "old hands" on the board are going to say something along the lines of, "Search, n00b!" Some are fairly decent about it, others are not.
- But, the call to, "Search, n00b!" usually goes out because someone can remember having answered that very question a fortnight ago, and I know I dislike repeating myself. If you didn't find it when you searched, there are two primary reasons why this would be so:
A) You didn't enter the proper search paramters. Don't give up the first time - be creative with your searching.
B) Critical terms in the post were spelled wrong.
- Conversely, don't get insulted when I put a few words in brackets (<>) at the end of my answer - they're seach strings, meant to help the next guy that comes along. If you see words like that, you may want to learn how they're spelt so you can spell them properly next time. Honest, I'm not trying to be insulting!

5) Profanity. Some fori allow it, others do not. If a forum does not allow profanity, don't go crying about your "First Amendment Rights" - it's a privately-owned forum, and that goes give them the right to maintain an atmosphere of their choosing. "Free speech" isn't about profanity anyhow - primarily, it's about having the right to speak out against the government, if/when you find it necessary. It's about being able to hold differing opinions from the mainstream.
- But, it's not about having the ability to spout off profanity whenever you feel like it. So get over it. I'm a moderator on some of these boards - while I may not personally care for the decision being taken, it's not mine to reverse. "A man sometimes has to do something in his official capacity that he would not normally do as a private citizen."

6) Arguments. I enjoy a spirited debate, so just the fact of arguing isn't at question here. What I do have a problem with is anything like:

• Childish attacks disguised as logical arguments
• Reductio ad absurdium assaults on logic (an "assault on logic" in general - reductio ad absurdium isn't a properly logical argument technique, even if it is using what would be considere the "logical conclusion" of the point being made.)
• Singling out one point you find distasteful, and assaulting that to the exclusion of all else.
• Argumentum ad hominem - if you don't like a conclusion of mine, work on the conclusion to convince me to change it. Don't attack me personally, since that will usually have the opposite effect of the one intended.
• Know something about the subject - if you don't know anything about the position you're trying to take, how can you be qualified to hold and/or defend it? Faith-orientated debates are particularly guilty of this - I'll sit there and tear you apart if you don't try to defend yourself in a practical manner. "Just because" hasn't worked as a reason for anything on me since I was six - and it's certainly not going to work know. "Faith" != "Knowledge". On other topics, if you don't know anything about it you aren't entitled to hold an opinion. I would be out of my depth rapidly in a debate on high-energy or particle physics, so I don't debate those topics. I don't know enough to hold an opinion. I can debate gun control and self-defence rights all day long - I know plenty about those.

These little guidelines aren't hard, but they will help you considerably when you're online. You don't want to go around wilfully looking like an idiot, do you?