Forum Pet Peeves

[DZComposer]

Sometimes people do things on forums that just annoys me. Usually because the behavior adds nothing to the discussion, and in some cases, distracts from it.

Here is a list of my forum pet-peeves, in no particular order. Note that these are in general. Some of these are rare here, if they even happen at all.

Quote-only replies.

This is common on tech support forums. Someone posts a question, and them someone else merely hits the quote button and fires-off the post. I'm guessing that means that the user has the same problem as the person they quoted, but hell if I know. Quoting without actually replying is annoying and a waste of screen space and DB record space. It adds nothing to the discussion.

Misuse of "THIS."

Using "THIS." following a quote is reserved for a specific point that is so-well stated that it needs emphasis. "THIS." is not appropriate for entire, long, posts or for posts that add nothing to the discussion.

Agreed.

Posting a reply that says nothing more than "I agree" or "Agreed" is a bit of a waste. While there are uses for it, usually in similar situations the "THIS." as above, merely stating your agreement with a post adds nothing to the discussion. Say why you agree or elaborate on the point.

Excessive use of emoticons.

Don't overuse emoticons. They're distracting. They exist to add emotional emphasis (or sometimes humor) to a post, not to spell your name in or to put a long string of " :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: ."

Dredging.

If the thread is over like six months old, it is obvious that the discussion contained within is dead. Unless the circumstances are such that a new thread is inappropriate, don't bump it.

Wrong Board.

Read the descriptions of boards before posting a thread. Boards exist for organizational purposes. Posting on the wrong board is like putting a file in the wrong filing cabinet.

"Bump!"

If you don't have anything to add to the discussion, don't bump the thread.

Thread Hijacking

I don't mean drifting off-topic, that happens naturally. I mean blatantly trying to hijack someone else's thread. This is common on tech support boards, but pops up elsewhere, too. Someone posts a problem, and someone has a similar problem, and dumps their problem into the other person's thread. Start your own damn thread.

Redundant Threads

Most forums have a search feature, use it, but don't dredge. Especially don't post a thread if it covers the same topic on the first page of a board, and definitely DO NOT duplicate a sticky thread.

Chat/IM/Text Message speak.

i no liek read tngs liek dis makes u look liek idiot lol. Seriously, that is lazy and annoying. A forum is not a chat room, so you have time to type things. A forum isn't Twitter or your cellphone, no need to abbreviate. And use punctuation, it makes your posts much easier to read.

Multi-Posting

Double, triple, or more posting is annoying. Use the edit button. If you're afraid someone will posted already, reload the page, then edit. Note that if a couple of days go by, adding a new post is fine.

Random "I'm New!" posts

I don't like to call people "n00bs," but when you walk into a thread about the complexity of the time-space continuum and post nothing more than "Hi! I'm new here," you deserve it. Most forums have a protocol for "I'm New" posts. Here at SF-O, we have the Welcome Wagon/Time Clock board. Follow the protocols, and you'll not be thought of as a n00b.

Run-on Paragraphs

To the right of the ' " key on your keyboard is the line-break key, usually labeled "Enter" or "Return." This key makes the next word start on the next line. Use it to create paragraphs. A huge wall of text is hard to read. Paragraphs break the wall up into chunks so that the reader can keep track of where they are.

These are a few of mine, what are yours?

[Wes]

The Only Thing That Bothers Me Is When People Use Text Speak Or Make Posts With Numerous Spelling And Grammar Errors. If You're Too Much Of A Dumbass To Use Spell Checker You Need To Stop Posting And Reevaluate Your Life. It Also Pisses Me Off When People Capitalize Random Words Or All Of Them. Anyone Who Does This Can Go To Hell.

[unoservix]

*waits six months to quote the entire post and spell out "THIS" in emoticons multiple times on multiple posts in multiple different forums*

[Furygun81]

1 |< || 0 ^/ 7 |-| 4 7 1 7 4 || || 0 Y Z |/| 0 Z 7 P P |_ 8 |_| 7 1 F 3 |_ 7 7 |-| 3 || 3 3 |> 2 |/| 4 |< 3 4 P 0 Z 7 4 8 0 |_| 7 | 7.

L33T speak. Seriously? "Who really talks like this" you may think, but I kept seeing it on other forums around the web. It's hard to read and just plain annoying. People argue that it's okay to speak like this because the brain registers it like the words with letters in the wrong order. At least they used proper letters!

