Forum Tidiness

[Pam]

Just a reminder to everyone to please limit use of the emoticons in posts.  One or two per post is plenty.  Anything more than that is excessive and annoying.  The same goes for excess punctuation.  It only takes one period to end a sentence, not three or four.

With the Forum's growth and the surge of members recently, it's more important than ever that we all work together to keep our Forum tidy and easy on the eyes.  Our staff of moderators makes edits to posts when needed, but it becomes a lot of work unless everyone makes an effort to have their posts clean.

This would be a good time for everyone to review the Forum Rules as a refresher and to see what's been added or updated.

Thanks in advance for your help! 

[wildredchild]

I agree 110 % Pam.  Please everyone, take a look over the forum rules again for a refresher. 

[pallyndrome]

Just a little thing - is this: ... ok? Because that's like a common thing, mean's a break or something, I use it to mean sort of meandering away at the end of my post, like I'm still thinking...

[Pielord]

I think it's called an eclipses, and are we allowed to use apostrophes? Or should I type out in full, such as 'cannot' instead of 'can't'?

[NancyJ]

I think it's called an eclipses.

Close, Ellipsis

[Swede1992]

I can only speak of my interpretation of the rules as a moderator (the admins can immediately overrule me on this if they want to), but I would not correct a post just for using contractions or ellipses (at least not ellipses in a place where they make sense). Please do however be careful to write grammatically correctly and try not to overuse smileys nor punctuations (i.e. don't do ellipses too often). It gets too hard to read after you pass a certain line.

EDIT: Remember correct contractions as well: It's spelled "doesn't", not "doesnt".

[MasterSiwel]

I can only speak of my interpretation of the rules as a moderator (the admins can immediately overrule me on this if they want to), but I would not correct a post just for using contractions or ellipses (at least not ellipses in a place where they make sense). Please do however be careful to write grammatically correctly and try not to overuse smileys nor punctuations (i.e. don't do ellipses too often). It gets too hard to read after you pass a certain line.

EDIT: Remember correct contractions as well: It's spelled "doesn't", not "doesnt".

I have problems spelling... I always have, and it's hard not to spell correctly for me. I mean it's kinda hard and it took me a while to actually get some of it right. I don't mean to usually be troublesome, I just am.

[Swede1992]

I have problems spelling... I always have, and it's hard not to spell correctly for me. I mean it's kinda hard and it took me a while to actually get some of it right. I don't mean to usually be troublesome, I just am.

Don't worry about it a bit! This is not a witch hunt for people who can't do otherwise (I'm happy to correct posts for people when necessary); it's more of an appeal to people who can do right, but don't bother and leave the problem for others to correct.

[Pam]

Use of an ellipsis is fine as long as it's used correctly.  Many times I see those three periods at the end of every sentence, which is incorrect.  It should be just a period to end a sentence.  The same with contractions.  They are fine if used correctly.  I don't expect anyone to spell out "cannot" when "can't" works just fine.  However, "cant" is not because it's missing the apostrophe.  This is one of the larger issues, actually, along with capitalization.

Also, as Swede said, it's not a witch hunt.  We're happy to help out with spelling and such for those who aren't good spellers or for whom English is not a first language.  It's the ones who know how to do it, but choose not to because of internet slang, cuteness, or just plain laziness.

Thanks everyone for your comments. 

[NeoFelis]

There's one instance where we could use 'cant' and that is if you're talking about it, right? Though I can't see it coming up anywhere except the babble thread. Okay, I'll stop being silly now and go read the rules again. 

[AriaGirl77]

Also, I'm not sure about how things work in other languages, but most web browsers have a spell check feature.  Mine will automatically underline a word in red if it thinks a word is spelled incorrectly.  Pretty easy to just look over your post before you hit the "post" button. 

[NeoFelis]

Also, I'm not sure about how things work in other languages, but most web browsers have a spell check feature.  Mine will automatically underline a word in red if it thinks a word is spelled incorrectly.  Pretty easy to just look over your post before you hit the "post" button. 

Unfortunately, Internet Explorer Ver. 8 doesn't have it, and I began having so many problems with Firefox that I haven't been able to use it much. Even then, I don't know if they have spellcheck. I generally have a good 'feel' for spelling, and if I doubt myself, there's always dictionary.com. I just might have to see if they have something I can leave on my desktop. More insidious are words that are still words even if you accidentally drop or add a letter. Spellcheck isn't good for that.

[Twinmum]

The trouble with the built in spell check, is that it's American spelling. There is probably a way to change it but I'm not sure. So when I write colour for instance, it tells me it is wrong, but for an Australian it is the correct spelling so I ignore the spell check for some words.

Norma

[AriaGirl77]

Yes, obviously spell check isn't always right, but it's a start.

For example, "sim" is a misspelled word according to my spell checker.

[Pam]

For example, "sim" is a misspelled word according to my spell checker.

Try it using "Sim" and see if it's still mispelled.