*thread etiquette...?*

[wildsweetone]

just felt like putting my oar in here...
this is simply my own opinion

i've noticed several times now that there is a tendency to be fairly general in a first post of a new thread in the Authors' Hangout. (i've done the same thing myself)

i think it would be a fairly prudent opportunity to make a suggestion that people who wish to begin a new thread are willing to be as specific as they can, and should also to be willing to answer a myriad of questions.

as authors we all have advice and opinions, and when asked we LOVE to have the chance to voice them. the mere fact that no two of us are clones (at least i think we're not ) means that the answers and opinions are going to be extremely diverse.

firstly i think that if we are willing to open a thread, then we are therefore willing to be open to any comment which another person may post.

i also would expect people to remain respectful and courteous to each other.

secondly, having said the above, this is an open forum. anybody can say anything to anyone.

for goodness sake, IT'S NOT DIFFICULT TO USE THE SMILEY FACES SOMETIMES!!!!

okay thats the end of my humble opinion

have a wonderful day

 

[KillerMuffin]

I think that's a wonderful opinion. <-- smilie face.




I think people should also know what the rules are here.

1. No spamming (shameless plugs are okay)
2. No child porno (we knew that Muff, shut up already.)
3. No physical threats.
4. No posting of another user's personal information. Even if that user signs all of his or her posts with her first name, you aren't allowed to use his or her first name. They can edit their own posts, they can't edit yours.

 

[Ulyssa]

Another rule.

1. No spamming (shameless plugs are okay)

You are so cute,KM!

No expecting quick replies from nursing mothers who must type with one hand while manipulating a squirming mass of flesh with the other.

Geez, I think I just set myself up.

 

[wildsweetone]

that took me back a few years

Congratulations Ulyssa, I hope mother and 'squirming mass of flesh' are both happy and well

enjoy

 

[its Leslie]

I am quite active in numerous forms on topics that wander across all possible topic ranges on numerous sites.

One thing I have noticed, is the common thread only requires one comment that inspires one individual to respond to get a thread "happening".
Most of the time the "one comment" isn't even related to the purpose of the thread in the first place.
But that is the nature of normal human discourse.

I tend to shy away from threads by people that would be lame debaters in person as well. Some people just lack the ability to oppose an opinion with an actual counter opinion. Saying a person is "full of it" does not constitute a rebutal normally.

I have in plenty of cases, started off thinking one way and then changed my slant if the person can convince me that my view wasn't worth supporting.

I tend to be harsh when attacked, but will usually only fire up the artillery when given sufficient encouragement.
Generally though, I never support being outright hostile on a forum (it only makes me look bad in full view of the world).

And that is it in a nutshell. There are no private arguments here on the board if the messages are posted in the open.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

I've always been a firm believer is beginning most of my "pearls of wisdom" with IMHO (in my humble opinion). It reminds both the reader and me that I'm just a humble, yet-to-be-published novelist and, as such, my opinions about anything having to do with writing should be taken with a huge quantity of salt.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[wildsweetone]

yes i agree Leslie, it doesn't take much to spark a person into commenting on one aspect in a thread and sending the thread awol. it can enliven a discussion no end.

It can be hellishingly frustrating to the person who initiated the thread, however there's no reason why that person can't bring the thread back on track if they so wish.

problems occur when one person can't see the 'tone' in someone elses post. thus my suggestion for getting people to actually use the smiley faces... in actual fact, once you get used to them, they're easy as pie to scatter sparingly. the beauty of them is they can take the unexpected 'sting' out of a posting.

problems also occur when a question or comment is misunderstood. it would be a good idea for the original poster to ask more questions at that point in order to clarify comments.

yes Rumple, i like and do use the expression 'in my humble opinion' a lot. that gives the reader the knowledge that they're free to find and use anybody elses opinion at any point too. i am not God and i am wrong sometimes. but also, i am just me. often others have way more intelligent comments to make.

i tend to give away free buckets of salt with my opinions (occasionally i forget though). i'm thinking of getting shares in the Salt Mine down in the South Island.

i think generally, if we keep openminded and we keep commenting and asking questions, we're a pretty useful bunch of people. maybe some of us are 'hack-writers', but we are still human beings, and as such, are still capable of 'grown-up' discussions i think.

