Posting Tips For Everyone!

Post Reply New Topic

Some Tips (these are suggestions)



In various posts on the WP forums, I have noticed many people are wondering why their posts are being ignored. Seeing as AS/autstic folks have a tendency to love rulebooks, manuals and the like, it would probably be a good idea to have a thread devoted to improving the general quality of postings by providing some very loose general guidelines to help our members. Following these suggestions will not make one instantly popular, but I feel may help others express themselves more fully and possibly receive more replies.

1.) Think about what you are going to say. Try not to rush or simply post immediately what comes to mind unless it is coherent and clear. Feel free to take your time; the forums and the thread are not going to vanish into thin air if you don’t reply within the hour.

2.) Try to be concise if possible. Keep the most interesting and relevant info near the top, then work on detail after, as many people tend to skim the first few lines of a post and decide right then if they want to finish reading it. On the other hand, try to make it longer than a few lines when germane (e.g., “Yes, I agree”) and be precise in what you say (try to avoid vagary) so that the post is informative.

3.) Don’t expect a reply if what you posted is basically a reiteration of what the others posted. Your chances of getting a response go up when you post something interesting and different. Even then, it may be ignored if it is not germane to the conversation at hand. Even if it is germane and you consider it interesting and different, it may not be noticed for a good while, if at all. That is ok.

4.) Respond to other people when you find similarities/agreement and elaborate (not reiterate) on the similarity or agreement. People love attention as much as you do, and when you do react to them, they are more likely to notice and react to your posts. You don’t need to attempt to make friends with anyone here if you are not comfortable with it, it is just a way to find some common ground.

5.) Try to use standard english as much as is germane to the conversation (some threads clearly call for unstandard english, so use judgement) as weird font sizes, colors and alternating caps can be rather unsettling and confusing for many of us. I suggest using your judgement on what is appropriate.

6.) Try to avoid making statements that are or could be considered a personal attack. If in doubt, don’t use it. Crictism is fine, as long as it can’t be considered a personal attack. Again, use your better judgment. If you can’t say anything constructive/germane, don’t say anything at all.

7.) If responding to more than one post, try to keep all responses in one post.

8.) When you create a new thread, make sure that there aren’t any threads like it (that is, with the same question or information) so that the question is not diluted by a multitude of threads. I suggest checking the 5 newest pages of the general section and all the pages of the other sections (except, of course, the Moderators Forum) for threads that might be exactly the same as yours. If you do find it, feel free to contribute what you wanted to and it will be brought to the forefront of the section. The best way (IMHO) to find a new thread topic is to watch carefully what the other members write, and start a thread based on patterns seen from their responses prior to the new thread; in other words, listen to what they say, and ask a new question based on it.

Don’t feel too bad if you “broke” one of the “rules”. Before I figured this stuff out, I “broke” them frequently and I still do. People can be quite forgiving when it comes to this stuff, but I think these rules would help improve post qualities and improve social reactions to individual posts here at WP.

I would be interested in expanding this.

Good heavens. I hope I didn't come off as pontificating or anything like.

Not at all, Nathan. I think these are all excellent ideas and I'm glad you posted them.

BeeBee

oh, yes...please. i'm afraid i often don't read very long, or "repeating comment" or over-embellished posts, because they are one or more of the above. good man, prometheus.

Not at all. At first I expected the worst, but the rules are fairly sensible and specifically mention that sometimes things just don't generate a response. It is stuff that some people, like me, may have already known but sometimes forget and take things personally (not here necessarily, but I have at other places) when they should not.

Thanks for doing it, and it might even be worthy of being stickied just to keep it from disappearing and not coming to the attention of someone who might be helped by this framework.

Very good tips.

Yes, good advice. I find the one about new threads especially relevant as I just don't have time to go into a lot of threads and it would be easier to have fewer threads rather than more.

Don't post off topic, unless its indirectly related to the topic/a humerous observation on the topic (like Hale's comment on the "a**hole seller on ebay" topic.)

Nathan:

I would like to thank you very much and say that I have said a few questionable things on this forum myself. For example, a couple of days ago, I wrote a little story about things that will probably never happen. Not only that, it was cryptic, and a few minutes after I posted the message, I thought it was totally off base of what any of you can relate to.

So, I have learned a lot just by reading that one post, and thank you again very much.

As if I don't already know this...

I've practised and suffered the consequences on plenty of 'normal' forums previously to here.

I think these guidelines apply better to other forums than here, I think people who break these rules make the site more interesting. But for their own sake, it'd work better on forums full of 'normal' people.

I tend to read short posts and ignore long, intense ones.

I just get bored with them, sorry. No offence or anything anyone.

This is some sound advice. Personally, one type of post I'm sick of is all the suspected symptom posts. I don't read most of them. "I was wondering if a fear of water is related to Asperger's." Then a million "Yeah, I'm afraid of water, too!" posts in response to it. That's an example of what I mean.

I'd like to add a request to use proper spelling and grammar. It is not the end of the world if you misspell one or two words in the post, but if many of them are not spelled correctly, it makes it very difficult to read. Also, proper grammar (or at least decent grammar) is a high priority.

Please try to keep the swearing down to a minimum. It's fine at the level it is at right now, but I would rather not see it go any higher.

If you are writing a longer post, please break separate ideas into paragraphs so it is easier to read. It makes it extremely difficult to read and comprehend when someone has posted about twenty or more lines in the same paragraph with four or five different ideas going on all at once. Not breaking it up into separate chunks takes away from the coherency of the writing.

Be sure to read through the replies to the topic before posting, or at least skim them over. It is frusterating when people do not take serious matters seriously when replying to posts. There is a time and a place for jokes and making fun of things and it takes away from the discussion over serious topics.

Thank you for posting these rules, Nathan. I appreciate it and I'm sure others do as well. Keep up the good work with the rules!

I would request that all posts be in Elvish from this point forward

*raises eyebrow* And who exactly volunteers to translate for those people on WP who do not speak Sindarin? My Spanish may be good enough to translate back and forth, but my Elvish isn't. Wouldn't count on it, stlf.

I would much rather see people post their sincere thoughts than worry about spelling and grammar. There are all kinds of things that can get in the way of correct writing - dyslexia, learning disabilities, etc. But these people still have valuable things to say and shouldn't be excluded because their writing inconveniences others a little bit.