Message Board Tips Suddenly Single: Ojar-Sarah originally posted this on October 15th. I thought I would post this again for the newbies and even for some of us oldies!! ;D
Some tips to make a community site a better place.
1. Don't cross post. This means posting the same content all over the place.
2. Don't assume that everyone knows your story. Sometimes adding a link to your original story helps people go back and read who you are and where you came from.
3. If you want people to respond try adding a question to the end of your post. Good questions are "open ended". That means it’s not a "yes/no" type answer.
4. Posting in one big block without paragraphs is hard to read. People will often skip to the next post when something is hard to read. Break things down to paragraphs. Use space appropriately so it’s easier to read.
5. POSTING IN CAPS LIKE THIS IS REGARDED AS SCREAMING. IT'S NOT THE BEST WAY TO WRITE ANYTHING AS ITS HARD TO READ AND PEOPLE HARDLY EVER RESPOND!
6. Go easy on using unusual characters like this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
7. One line posts are annoying and should be avoided if possible. State your opinion and explain you believe something. This makes for more interesting reading. Very few people can read your mind and one line posts like, "I agree" are not very interesting to read.
8. Placing links to other sites should be within the guidelines of the site you're using. Poaching community members to another site is bad form and may eventually lead to you being asked to leave a site.
9. Don't use your well-known nickname for your screen name. Any search engine will eventually index the content and make it hard for your to protect your anonymous status.
10. Try to balance complaining with praising, its makes you a far more interesting person. If all you do is complain people will eventually avoid you. There has to be at least good thing to be grateful for everyday. Think about it.
These tips have worked on many other sites; they should help this site as well.
Hopefully these tips will help, Sarah.