 

[its Leslie]

What irks me most while reading posts (and I guess even more so here cause we are all writers), is the use of "non words".

IMHO is a useful tool to be sure. But a smiley is superior. Its hard to mistake a smiley, and I reeeeeeeeeally get annoyed trying to remember that IMHO means "in my humble opinion".

I hate those lazy letter combo words intensely. I don't have time to keep up on all the latest ones.

And as this is a writers forum they are even more vexing, as most that use those things online are normally people with atrocious literary skills in the first place. So, you would think a writer would not require them. Or have we all just become lazy?

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

"IMHO is a useful tool to be sure. But a smiley is superior."

ILHO (its Leslie's humble opinion)

"And as this is a writers forum they are even more vexing, as most that use those things online are normally people with atrocious literary skills in the first place."

ILHO (its Leslie's humble opinion)

Now for what it's worth and IMHO, those who carry on about how they perfer brainless smilies to initials and defend their preferance by claiming writers who use initials have atrocious literary skills (one supposes in comparison to the smilie users who, in contrast, possess superior literary skills), really should consider prefacing their subjective remarks with, IMHO.

That is, of course, strictly IMHO. (insert brainless smilie of choice)

Rumple Foreskin

 

[its Leslie]

Well there is only one fault there Rumple heheh

I ain't so humble heheh (and I would not use them smileys if they werent graphical icons actually).

 

[Svenskaflicka]

What irks me most while reading posts (and I guess even more so here cause we are all writers), is the use of "non words".

IMHO is a useful tool to be sure. But a smiley is superior. Its hard to mistake a smiley, and I reeeeeeeeeally get annoyed trying to remember that IMHO means "in my humble opinion".

I hate those lazy letter combo words intensely. I don't have time to keep up on all the latest ones.

Not to mention all of us non-American authors, who don't know half of your abbreviations!!!

 

[wildsweetone]

i've seen those abbreviations written somewhere... i'll hunt for them after work.

i noticed Weird Harold used a fair few in some postings yesterday, i didn't have a clue what they meant. i think one was FWIW or something similar.

it's not really the abbreviations that bug me the most. i know my lack of capital letters in most of my postings urks some, but it's a simple matter to ask me to explain why i do it and i'm happy to do that.

what bugs me are the questions like "Do your erotic friends have big boobs?" etc. i mean, is there a need to have somebody asking me such a question? what am i? some kind of moronic twit robot on the end of my keyboard? hell i thought that was meant to be the other little boxes (one with a screen) which are sitting on top of my desk in front of me.

i am human! i have thoughts. i have feelings. i even have blood running through my veins.

and another thing. how the heck do i get two separate quotes on my posting like you did Rumple? I've tried it, but the 'Quote' space provided doesn't seem to hold many characters.

 

[Groucho Barns]

and defend their preferance by claiming writers who use initials have atrocious literary skills (one supposes in comparison to the smilie users who, in contrast, possess superior literary skills), really should consider prefacing their subjective remarks with, IMHO.

That is, of course, strictly IMHO. (insert brainless smilie of choice)

Rumple Foreskin [/B][/QUOTE]

Perhaps they have better graphics skills? Personally, I can not tell from smilie faces or initials (most of which I don't understand) the literary skill of a writer.

The content of the message gives that away.

In my humble opinion. Veeeerrrrrry humble.

So does an index of initials exist?

