Fluther 101. Care to add to the curriculum?

There is a date/time stamp on responses. It appears when you hover in the area next to the “flag as” icon and the paragraph symbol appears. When you hover in that area, the date/time pop up.

I’m sharing this because it was my first question on Fluther and I was very grateful that the jellies answered my question without giving me a hard time for being new and asking about it right away.

When a member reaches the 10k, 20k, 30k, 40k, or 50k lurve total, there is usually a party.
Everyone gives everyone else “great answers”, and the host is given a “great question”.
Recently, these parties have become less lurved, and it is a shame.

I was suspended for 2 weeks, the 1st 6 months I was participating here, after several warnings about my struggle with not going “off topic.” lol
I have a really hard time not injecting humor and random, non-liner, free associative babble.
It’s my left handed, right brained, blonde moments. Half brilliant, half out there in left field.
I am not into censoring free thought, the one thing leads to another thing…but, I have managed to modify my free spirited ramblings, and try to catch myself when I am on the verge of going over the cliff of non-linear babble. haha

So far, so good…no warnings or suspensions since my first few months of learning to contain my mega watt mind. It’s hard, oh so hard, I just gotta be me! haha

Social questions can be answered with quips or flippant answers but General should be a thoughtful answers !

^^^ @Tropical_Willie Ya don’t say! lol

I was writing while you were answering ! LOL ! !

“If there’s an answer you have to have, don’t bother asking the question here.”

Want tips? Here are some useless tips from a year of experience and observation :)

1. You can joke, but don’t go overboard. You’re new here, and you can be mistaken for trolling/attacking (especially if you include another user’s name). The best thing to do is not to joke at all, and insert your joke bit by bit, until you’re widely recognized here. The safest places to joke are game threads, like the famous TJBM.

2. Be careful when you insert a link. You can be mistaken for spamming (especially when you write things like: ”...for more information please visit <your link>”). It’s preferable that you only insert a link when the asker asks you to or when many other members do.

3. Don’t use txtspk or shorthand please! You can be flagged for writing standard and the askers here aren’t pleased to see bad writing. Write like when you study at school! Boring, I know, but you have to. It’s the rule :(

4. Be extremely careful when you mention another member. Only mention another member in the positive light or you will be flagged for attacking. But the best way is not to mention any member at all.

5. There may be some pretty stupid/controversial questions that can trigger your angry nerves. But no matter how irritated you are, please don’t attack the askers! If you think you can’t stand the questions, stay away, or at least don’t show your irritation when you answer. Sometimes the questions have more than one way to answer or aren’t intent to be offensive.

6. You can help the mods by flagging inappropriate questions ;p (like a spamming question or a question with too horrible writing or too little details needed to answer). The mods are very grateful of you for helping them sort out “bad apples” :D

Useless enough, new jellies?

Do participate. Every answer offers a perspective, and more answers can help an asker see more angles to their questions. If you agree with someone else, say so. Then the asker can better see where the majority leans.
Sometimes jellies get grumpy. Don’t take it personally if someone seems to snap at you. We try not to let our moods confuse things, but we are human jellies, and sometimes dark clouds become visible for a moment. If it happens to you, back away for a little bit, and watch. Their tone is liable to turn later, and become sunshine.
Get a real cool avatar photo, because that makes you automatically smarter and prettier. (Was it okay to inject just a small humor here?)

All of your ideas are great. But I think we should also have a list for veterans on how to teach newbies properly, and how to not frighten them away. This happens a lot.

I am not criticizing, for I have went all crazy feline on newbies before. I am guilty.

But I see it too often. For us veterans; we know we are close knit, but let us not expect every new person who comes in here to understand this and fit in right on day one. We champion intelligence and diversity, let us prove it.

Well spoken! Good form.

SAy what you feel. Be honest. Make a mental note on who is cool & who is not & reserve judgement for awhile.

When one is making a joking or sarcastic comment, we use the tilde (~) afterwards so others know we’re kidding.

Some folks say that the people to whom they make sarcastic comments will know they’re kidding – and that’s cool; however, this is a social site, so inside jokes and such can be challenging. We often see such comments getting flagged as attacks or flame-bait because another member has misunderstood the author’s intent – and we moderators don’t always know the back-story or nature of a relationship between members. Taking a millisecond to type a single ~ after the remark makes it more easily understood by the community at large.

Thanks, @hearkat, as I personally only heard of the ~ thing this past week.

Same here. I’ve never heard about this ~ thing until like, three days ago or so.

@Symbeline – I think you forgot the ~ at the end of your comment…~
I had researched the history of the ~ on Fluther after my conversation with Stu last week, and I remembered seeing you in some of the posts: Here’s one from 2009; two from 2010; one from 2011; and one from 2012.

What comment did I forget the ~ at?

Anyways, I didn’t say it didn’t exist on Fluther, just couldn’t remember seeing it. I don’t see people using it often. For example, when I want to tease someone, I use these; :p XD
Most people get the point, and I’m glad to explain if they don’t understand the emoticon.

