- All capital letters: One of the oldest and most commonly-cited fundamentals of Internet etiquette. Typing in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS is universally considered as rude, and the equivalent of shouting. It also makes your text much harder to read, and most likely to be skipped over and ignored.
- Read The Forums First: 'Lurking' is a term that describes reading and getting a feel for the organization and expectations of any online group or community before beginning to ask questions and make your own contributions. This ensures that the most common newbie etiquette mistakes and faux pas will be avoided once you begin posting. Read the forums, review the forum rules and/or FAQs, read the announcements and sticky posts (important posts that are pinned to the top of revelvant forum sections), etc., before you dive in.
- Search before you post: Another common mistake is making new threads or asking questions that are covered repeatedly in previous threads, sometimes on a daily or weekly basis. By browsing and searching the relevant parts of the forum, you'll often find clever and well-researched answers to your questions that already exist on the forum. Although most members on JWR are willing and anxious to be helpful to newcomers, expecting members to repeat this information for your benefit, without doing any looking of your own, is rude. Not everyone has the time to repeat in-depth discussions every time a new person logs on. This forum represents years of discussion, research, and sharing of information; take advantage of that by looking up older posts.
- Post an introduction: It is customary for new members to post an introduction in the Introduce Yourself section, and tell us a little bit of your personal story.
- Ignore spam: Occasionally, a spammer gets through the security measures and posts spam (unsolicited advertisements) on the forum. Do not reply to these posts, as spammers are almost always automated scripts with no human intervention. Additionally, your reply will only contribute to the work needed in order to clean up the spam, and will just be deleted. Instead, use the forum's reporting feature (the '!' icon at the top of every post) to alert the moderators to the post.
- Using proper paragraphs: Organizing your thoughts into proper paragraphs is fundamental to readability. The same principle that applies to all printed text (books, magazines, newspaper, articles, etc) is applicable to communication on the Internet as well. A longer post consisting of a single unbreaking paragraph ('word salad' or 'wall of text') is very difficult to follow and is likely to be quickly skimmed or skipped altogether.
- Proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation: We're all guilty of violating this from time to time, but using proper grammar and spelling is always helpful and appreciated. It increases legibility and even helps to lend credibility to your posts. All modern web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc) have automatic spell-checkers built in. Leaving out punctuation can be confusing and frustrating to readers. If you don't have much experience with writing, posting on a forum is a good time to start practicing.
- Excessive Quoting: It is considered rude to quote someone else's entire post, or a long string of posts, only to make a small comment in reply. Instead, quote only small, relevant portions of a post (such as a single sentence or small paragraph), and reply to each section in a succinct point-by-point fashion.
- Avoid Thread Hijacking: Getting off-topic in a discussion thread is called thread hijacking, and is usually considered to be rude and disruptive. If your line of thought begins to deviate significantly from the original purpose or topic of the thread, then it is better to create a new thread of your own to discuss those points.
- Post under the proper category: All forums, including JWR, are segmented and organized by category of discussion. Before posting, always take a moment to review the available categories and make sure your post is placed in the correct area. Otherwise, your post may have to be relocated by a forum moderator.
- Keep ongoing discussions to a single thread: If you need to repeatedly post about a particular ongoing problem, topic, or question, keep your posts confined to a single thread. This will keep the discussion organized and easier to locate, make less work for the moderators, and will help avoid clogging the forums with repetitive material, which is difficult for others to understand and follow.
- Follow the forum rules: Understanding and following the forum rules will help you to avoid making any mistakes that will upset and offend other users, or force the staff to place posting restrictions on your account.
Following these basic etiquette guidelines will help you get the most out of your experience on this forum and elsewhere.
