Forum Etiquette and the need for it
How to Be a Good Forum Participant: A Guide to Web Forum Netiquette
Good internet etiquette -- also known as "netiquette" -- will help
keep forums free of conflict, arguments and other pettiness that can
drive internet users away from reading or posting on the forum.
Consider the following internet forum guidelines for etiquette.
- Avoid typing in all caps or all bold, as this is the equivalent to yelling on an internet forum.
- Avoid posting extremely long forum posts on a regular basis.
- Read
all of the posts in the thread before posting on the internet forum.
This will help forum participants avoid repeating points that have
already been discussed in depth.
- Do not "hijack" forum threads.
Stay on topic and avoid directing the thread away from the current line
of conversation, particularly if the original poster is seeking an
answer to a question. If you'd like to discuss a different issue or
problem, it's best to start a new thread on the forum.
- Avoid
derogatory remarks about fellow forum participants; if a forum
participant has a problem that they'd like to address with another
individual, it's best to discuss the issue off-forum rather than in a
more public forum setting.
- When posting on a professional
forum, like a forum for writers of a website, it's best to avoid
derogatory remarks about the website, website staff, etc. Remember,
there's a fine line between constructive and non-constructive criticism
in many cases, and those lines can be blurred on the web due to the
absence of indicators like tone of voice, facial expressions, etc.
- Remember
your audience. Who's reading the web forum? It's important to keep this
in mind when making forum posts, as some forum discussions may be
inappropriate depending on the forum audience.
- Use emoticons
and other symbols to indicate tone. When posting on an internet forum,
there is an absence of indicators that help one to decipher tone and
the forum poster's intention. In the absence of valuable voice tone,
body language, facial expressions and other social cues, emoticons and
symbols (smiley face, or "*smile*") can help make tone and intention
clear to other forum participants.
More Tips to Avoid Conflict on Web Forums and to Maintain Good Netiquette
For web writers and other virtual employees/contractors, it's
important to view the website's forum as a workplace and to keep proper
office etiquette in mind. Making a post on a forum is like standing
atop a desk one's office and making an announcement to fellow
employees, supervisors/management and the company owners.
When considering whether a comment or remark is appropriate for a
forum, it can be helpful to ask oneself, "Is this something I would say
standing atop my desk, with my boss, co-workers, customers and company
owner looking on?"
In a professional forum setting, it's also best to limit forum posts
of a personal nature, whereas on other forums, personal remarks may be
invited and welcome.
In the end, good forum etiquette will vary depending on the type of
forum and purpose of the forum. By following the forum guidelines and
basic forum and web etiquette, forum participants can enjoy effective
and enjoyable exchanges on an internet forum.
The forums are getting absurdly difficult to deal with. The fact that Dolphin has been released there are a new influx of users on the forum. we are getting thread topics such as 2 questions , search options, and all kinds of non-descriptives, and these users have no idea that there is something wrong with doing that.
I have constant battles with people who ask incomplete sentences in real life, and much more difficult is it to deal with on the internet.
if you have 2 questions, use one of those questions in a descriptive format for your thread title. if you are looking for customization help, ask descriptively how to customize search options. if your RMS dont work, search the forums, im sure you will find 1001million others that have posted the exact same thing. CRON jobs not working search the forums. videos not upload, search the forums.
the questions that have been asked over a four day period i bet you can count on one hand the actual different subject lines and of those few rare questions that were asked that could be answered they were answered promptly.
there are others using this forum for a server support arena. if you have issues with your server setup and configuration, submit a ticket to your hosting service provider.
i am not posting any of this to be mean or hateful or to put off any of the newcomers. this needs to be iterated and understood. that there are rules and netiquette that needs to be followed across the internet in order to maintain some civilization about the whole entity.
suppose i call you on the phone and i say, this house, would you understand exactly which house i was speaking of, no, and then if we used three-way calling and called some other random number from the phone book, and as the person answered, we would both say 'this house'. would this next person know just from those simplistic words, exactly what we were needing?
no, so how is it that you can post on a forum words such as 2 questions, or search options? and truly expect to get the answer you are looking for.
Regards,
DosDawg
Oh yeah... I forget now. Maybe it'll come to ME LATER! LOL
Then again, on a proper forum software "netiquette" is much easier to enforce, but it seems that will never happen here.
PS Still no live links on blog comments? Unity does look "prettier", though.
Stop beginning your thread titles with words like 'Urgent!' or 'Emergency'
Stop entering one word posts like 'bump' every 10 minutes
it took me some time, but once one learns to search the forums, most answers do lay there......other times, simply some of us can not find the answer or the suggestions did not work correctly. the work you guys do there is very helpfull and very appreciated!
as a see more
Actually, some of them ARE that illiterate, or at least they appear to be.
your help in this matter is greatly appreciated.
Regards,
DosDawg