Forum Posting Guidelines

I am currently working with three forum posting services.

Results have been mixed, even between different posters from the same forum posting service.

I believe that some of the difficulties I have experienced have been due to my not explaining my expecations clearly.

Note that these are the requirements for my forum. These requirements are based upon the type of posters which my forum must attract to succeed. If you have a different type of forum, your requirements may be wildly different.

Here is my current list of requirements:

1. No copyright violations by cutting and pasting posts from other systems.

2. No post of hacking information. These violate the AdSense ToS.

3. Few "me too", "this is a great system", or "I agree" posts.

4. Proper English. No words such as "plz" and "ur", which attract the wrong kinds of posters to the forum.

5. Few misspelled words. Spelling errors turn off prospective forum members.

6a. Mostly proper capitalization. Common capitalization errors include:

I. Not capitalizing the words "i" and "i'm".
II. Not capitalizing the first word of every sentence.
III. Not capitalizing acronyms like "CD".
IV. Not capitalizing proper names, such as "Microsoft".

6b. Proper use of mixed case. No posts in all lower case; no posts in all upper case. This same rule applies to thread topics.

7. Proper use of the apostrophe. "That's", "Don't", "It's", "I've", "Can't", etc...

8. Proper punctuation.

a. A space after every comma and period.
b. No spaces before commas and periods.
c. A period at the end of every sentence.

9. Plenty of hard returns. Whitespace makes posts readable.

10. Mostly on-topic posts.

This is my list. Your list should vary, based upon the type of forum posters you are trying to attract. You should also expect to pay for the level of quality which you receive.

Every post is written once, but read hundreds of times. Care should be put into the starter posts on your system, because they will set the tone for all future posts.

In my opinion, the key to success is effective communication with your service provider. I believe that perhaps my requirements list will help you to formulate your own requirements.

Good luck!

 

Very good list there Will; makes perfect sense.

Out of curiosity, how well are they adhered to?

Are potential members "put off" by the expectation?

I agree that coming across intelligent is a tone setter; a well formulated list - well done.

 

Great guidelines, copy and past on my forum for my forum posters..

 

Will might be a hard man to please, but he knows exactly what he wants, which is refreshing

 

Better now than before.