 

[wildsweetone]

Hiya Groucho, welcome dear

yes there are indexes of abbreviations all over the show. trouble is when i went hunting for one today to post on here, i couldn't find one on this site, so i opened google and sent him hunting.

found a basic few:

BFN bye for now
BTW by the way
BYKT but you knew that
CMIIW correct me if I'm wrong
EOL end of lecture
FAQ frequently asked questions
FITB fill in the blank
FWIW for what it's worth
FYI for your information
HTH hope this helps
IAC in any case
IAE in any event
IMCO in my considered opinion
IMHO in my humble opinion
IMNSHO in my not so humble opinion
IMO in my opinion
IOW in other words
LOL lots of luck or laughing out loud
OTOH on the other hand
ROTF rolling on the floor
ROTFL rolling on the floor laughing
RSN real soon now
SITD still in the dark
TIA thanks in advance
TIC tongue in cheek
TTYL talk to you later
TYVM thank you very much
WYSIWYG what you see is what you get
<G> Grinning
<J> Joking
<L> Laughing
<S> Smiling
<Y> Yawning


i guess all i use are the 'rofl' and 'lol'. oh i admit i use 'brb' for 'be right back' if i have to leave the pc (oops there's another one) for a few moments.

also if i am unable to type properly, i will use as many abbreviations as i can to shorten my typing time.

i do prefer not having to use the abbreviations. i actually like typing in full. a while back i found myself writing a note to my son's teacher and it was complete internet jargon. luckily i discovered what i'd done BEFORE i gave him the note to take.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

and another thing. how the heck do i get two separate quotes on my posting like you did Rumple? I've tried it, but the 'Quote' space provided doesn't seem to hold many characters.

After you have quoted someone, you always see the quoting tags [ QUOTE ] and [ / QUOTE ] in the box where you write your reply. Me, if I want to quote 2 people, I mark on of the texts I want to quote and press Ctrl C, then quote the other one as usual, and then, into the writing box, I write [ QUOTE ] and [ / QUOTE ], and place the text I want to quote in between the tags by pressing Ctrl V.

Hope that helped..?

 

[wildsweetone]

After you have quoted someone, you always see the quoting tags [ QUOTE ] and [ / QUOTE ] in the box where you write your reply. Me, if I want to quote 2 people, I mark on of the texts I want to quote and press Ctrl C, then quote the other one as usual, and then, into the writing box, I write [ QUOTE ] and [ / QUOTE ], and place the text I want to quote in between the tags by pressing Ctrl V.

Hope that helped..?

okay so the one above is done by using the blue 'quote' button at the bottom of your posting.

That is, of course, strictly IMHO. (insert brainless smilie of choice)

and this one above is by copy and pasting and typing in the 'quote' codes.


edit added:
wow thank you dear. i see how it works now *hugs*

 

[its Leslie]

Well just for the record, and while I could have used wjftr or WJFTR, even though that wasn't on any list that I know of...

Most of my posts suffer from one disadvantage, that being I wrote them here in this dumb post composition box (which doesn't benefit from my word processor's spell checker or grammar sniffer).

I don't tend to use any form of catchy abbreviation methodology mainly because I just don't. It isn't me (some times I even have to go through my text and deliberately insert contractions to avoid sounding mechanical). You should listen to me talk sometime though heheh, most can't understand me, because I refuse to use language that is commonplace.

A good point those, was that those upper case cheats often don't transcend non-native english speaking persons. Heck I have enough trouble with actual native english speaking persons understanding the words even when written out in full.

Perhaps my biggest beef with them, stems from the fact they are meant as time savers. And that is it with me. To much today is faster faster faster. People have lost the fine art of slow down and smell the roses. I read books slowly, not because I am unable to read fast, but rather I do it to escape the real world's insane pace.

It's not necessary to type it in a string of upper case letters. Take pride in your craft. Enjoy your capacity to speak and use the written word well.

