Attn: ALL Members (a must read)

[Ariel]

Originally Posted by TipiDancer

LilPiggy, you tend to bring up really old topics alot...

How is LilPiggy bringing up an old topic? She was responding to Ly's post about not being lazy and capitalizing correctly. It is the post just before LilPiggy's post.

Ly sorry for being lazy I know I don't capitalize things the way they should be in every post and I have bad spelling alot. I will try to fix these problems.

I know I'm new and all but I do read alot of the posts and have almost made it through a few whole sections. But I do like VJ's idea about only having a few smillies a month and once your out your out. I have noticed that several people are smily crazy in alot of there messages.

[Susan9608]

LilPiggy, you tend to bring up really old topics alot...

TipiDancer - *you* tend to chastize people and scold people a lot when it is not your place to do so. If I were you, I'd keep my nose in my own business and leave the scolding to the moderators. Understand?

[Buggie_00]

I have to admit that I am a horrid speller, but I promise to hit the spell check button before posting from now on.

[TipiDancer]

Sorry. I didn't realize I was scolding them. I wasn't telling them off. I don't see anything wrong with bring up old topics.

I just realized the date on my thing was wrong. I checked back on page one and noticed LilPiggy posted on the same day as Ly.

[jackie158]

I will try hard not to break the rules anymore. I am sorry.

Somehow my font got messed up. I don't see a font button on here. Could someone help me?

[CBrewton5]

Originally Posted by vlb_21

oh my god! why are we anti smileys now?!?

I hate to single myself out when I'm a fresh-out-of-the-gate newbie but this was my reaction when I read this. Is there a reason to limit the number of smilies? I know that alot of graphics or graemlins (smilies) on a page can make the page slower to load, and I read that signatures were disallowed for that and can understand that, but even as a dialup user I don't find that the small smilies make my load time any slower, and I'll admit to being one that likes to use smilies to emphasize things that I'm writing or show emotions in my posts, since in written word there is no vocal inflection (sp?) just the word on the page so sometimes without smilies certain things don't come across....for instance a sarcastic statement might not be picked up without a on the end......does that make sense? I think maybe if some of us understood WHY some of the rules were there, it'd make it alot easier to understand, and in turn make people more willing to be compliant.

Hope I haven't stepped on any toes, just giving things from an *outsiders* point of view.

[CavySpirit]

It's got absolutely nothing to do with page load times.

They are to be used in moderation because we are not a chat room. The forum is for adult communication using the English language. It is fine to occasionally use smilies. Just not frequently. I prefer you to communicate with words, not hieroglyphs.

[Ly&Pigs]

Also with smilies, if someone has a pig with a problem and really needs help, it's very distracting reading a post chocked full of smilies to try to find the problem.

[Ly&Pigs]

Again, I want to remind everyone to please use proper capitalization. Some of you are going into that "lazy" mode again and are failing to capitalize the "I's" throughout your posts or posts with no capitalization throughout. I've been trying to cut down on giving impactions for capitalization and puntuation, etc., because many of the members think I'm too harsh on the posting rules but I can't just sit by and let people post with absolutely no capitalization or punctuation. So please don't forget to hit your shift key when typing an "I" or other word that needs capitalized. Thanks.

[Shaffy]

Originally Posted by CavySpirit

I prefer you to communicate with words, not hieroglyphs.

I agree too, I've been on a fourm that has a no chatspeak rule like this one, so when I go on MSN I can hardly read what my friends are typing even with my mom.
I will try to stop making spelling mistakes and stuff like that but im only human.

[CBrewton5]

Originally Posted by Ly&Pigs

Again, I want to remind everyone to please use proper capitalization. Some of you are going into that "lazy" mode again and are failing to capitalize the "I's" throughout your posts or posts with no capitalization throughout. I've been trying to cut down on giving impactions for capitalization and puntuation, etc., because many of the members think I'm too harsh on the posting rules but I can't just sit by and let people post with absolutely no capitalization or punctuation. So please don't forget to hit your shift key when typing an "I" or other word that needs capitalized. Thanks.

I can understand why there is a proper grammar/no 'netspeak' rule since some of our members don't have English as their first language and have to run things through a translator to understand them, thus making the 'netspeech' words unable to be understood, but I don't get why it's such a big deal with capitalization. Punctuation I can understand because reading a run on sentence is challenging sometimes as well, but capitalization of 'I's' doesn't make a sentence harder/easier to read. Is it just a pet peeve with some of the moderators that they think it's a sign of lack of intelligence when someone does this? I guess I'm just one of the ones that finds this a little 'nit-pick'-ish too.

[Ly&Pigs]

This is an adult-oriented forum where posters agree to abide by the rules and one of the rules is to use proper capitalization. Forgetting to occasionally capitalize an I or other words is usually overlooked, but posts with absolutely no capitalization are subject to receiving an impaction. If you want to think I am mean, anal or a stickler about some of the rules then feel free to do so but part of my job is to uphold the forum rules. It's so much easier to read a post when it's written properly vs. one that isn't, especially for us older members.

[daftscotslass]

To be honest it's not just an adult thing. It annoys the 7 and 8 year olds in my class when their friends write all in lower case. It just makes you not want to read because, believe it or not, it IS more difficult to read. It's just not friendly on the eyes at all. It's not nit-pickish, it's just the very basics of how one writes in any language regardless of whether you're using a pencil, pen or a keyboard.

[Coiler]

Originally Posted by CBrewton5

I can understand why there is a proper grammar/no 'netspeak' rule since some of our members don't have English as their first language />

Englis is only a second language to me. Does it mean I should cancel my account now ? Because I make mistakes, my dictionnary cannot do all the work for me. I like it here and I would be sad if I were to be banned.

[Ly&Pigs]

We make exceptions for those whose native language isn't english. As long as you try Coiler then you are ok.