The Do's |
Do write in complete sentences. |
For the most part, attempt to use correct spelling, grammar and
punctuation; it really makes it much easier for the rest of the world
to understand your point that way.
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Do use, but don't overuse, emoticons. |
Emoticons are smiley faces, sad faces, etc, like this :) or :>
or :-) and countless other variants. They are useful to emphasize your
tone, whether it's serious or not. Sarcasm and fine shades of meaning
are often lost without some emoticons, and many a misunderstanding has
arisen from people missing someone's tone of voice.
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Do quote the post you're responding to. |
Although you may know exactly what you're talking about, if you
fail to include the post you're answering, others will gawk at your
post in confusion. It makes your post much easier to understand if you
take the trouble to include the sections of the message you're
responding to.
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Do watch your tone. |
Sexuality is typically a touchy subject for many people, and
it's easy to get entangled in a wholly personal disagreement with
someone. Try to keep your head about you and keep a respectful tone in
your arguments. It's a slippery slope from one semi-joking personal
jab at your opponent into a monstrous flame war complete with
personal insults.
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Do take offtopic discussions off the newsgroup. |
We realize that many discussions meander off the topic of
sexuality, which is normal and to be expected, since sexuality touches
on so many other fields and areas of interest. Some meandering,
therefore, is acceptable. If you find that your topic has wandered
from, let's say, the topic of sexual assault to constitutional rights
and especially if it's degenerating into a flame war, please
exercise self-monitoring and take it to another medium and ask your
opponent to do the same. The newsgroup will thank you for it.
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The Don'ts |
Do not post something that's shorter than your signature.
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Another way to look at this is to trim your signature ;) There will
be instances when your post will just be short and sweet and to
the point, and that's fine. In general, though, attempt to give more
meat to your post than to your signature.
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Do not post one-liners. |
We know this is inevitable, and sometimes even warranted. For the
most part, though, try to frame your question or your comment with
some dialogue or personal statement. If you're asking a question, or
posting a reply, one-liners are always suspect of being trolls, as
opposed to longer messages which reveal something of the poster's
reasoning.
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Do not post HTML. |
While many people now use their browsers to read newsgroups, there
are still many out there who use text-based newsreaders. To
these folk, your message will come through as a jumble of HTML
tags. Many news servers refuse to propagate HTML messages for this
reason, so if you post using HTML, some people may not see your
message at all. See instructions on
disabling HTML for Usenet posting for several newsreaders.
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Do not insult people. |
Even if you vehemently disagree with someone's post, argue against
their statement, not their person.
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Do not post anything forbidden by our guidelines.
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Read the Guidelines section of this
site for a list of inappropriate topics.
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