What is forum etiquette?

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Chezzie
Posts: 14615
Joined: Sun Nov 11, 2007 9:41 am

What is forum etiquette?

Post by Chezzie »

What is forum etiquette?



One of the staunchest rules of forum etiquette is not posting personal information about another poster. Posting a real name or address is considered grounds for a permanent ISP ban on most forums.

You can disagree with someone's opinions, but calling that person an idiot or a profane name is a violation of forum etiquette. Some forums are more liberal about this than others, but keeping it civil is never the wrong thing to do. Posting the same thing over and over again is called scrolling, and is also a banning offense. It is annoying in the extreme and uses up bandwidth, which someone is paying for. It is entirely unnecessary and makes the poster look immature and childish.

Trolls are always in flagrant violation of forum etiquette and enjoy disturbing the peace at any forum where they post. Trolls tend to scroll, call names, gossip about other posters, post things that are deliberately provocative and usually that violate the forum's rules about posting. Most moderators hasten to get them banned as soon as possible, but they can sometimes do a lot of damage before this happens.

Another violation of forum etiquette is posting in ALL CAPS. This is considered shouting and is very rude, in addition to being hard on the eyes. Something may be in caps for emphasis (e.g. I did NOT want to go!), but no post should be entirely in all caps.

Flaming, or deliberate insults or personal rants, is also against forum etiquette. Flaming is often employed by people who are losing arguments on a forum. Their response is to personally insult the poster disagreeing with them, usually in a long, nasty post.

This kind of behavior is why so many forums have a list of posting rules and consequences for breaking them. Some may say this behavior is more prominent among immature teens, but that is in no way the case. Many of the worst offenders are adults who should know better. The veil of anonymity seems to bring out the worst in these people, and any bullying tendencies they have tend to become magnified in the semi-protection of an anonymous forum.

Thread ownership or lack of. Once a forum member posts a topic on a forum, it no longer belongs to them but to the forum administration. No single member has any grounds to decide who posts in their thread and as long as they stay on topic, they are sticking to forum etiquette...Many forum members wrongly believe that they have the right to decide who posts in their threads and also what they post..Wrong! If you dont want people to have an opinion on a topic you posted whether you agree with it or not, dont join a forum!:D
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Raven
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Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 5:21 am

What is forum etiquette?

Post by Raven »

It seems to me, etiquette is another word for manners. Like one of my favorite movie sayings, is "You can do whatever you like, but you must not be rude. Being rude is being weak!" :-2
~Quoth the Raven, Nevermore!~
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