I don't really support the rampant use of smileys beyond the happy face (and only of its the graphic kind). And the reason I use the hapy face is fairly obvious (a picture is worth a thousand words, and hey you don't really want that thousand words in here do you?).
It's fairly hard to mistake what it meant.
Although I have noticed a number of chat programs automatically intrude with icons. If I type brb in most of them now, it becomes a stylised icon of its own free will. If I type lol it actually laughs audibly for me eh.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Svenskaflicka,

Thanks for answering wildsweetones question about posting quotes. FWIW (forgive me, my name is Rumple and I'm an initialholic), there is another way to "skin that cat".

The quote block will take fairly large blocks of text, but won't take paragraph breaks spaces. To come up with that double quote, I copied, pasted, and entered the the first sentence, then repeated the process with the next one.

In a way, my main heartburn with smilies is similar to the hang-up its Leslie has with initials. If we're supposed to be writers, then we should be willing to try communicating feelings w/o (without) having to resort to either "emoticons" or initials.

That's a valid, maybe even noble argument, IMHO . But the bottom line is smilies and initials are time and space savers.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Alto River]

Acronyms vs. Smilies

'If we're supposed to be writers, then we should be willing to try communicating feelings w/o (without) having to resort to either "emoticons" or initials.' -- Rumple

With or without acronyms, with or without smilies, I think you all communicate just fine. I've understood everything that's been said so far.

Boy, you guys really like to nitpick!

 

[wildsweetone]

In a way, my main heartburn with smilies is similar to the hang-up its Leslie has with initials. If we're supposed to be writers, then we should be willing to try communicating feelings w/o (without) having to resort to either "emoticons" or initials.

That's a valid, maybe even noble argument, IMHO . But the bottom line is smilies and initials are time and space savers.

Rumple Foreskin

it's all very well knowing that as writers we should be able to communicate well. the trouble is that there are times when somebody makes a comment and doesn't explain their meaning fully enough so that others don't misunderstand the context. it happens often in these threads.

one person will begin a new thread with a comment and a question (or several). the next person will make a comment and try to answer the question. usually it is the third person that takes a perspective with neither the first, nor the second posters have thought of. one of them will respond (usually abruptly), and from there it rolls downhill.

i've seen it often, and i'm sure others have too.

i think the trick is to stay openminded and to keep asking questions to clarify the thoughts.

Boy, you guys really like to nitpick!

like i said on your thread Alto - - WELCOME ABOARD ! lol we are opinionated and we LOVE dissecting anything we can get our hands on - darn, is that a metaphor?

by the way, it takes a strong person to be able to read people's postings which don't contain the odd smiley face, and understand what they are meaning. if i don't include any, some people tend to sit up straighter, because without them, i sound like a knowitall.

 

[Coolville]

Free the Emoticon Slaves!

What sick, facist individual decided to round up the good, quiet people of Emotica and force them into slavery in Cyberspace?

Defenceless creatures, without arms or legs, unable to defend themselves from the injustice of serving in our written correspondance. It just isn't right!

Because of our own inadequate abilities to express our own emotions, we have subjected a whole race of Emoticons to a life of slavery, without pay, unions, pension plans, holidays or even coffee machines in the Cybercanteen.

Haven't we learned anything in the course of history?

Look at this quiet little fellow:

How can you look yourself in the mirror each day knowing that you have clicked on him in order to selfishly express your emotion, when you have over 2,000,000 million words in the English language - all designed to do the same thing.

This is the emotion lying deep beneath every smiley.

FREE THE PEOPLE OF EMOTICA! LIBERATE THE EMOTICONS!

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Emoticons are just like the house elves in the Harry Potter - books - they LIKE to be our slaves!!!

See?

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Though I can't really tell if this is a very happy smiley or just a polite Chinese smiley..?

 

[Coolville]

Emoticons... - they LIKE to be our slaves!!!

Oh, no, Svenskaflicka... you've been brainwashed by the Emotiperialists.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

That's not true! The leader loves us! He would never brainwash us! All hail the leader!!!