EDIT: It appears that the spaces in the words aren't showing up. Every second word is now in bold (if that even helps)

EDIT2: Okay, here's the message.

I know that it annoys most people but I felt the need to make a post about it.

[TCPeppyTc]

Those goddamn trolls

[DZComposer]

You have to use a non-breaking space     It puts     Space     that doesn't get broken-up.

Windows: ALT+0160

Mac: Option+space

*nix: varies by application

HTML:'&'nbsp; [No ''] (use this for the forums, though you need to toggle editing mode)

[Deploy]

Trolls.

Horrible, unreadable grammar/spelling.

Whenever the servers screw up.

Raging, drama-starters.

Quoting GIANT posts just to reply with a few-word answer.

[Drasiana]

People quoting gigantic multi-paragraph or multi-image posts. If you're responding to the paragraphs, break up the quotes, and if you're responding to the picture, just say so, I don't want to scroll through seven million copies of the same dumb demotivational only to get to the astonishing concluding comment of OMG LOL!1!1!

and not really forum pet peeve, but a general internet pet peeve: stop demanding "trigger warnings" on everything you don't like. A Homestuck pairing you don't like is not a goddamned trigger.

[Thu'um]

eh, i am really for what ever people want to do on forums, but people who feel the need to spread their supearor logic and disprove others really make me go LOL WOW.

[Drasiana]

one of my forum pet peeves are people complaining about other people doing the exact same things that they do only when the outcome isn't favourable for them

[Xortberg]

and not really forum pet peeve, but a general internet pet peeve: stop demanding "trigger warnings" on everything you don't like. A Homestuck pairing you don't like is not a goddamned trigger.

Yeah, for a while on Equestria Daily there was a huge shitstorm of people demanding a "No-Trixie" mode and trying to act like it was justified. They didn't accomplish that, but they did manage to make Seth's Trixie posts so goddamn annoying he stopped having fun making them and shit. So yeah, I'm with you on this peeve. It's stupid bullshit.

As for myself, my biggest peeve on forums are people who pick and choose what bits of an argument they respond to. If I skim over a bit of an argument, I'll explain why. And if that reason is because I can't make a comeback to it, I'll admit it. So it really irks me when I make a massive wall of text and someone just picks out one or two bits to try and argue.

[Milkyway64]

Sorta already said here and there, but I hate it when forums are full of people with a world so fragile that one loser with a mad science avatar and an internet connection can shake their little universe so hard that they completely lose it, leave, or try to conduct a war.

[Thu'um]

yes, rage quiting over things another person says over the internet is pretty senseless aswell. Its a terrible thing when they hold on to somthing for weeks and act like some kind of rape victim

[CrypticQuery]

Posting with a blatant disregard for the conventions of the English language was always a source of annoyance in my perspective. I don't mind capitalization and/or punctuation as much, though non-coherent words/ideas, ignoring basic spelling and structure, etc irks me. Especially spelling; there are spell-checkers built into most -decent- browsers now! :lol:

[Gene Inari]

Yeah, the whole 'i dun care abut speling hahaha deal wit it' BS is a major pet peeve of mine for a lot of reasons.

For one, it pisses people off when they have to decode and trudge through your butchery of the English language to attempt to understand you. I mean, the way you type plays a major part of how seriously people take you on places like forums. I know I'm more likely to go tl;dr to a wall of ugly, unformatted text than one that's easy on te eyes.

There's no excuse for it either, there are a million tools to help with spelling alone, and typing with proper grammar isn't that hard if you try a little bit. It's second nature to me because I took the time to establish good typing habits. I've seen a few cases where english isn't a poster's first language, but at least they try to come across with their posts.

For me, it really boils down to how seriously you take your own word. If someone doesn't take the time to at least come across as readable to others, then they must not be to concerned about me not taking the time to read through their mess of text.

[Harlow]

Multi-Posting

Double, triple, or more posting is annoying. Use the edit button. If you're afraid someone will posted already, reload the page, then edit. Note that if a couple of days go by, adding a newpost is fine.

That happened to me before. It might be good to have their own users to have the capacity of deleting their own posts.

Well, other than poor spelling (the "new language" kind) and the poor etiquette on debating on the sections made for debating, most of them I can ignore.

[DoctorAllosaurus]

Excessive use of macro images, shortcut spelling, backseat modding, dredging of certain topics that have no relevance anymore (I really don't mind the bringing back of threads that can't lose relevance instead of having fifty-thousand threads about something like pizza). Beggars also annoy me, but this only exists on another forum I frequent.