Posting Etiquette
Spell Checking
Please spell check your posts. Don’t have word processor or similar software installed on your computer or a spell checker? That’s not an excuse. There are plenty of online resources that you can use.
- Firefox – Firefox has a built in spell checker. Sweet.
- OpenOffice.org – A free program office suite with a built in spell checker.
- SpellCheck.net – Free online spell checking.
- Dictionary.com – For all of your dictionary definition needs.
Both American and Canadian/British variants of the English language are acceptable at Shadowlack.
REMEMBER: Every time you misspell a word, Shriker kills a nioti(e).
Frequently Misspelled Words
[A] a lot, acceptable, accidentally, accomplish, apologies, apologize, apparent, acquire, [B] believe, [C] changeable, committed, conscience, conscious, [D] definitely, discipline, disappear, [E] embarrassment, equipment, exceed, existence, experience, [F] foreign, [G] grateful, guarantee, [H] height, [I] immediate, intelligence, independent, its/it’s, [J] jewelry/(jewellery), judgement, [L] leisure, license, [M] maintenance, medieval, mischievous, [N] necessary, neighbor/(neighbour), noticeable, [O] occasionally, occurrence, [P] possession, peace/piece, pleasant, precede, principle/principal, privilege, pronunciation, [R] receive, recommend, referred, reference, relevant, remember, restaurant, rhythm, [S] schedule, separate, success, [T] to/too, tomorrow, their/they’re/there, truly, [U] until, [Y] your/you’re, [W] weird
Capitalization/Punctuation
Try to use proper capitalization and punctuation. The use of fragmented sentences for style and emphasis are okay.
Chatspeak
Absolutely no chatspeak or netspeak is allowed in the In Character boards. This includes, but is not limited to, substituting “y” for “why,” “r” for “are,” “u” for “you,” “ic” for “I see,” “thanx,” “l8er,” “luv,” etc.
Actions & Spoken Text
Either bold spoken words, put them in a different font colour or put quotation marks around them so that people can distinguish them from your action text.
Please do not use unnecessary asterisks (*), tildes (~) or other strange markings to indicate character actions. You may however, use any sort of symbol or marking in order to indicate telepathy or thought-speak.
Out of Character Chatter
Please keep out of character notes in roleplay threads to a bare minimum. Timestamps and small notes on the plot are fine in the first post of a thread, but beyond that, things should be taken to a fully separate thread in the Game-Related Forum or to Private Messages.
Timestamping
Remember to timestamp the first post in a thread with your chosen date. The current month and year can always be found at the top of every page on Ramath-lehi.
Posting Tense
Always write in third-person, past-tense.
Powerplaying
No powerplaying (god-moding; auto-hitting; emoding; twinking).
Meta-playing
No meta-playing/omniscience.
Apostrophes
Try not use excessive apostrophes (’pon, o’vr, gro’nd) unless you are writing character dialogue and wish to indicate an accent.
Posting Speed
Please do not hound other people and tell them to post because they are “too slow” at responding. Shadowlack is rather laid back play-by-post board-based game. We don’t run at “chat speed.” If the person hasn’t posted in over a month however, then okay, go ahead and hound them. Just try to be nice about it. ;)
Private Threads
If a thread is marked as “p” or “private” and you haven’t been invited to join, don’t post in said thread unless you have attained the thread maker’s permission.
Posting Order
Follow set posting orders (if the topic starter has requested them). For example, if three people are in a thread:
- Person 1 (the thread starter) posts first,
- then Person 2 posts,
- followed by Person 3.
- Then Person 1 posts again,
- Person 2 posts,
- Person 3 posts,
- Person 1 posts,
- and so on…
