Forum Etiquette

Forums (both traditional vBulletin style, and Discourse style) are quite different in terms of writing style from other social channels (Facebook, instant messaging like WhatsApp, etc.).

While most of you are already familiar with these concepts, I feel as if it is good to have basic forum etiquette summed up in this post. Here goes!

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**This community is a place for civilised public discussion.** By civilised, we mean mature, structured discussion. Forums are organised; topics are divided into categories and threads. Posts within threads offer something *meaningful* to the discussion, such that readers and contributors alike enjoy taking part in these discussions.

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**Be agreeable, even when you disagree.** It's inevitable that from time to time, you won't agree with what somebody else posts in this forum. Don't revert to name-calling or other forms of attack on a person just because they have a different perspective to you. Be civilised, offer your perspective and *constructive* comments towards their ideas, but don't criticise people.

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**WATCH YOUR TONE!!** Make sure your posts are **well-written** and make sense. Bear in mind, the tone of your message will be interpreted differently by different people. If you use a negative tone or have a badly written post, other users may take your post in the wrong way properly (they might not take it seriously). So in general, avoid:

• screaming caps
• using more than 1 exclamation mark
• really, really long sentences
• titles like the one above :)

Before posting, ask yourself: “Is this really something I would happily hand in to my English teacher?”

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Participate!
This is your forum! Contribute to discussions or start your own to interact with our awesome community. See something that you don’t think belongs here? Flag it, the mod team will handle it appropriately. Got feedback on the forum? Post it in Meta!

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If you want to read more, there are some useful tips on this website: http://forum-services-review.toptenreviews.com/25-forum-posting-etiquette-tips.html

Our FAQ also goes over the majority of these topics in more detail:
https://community.infiniteflight.com/faq

Well written.

Well written.

Well written.

I love how imaginative you guys are with your replies :)

Me too, thanks.

Beautifully written!

The mods are cool people don’t be scared of them. They don’t conduct themselves like those bad cops out there ;). Least from my XP

Well written x4

I like the time thought and effort you put into this :)

What kind of bear is in my mind? Grizzly or Polar?

Polar, keep polar bears in mind.

Thanks I love the way you had written that((: some people needed that reminder (no names)

Criticise ideas, not people - that’s what this paragraph is basically trying to say.
We don’t want this forum becoming a place where disagreements turn into nasty threads with insults aimed at people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and you’re entitled to express it (within reason, i.e. no hate speech), however, we don’t want to see brawls between people caused by these opinions.

I understand how you feel about particular members, and rest assured we are dealing with them behind the scenes (a lot happens in the background that you guys aren’t aware of - being a mod is tough!). “Booting to the curb” unfortunately doesn’t solve all our issues; our long-standing members need to do their part to help avoid these issues (a phrase I’ve used a lot today: “don’t feed the trolls”). :)

We don’t feed the trolls, the trolls find the blow button on head and press !!

Incredibly written ;)

“welcomed back with open arms” is exaggerating. I already explained to you this morning in the PM, members that return from a suspension are observed in order to make sure they re-establish themselves properly within the community again.

I’ve spent an excessive amount of time today chasing up issues of this nature (this isn’t how I enjoy spending my time, by the way). The moderators aim to be fair to every user on this forum. I’m sorry if it doesn’t look like the outcome you want, but please, rest assured that we are working on bringing the best outcome for everybody involved - it takes time.

Have a good evening :)