Being one of the few people who frequent this forum without a BSDForums history behind them, I know what
I expect of 'seasoned members' is little more then I do of suhc people in any other technical-oriented group.
0/ Be knowledgeable of the domain in question.
---> knowledge doesn't buy wisdom but there are plenty of wise enough people here. I often have
much more respect for people who show that they are competent in an area then for those who are merely being verbose about it.
1/ Be reasonably polite to and respectful of other forum visitors (regular, noob, or pest).
---> In one circle in which I am involved in: you behave as such or you will likely get your account moved to /dev/banned.
2/ Be
active within the community and help keep the forum alive and vibrant.
--> Example: taking six weeks to get a reply from someone, if _at all_ would suck. I've seen this happen to people numerous times outside these walls. Well, you know what I mean by walls :-P. Forums that become stagnated are also of no help to anyone, beyond picking its remains for useful information.
3/ Understand enough of the English language to be able to communicate effectively.
---> IMHO in terms of languages: it's more or less the lowest common detonator on the internet.
4/ Be patient with people -- not everyone is like you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ai-danno
imagine how hard it is for them to decode grammaticly incorrect, nonsensical shorthand chickenscratch. Was that overly done?
|
You have just described the quality of my
handwriting :-)
My English skills are not the best by any bodies regards, let along my own! The only time I do actually care, is typically when writing e-mail, comments in code, or in more 'sensitive' topics -- in which I try to be carefully composed.
When it comes to reading others words, I don't really care if they wrote it well or not, as long as I can understand it.
Two reasons for my language skills [or lack there of]. I don't give a flying flub about the 'laws of the English language' as strongly as my teachers and as a number of friends have exclaimed:
"I could swear you've never heard of semi-colons."
But most importantly life here requires that
I type fast, about as fast as I can think or faster! If a post takes more then ~5minutes, I will likely end up AFK, courtesy of my FH's. Which means speed is of infinitely more important then obeying the laws of American or British English.
----
I think ai-danno has good points, especially when it comes to posts that are not contributing any value to the discussion or the OPs issues.
It's certainly one that I struggle with at times.... Sometimes I will start posting a reply out of instinctive interest in some matter.
Then stop and think, does this actually help anyone reading this thread?
And decide whether to ^W my way to another topic, recompose it appropriately, or post it as is. This is one of the reasons I like the quick-reply feature -- more time to think before ye'post.
A great man once said:
"Tis’ better to be quiet and thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt"
Tis' also better to keep thine reply to thyself, then be found a jerk.
(Disclaimer: I have no ability with archaic language.)