:p Sticking out tongue, nya nya

Big smile with eyes closed tight, indicating various forms of humor.

There are actually 3 categories of questions on Fluther: General, Social and Meta. Meta is reserved for questions pertaining to Fluther.

Don’t ignore Meta. You can learn a lot about Fluther there, and it’s also where the ‘Lurve Parties’ are held on every members’ 10,000 lurve milestones. If you see a party, join in. Being new doesn’t exclude you. Many times the custom is to lurve everyone that attends the party.

Try to avoid walls of text (WOT) in your Q’s and A’s. Ha, that being said, I’m known for being rather long winded, but I don’t think anyone would accuse me of posting WOTs, this answer included.

If you have a lot of information to tell us, think about what it is that is most important and/or vital to the Q or A. Try to avoid throwing in every single excruciating detail, but do give all of the necessary details.

If you do have a long Q or A (because it’s the only way to explain the situation) first, give a brief description (example: relationship problem with cheating boyfriend/girlfriend) before you carry on with the entire essay. If you have to present a lot of information, make sure that it is clear and concise. If there are a lot of people involved, consider giving them all real (or fake, which is better for everyone’s privacy) names or letters. Bob, Bridget, Jane, Rick or A, B, C and D. It makes it much clearer when we’re trying to figure out what is going on.

Please use concise paragraphs when writing out long, detailed pieces of information. Do not make one huge, long paragraph. Most people will tune you out or not read all of the details, which means that you will not receive accurate answers.

Do your best to use proper grammar and don’t get angry when other members correct your grammar. Good grammar is important to most of us on this site. If you need help with your grammar, punctuation or spelling, ask for help. We’ve got a few excellent English grammarians on this site. If English is not your first language, let us know, we’ll give you a break and help you along. If you’re simply a lazy writer, don’t get angry if you’re called out on it.

Think through what you want/need to say, before you post. That way you’ll avoid saying something that might be perceived to be an angry rant or an ignorant comment. You’ll also avoid getting a reputation as a hot head or someone who’s overly sensitive. Some people can write out what they mean, without being rude, immediately. Other people need to take time, sometimes lots of time and lots of editing, to say what they mean, to make everyone understand, and without coming across as hostile or foolish.

Do not get angry when other members ask you to give more specific information. We’re not mind readers.

Do not get angry when lots of members give you similar advice. We’re all basing our answers upon what you said, and what you asked for. We’re not here to abuse you, we’re here to help.

If you venture onto a Q that has what you consider to be a controversial subject, be prepared to give facts about why you believe such and such, because other people on the other side of the controversy will, indeed, question you. Otherwise, try to avoid Q’s with subjects that are upsetting to you.

Try not to get angry when someone questions your beliefs. We all have different beliefs, stemming from different backgrounds and different levels of education and knowledge. Be prepared to give facts about your beliefs when questioned, or just say something like, “I don’t know why I believe this (rather than that), but this is what I believe.” rather than getting angry.

Do not engage with enraged members by becoming enraged, yourself. Stick to the facts. Do not take angry feelings into PM’s. You’ll do yourself a disservice by letting others fight with you in private or picking fights with other members, in private. If you have a problem with another member, politely and publicly state the issue, and then bring the problem to the attention of the Mods, if need be.

If you have any questions about anything, please feel free to ask. Sometimes we talk about things that happened in the long past (before you joined Fluther) and there might be silly banter about stuff or terms that sound ridiculous, like nekkid pancake parties, but don’t be afraid to ask.

Be aware, that if you spend a lot of time on Fluther, you are likely to experience euphoria, disgust, delight, hilarity, and great joy. Not always at the same time, but if you stick with us, you are likely to learn a thing here or there, and gain a few, if not a lot, of valuable new friends.

^
The Great Wall of Text with gunports.
Lurve ya, @Kardamom!

I’m surprised to know some old jellies here don’t know what ~ means…

I heard about that symbol from @hearkat a long time ago in one of her post, but it took me some time to finally get used to it.

@Mimishu1995 Yeah. I still don’t actually really know what it is. I’ll go through those threads that hearkat hunted down, I guess I’ll run into one of the explanations. But that thing is also not in the rules, and that’s always where I go when I feel I need a bit of a refresher on proper Fluther conduct.

@Symbeline – I thought you were kidding when you said you’d “never heard of” the use of the tilde until recently. I have considered that it should be mentioned somewhere in the guidelines, but the team isn’t making changes just yet. There are other posts that discuss the tilde besides those I’ve linked – those were just the ones that had come up in my search, in which you had participated. I have them bookmarked on my laptop, but am on mobile now – I’ll post links tomorrow.

@hearkat Do you accept @Symbeline‘s emoticon system?

Emoticons have been used here over the years, but are about as common as the ~. I know that we do not allow the use of abbreviations known as txtspk, but have not encountered an issue with emoticons being moderated, nor do I recall mention of them in the Mod Guidelines. Do not take this as the official moderator position, though – I’m still relatively new at this and have not encountered all scenarios just yet.