Lounge Manual: How To DU (not a sex thread, I swear) [View All]

[Bossy Monkey]

I've been noticing a lot of GREAT new posters around lately (Welcome to DU, all, if I haven't already welcomed you personally). Here then are some thoughts, observations, suggestions, directions translated from Japanese, and random foolishness intended to lessen your confusion, show you the ropes, or at least wear out my comma key. They are in no particular order:

1: If Matcom, ZombyWoof, or CatWoman call each other assholes, they're KIDDING. Be not alarmed.
Relatedly, a lot of people believe that there are cliques on DU. There are certainly in-jokes aplenty here and as with any group of people real or virtual, there are people who know each other better than others. However, unless they've been hiding from me really well for the last 15 months, there aren't any EXCLUSIVE cliques, and that's all that counts. If you're having trouble getting replies to your threads, edit the subject line (you can edit for an hour after posting) to include yaks, Mike Hunt, or ABBA. (What was I just telling you about in-jokes?)

2: A big one: IF YOU ASK FOR HELP AND RECEIVE IT, SAY THANK YOU. First, it's simple courtesy. Second, it much increases the probability that should you need to ask again, you will again receive assistance. It's not like it's hard; you just have to check My Posts and the replies there; if somebody answers your query, click on Reply and thank them. Failing to do so reflects very unfavorably on you.

3: Please kick posts that show effort. There was once a grand tradition (ok, a tradition) in the Lounge of posting a lot of photoshopped or otherwise manipulated images making fun of Bush, Republicans, neocons, or anything else that occurs to us. This has fallen into abeyance, partly because they consistently get ignored. If you see a thread where the original poster has clearly put in some time and effort, it's really really nice if you would add a little reply (just a LOL or thumb's up will do) to keep it up at the top for a while.
By the way, kicking a post means the same thing as "bump" or "bttt" elsewhere. Our arch-nemeses at Free Republic use "bump" so it was thought more seemly for a Democratic site to use kick (as in a donkey kick). There's even a little kicking donkey for the purpose, found up dere in the Smilies lookup table.

4: Similarly, if something makes you laugh out loud, you're that much closer to heaven, nirvana, karmic cleanliness, whatever, if you post a reply saying as much. Not only will it make the original poster feel better that people are seeing and laughing at his/her stuff, but more people will get to see it which is a good thing, no?

5: n/t & eom (meaning "no text" and "end of message") only help if you put them in the subject line. The point of using these is to tell the browsing reader that there's no other text but the subject line. If you put n/t or eom only in the body of the message, it totally defeats the purpose. While I realize that folks without a signature have to put something in the message body to be allowed to post, let me offer this suggestion: put it in the subject line AND the message body. Not hard, really.

6: It's actually legal to look below the top half of the front page. At any given moment, there are lots of neat threads that have fallen off the front page. When things are going quick, the front page will turn over in less than a half hour, sometimes as little as 15 minutes. You can miss a lot unless you scroll down, scroll through a few pages, sort by number of replies and check out the ones with the fewest-- there are all kinds of neat approaches to DUing apart from just checking out the latest and hottest.

7: Proofreading is fun! Ok, maybe not fun, but it barely takes any time and helps improve the clarity of your message. At least please proofread to the point that you aren't posting stuff like:
Those freepers is illitaret!" That's just embarrassing.

8: Major, major thing: READ before you reply. Do NOT just haul off and reply to someone's subject line BEFORE (ok I'll quit with the all-caps) reading the actual message. PARTICULARLY (ok I lied) in the Lounge, we often put smart-ass subject lines and then make clear in the message body that it's a put-on. And you know how foolish you'll feel when you post a reply calling somebody a Bush-loving neocon freeper (don't do that anyway as it's against the rules) and then immediately see the :evilgrin: or :P.

9: Minor, minor thing: Reply to the correct post. It's really easy to get this wrong. If you do, there's no shame in editing that post, erasing everything and just writing "Delete" or "Sorry, replied to wrong post." Then reply to the one you meant to respond to in the first place. Doing so obviously much increases the probability that the person you're replying to will see your response and afford them the opportunity to reply in turn. Hey, it's a message board! Dialogue's the name of the game.

Ok, there are my thoughts on How To DU. Feel free to add your own, sneeringly point out any typos I made, call me anal-retentive (like I've never heard that before), send bouquets, dark chocolate and large sums of money, or just keep the damned thing kicked for a while (ie, follow #3 above). Newbies, if this helped at all, I'd be extremely grateful if you'd let me know.