ADMIN: How To Act Like A Grownup Online

[John Walton]

Hi again from the Hexquarters.

The Moderator Team have noticed a really worrying decline in the quality of
posting to the lists. Some people seem unable to follow basic language
mechanics (Spelling, Punctuation, Grammar and Proofreading) or a simple set
of Admin Files. For the record, here is what is expected of every member of
our HPFGU community:

You might think we sound like a bunch of crotchety old people. Ha. *waves
stick* We're not -- we don't mind mature teenagers at all -- in fact, some
of us are high-school students. However, act like you're an adult. Please
bear in mind that there are parents, teachers, professionals,
businesspeople, academics and people from many countries, some of whom speak
English as a second or third language, making it imperative that all members
use correct English.

This includes using capital letters at the beginning of sentences, periods
at the end and commas in the middle to show phrasing. Question marks end
questions, don't they? Oh, and please restrain yourself from using too many
exclamation marks. They make you look overly-excitable. And there's NEVER a
need for more than one exclamation mark at the end of a sentence. "!!!!!!!"
will get you smacked up the side of the head by a broomstick.

* Never use all lower case letters or, worse still, all CAPITAL LETTERS in a
message. It is a major no-no, visually jarring, incredibly irritating and
using all caps is considered SHOUTING! The odd word in capital letters for
EMPHASIS is okay, though.

* Never, EVER, *EVER* use netspeak. Some common abbreviations (see
http://www.hpfgu.org.uk/shorthand) are fine (the BTW, IIRC, AFAIK type) but
using numbers for words ("2" for "to", "4" for "for", "l8r" for later),
single letters for words ("u" for "you", "r" for "are", "b" for "be") and
other such stupidity are not. They make you look like a total moron who just
got out of kindergarten. Don't do it.

* Spell characters' names correctly. It's "Hermione" not "Hermoine",
"McGonagall" not "McGonagal" or "McGongle" or anything else. Nothing (apart
from netspeak) makes you look like a moron faster than repeatedly
misspelling characters' names. Also, "Pensieve" is for some reason tricky to
certain people.

* If you're used to forums where speed is important (chat rooms, role
playing games, etc.), it's easy to fall out of the habit of proofreading.
Here, however, your post will be as relevant in five minutes (or, usually,
even in five hours) as it is now -- and will be much better received without
the spelling mistakes.
 
Before hitting the 'send' button, please take a few minutes to look over
your post and correct any typos, spelling/punctuation errors, or problems
with sentence structure or capitalization. This will make it much easier to
read and help in getting across your point.

__________________________________

For more information, read the group's Admin Files.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin%20Files/

Questions? Mail the Mods below :)

__________________________________
The HPforGrownups Moderator Team
MagicalMods at yahoogroups.com