Preaching to the Choir: Netiquette

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So yeah, I am a netiquette nazi of the worst (slightly hypocritical) sort. Move-induced offline time dulled my awareness of certain painful quirks of the online world; now that I'm back, I'm wincing at every missed comma and abuse of netspeak I come across. So I'm going to break Rule Two (see below) and rant at the people who read this journal, who (on the whole) do this stuff right. I need to get this out of my system, but probably shouldn't e-mail offending parties with a detailed list of what's wrong with their netiquette, lifestyle choices, and journal color scheme.

So... the list.

1. Spare all our friends pages. Master the lj-cut. Use it on long entries. Use it on entries that reveal crucial plot points of the movie that you saw the midnight premiere of. Use it when you're posting lists and memes. Use it on bandwidth hogging images. Use it on space-chewing quiz results. We'll all thank you.


2. Trailing ellipses (... or .... or . . . .) used in quantity make you look uncertain and whiny. "Uncertain and whiny" is not an effective style... trust me on this one...


3. There is no Rule Three. This is just here to mess with everyone's Fight Club vibes.


4. There is no hard and fast rule, but in my experience there's an inverse correlation to time spent on LJ and IM and my interest in what you have to say. If you spend more than 1/3 of your waking life with your chat software of choice active and/or consistently update your LJ more than 5 times a day, there's a good chance you need to cut back.


5. Spellcheck will catch many egregious errors and most proper names. It will not catch every mistake you make. It might therefore be a good idea to reread before posting.


6. You are not e. e. cummings. Capitalize.


7. Conversely, before typing, look at your keyboard. There's probably a light labeled "CAPS LOCK". If it's lit, find the caps lock key (often located on the extreme left of the keyboard) and turn it off.
   
8. Repeat after me: paragraph breaks are your friend.


9. Spellcheck is not grammar check. Parse before typing and edit prior to posting, so we have a clue which "s/he/it" from the last sentence you're referring to.


10. You still are not e. e. cummings. Punctuate.


11. Free users get one lj code. Unless you are their best friend in the world, you're probably not getting it. So stop asking free users for their codes. Especially if you've already got your own livejournal, and are angling for that code so you can set up a community. Get a paid account and use your own codes.

This is all, of course, just my own self-centered opinion. I can't tell you what to do in your journal, any more than I can tell you what to do in your house or car. I can say that, as a rule, I derive a lot more pleasure from journals that follow these guidelines, especially one and two. Especially, especially one. Words cannot express my loathing of misused trailing ellipses. It's up there with, like, Snape/Neville or fluffy Spuffy for stuff that makes me wince just thinking about it.

A lot of people do livejournal right. pegkerr writes absorbing entries about being a mother and author holding down a day job. lizbee's and tessfawcett's journals are great examples of fannish enthusiasm without an overwhelming "OMG character wuv!!!1!1!" factor. monkeycrackmary writes a giggly "well yeah we're acting like teenieboppers, but it's fun, so who cares?" journal. Anyone reading this can probably think of people who write absorbing journals and break most of the rules set out above. It's generally easier on everyone if people stick to common variants of common grammar and netiquette, though.

Just my two cents. Hope it hasn't ruined anyone's day.