Posting Guidelines

WHAT'S GOOD

Letter Format 1. An optional greeting, followed by a blank line.
2. Paragraphs of reasonable length, each separated by a blank line.
3. A optional salutation at the bottom, separated from the body of the report by a blank line.
Standard Punctuation We all learned this in elementary school, and in the Forum it generally amounts to putting commas between phrases and periods at the end of sentences.
Standard Capitalization Again, we all went to elementary school, and we all know that you should capitalize the first letter of sentences, names of people, places, streets, cities, countries, names of races and religions, etc.
General Politeness This reminds me of the old saying about pornography "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it".  The same follows true for recognizing uncivil behavior. Generally, "General Politeness" just means referring to other members with some minimal level of civility.

WHAT'S NOT GOOD

Chatroom Style Writing Writing that is completely devoid of capital letters or punctuation.

The Forum is not a chat room, it's a permanent archive of travel reports.
Chatroom Abbreviations Specifically utilizing any of the following abbreviations:
  • The letter "i" instead of "I".
  • The letter "u" instead of "you".
  • The letter "r" instead of "are".
  • The letters "cuz" instead of "because".
  • The letters "ur" instead of "your".
  • The letters "em" instead of "them".

Universally recognized abbreviations of multiple words such as "FYI", "LOL", etc., and abbreviations on the Forum's Terms and Abbreviations List are all acceptable for use in Forum reports.
Weird Punctuation
  • No period at the end sentences.
  • Multiple periods at the ends of sentences.
  • No space at the end of sentences.
  • Unwarranted dashes and dots throughout the text.

Of course everyone makes occasional typos, what I'm referring to is the consistent use of these writing aberrations.
Writing in all CAPS This is the internet equivalent of shouting, It's difficult to read, and it's simply not necessary unless you are either lazy or an egomaniac.
Links to Competing Websites I think this may come as a surprise to some members, but you cannot use my forum to promote competing forums.
Email Addresses Email addresses are not permitted in the Forum at any time or for any reason.

Please use the WSG Forum's Private Messaging system if you wish to contact another Forum Member.

Banned Words The words "Whore", "Bitch" and "Cunt" are not allowed because these words are commonly used to denigrate women, and that's not what this website is all about.
Spam Spam is defined as postings to the Forum that are contrary to the purpose of the site, including:
  • Commercial Messages
  • Links to Adult Websites
  • Discussions of Sex with Minors (under 18)
  • Homosexual Messages
  • Transvestite Messages
  • Repetitive Postings
  • Advertising Yourself to meet Women
  • TYPING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS
  • Typing in Blue Font  (Reserved for Editor)
  • Threatening the Webmaster
  • Personal Insults & Attacks
  • Postings not in English
  • Hate Messages
  • Racist Messages
  • Race Taunting
  • Religious Messages
  • Warnings from Law Enforcement
  • Deliberate Disinformation
  • General BS

WHAT'S NOT CONSIDERED

Quality of Writing This would be an impossible task.
Spelling Again, I just don't have the time.


THE PURPOSE of POSTING GUIDELINES

SPAM Control Uncontrolled SPAM will kill a Forum like a cancer.
Better Readability Standard capitalization and punctuation rules have been utilized for centuries because it's simply faster and easier to read writing that follows these generally accepted conventions.

Improved Reporting It's my theory that people tend to write better when they are asked to adhere to minimal punctuation and capitalization conventions.  Instead of just casually banging their thoughts out onto the keyboard, they tend focus a little more on what they're doing, which improves their ability to communicate with the rest of us, which is to everyone's benefit.



HOW THE POSTING GUIDELINES ARE APPLIED

Reports by Regular Member are held for moderation, which amounts to my reviewing each report for adherence to the Posting Guidelines.  Senior Members have already demonstrated their willingness to follow the Posting Guidelines, and thus I don't need to monitor their contributions.  This is the intent behind the Regular Member / Senior Member System.

As a side note, I must also observe here that there are a number of Senior Members who were grandfathered into the status, but who still insist on making contributions that don't follow these Posting Guidelines, mostly by writing in chat room style with no capital letters or punctuation.  Of course, these Senior Members make it doubly difficult for me to maintain the minimum requirements of the Posting Guidelines among the Regular Members, many of whom will naturally mimic the writing style they see utilized by the Senior Members under the assumption that this represents the acceptable practice.  I'll have a discussion on this subject in the future, for now I'm going to focus on one issue at a time.

The moderation process is somewhat time consuming.  On any given day, approximately 70% of the pending reports are fine as submitted, but there's the other 30% that need to be edited, either because they are written in chat room style, or written in ALL CAPS, or with weird punctuation (see description below), or because they constitute SPAM, etc.

Each day, I go through each of these reports and make the necessary edits, and then I paste an "Editor's Note" at the bottom of the edited report to advise the author what and why I was compelled to edit, hopefully to avoid repeats of the same situation.  I also post the Editor's Note so I can keep track of whose reports I have had to edit, so if the author requests an upgrade to Senior Member, I can look back and see their history.  Otherwise, as I am reviewing a prospective Senior Member's report history, every report would look perfect because I had fixed them.

I try to be somewhat moderate in deciding at which point I will paste an Editor's Note in a report.  Generally, I don't even bother for just a few mistakes because everybody makes typo's, so it's only the pattern mistakes that warrant a notice.  I'm also more liberal when it comes to correcting reports from members who are reporting on international locations when it appears that English is not their native language.  In these cases I'm sensitive to my own limited foreign language capabilities, and I certainly don't want to discourage these contributions.

In the beginning of my stewardship of the Forum, I would send a email to the author of a problem report, either describing how I had to edit their report, or sometimes providing them with a copy of the entire report and a request that they modify it themselves and re-post it.  However, that became too cumbersome because so many of these emails either wouldn't be received because it was a mail box that the member would rarely check, or would be returned undelivered because the email address that the member had used to register their membership was no longer valid.  To this day I am amazed at the number of people who won't provide me with a useable email address, in spite of the fact that I've never distributed the membership email list or spammed the members.  Maintaining a valid email address is a membership requirement, but I'll deal with this issue on another day.

Another problem that requires editing work on a daily basis is the misuse of the Forum's Quote function. Apparently there are a lot of people who simply don't comprehend the correct positioning of the [quote] and [/quote] tags, which results in several reports every day that look like one big quote, or that have been rendered completely unreadable.  It's an aggravation to me because I then have to read the actual report content in an attempt to discern where the actual quote ends, and then move the improperly positioned tag to the correct location.  I'm giving serious thought to removing the function entirely, but I'll make it a subject of a future discussion first.