This guide is meant to help Melonland Forum users brush up on their web forum etiquette. These are not meant to be taken as hard and fast rules, rather they are guidelines to give Melonlanders some tips on making constructive posts.

• Try to maintain a good attitude in your forum posts. If you need to express negativity, take care to do so in a polite and pertinent manner. Excessive complaining is unproductive and upsetting to your fellow members.
• Avoid TYP1NG L1K3 T#1$ (“typing like this”); typing in all caps is almost like yelling on the internet, and is considered pretty rude! Likewise, using strange typing styles makes your message hard to read, and serves to distract from your message rather than to add flavor.
• If you post a link to a page that includes rapid flashing or flickering, it is polite to add a warning or heads up.

If you are coming from a short format space like Discord you may be used to writing single line replies to things! This is generally not a great way to write on forums, it clogs up pages and makes the discussion less interesting for others to follow. When you are writing forum replies its best to try and aim for at least a few sentences here are some ways you can do that:

• Read the discussion and reply to someone such as the topic poster - e.g. “Hi @bob, I like cats too! Particularly cats that …”
• Explain what you are saying - e.g. “I like pie because … and I don't like soup because …”
• Remember that others won't understand you as well as you know yourself, so its helpful to make things extra clear.
• Ask questions, both of others and yourself - e.g. “I wonder why the sky is blue.. what color is the sky for you guys?”

In some situations a short reply is totally fine, but in general forum discussions are about engaging with the wider group and listening to what people have to say, then expanding on that! You are not just adding your opinion to a void, you are participating in a sort of group theater. Push your self to write more and you'll have a more rewarding experience and make the space more enjoyable for everyone!

• Before making a new thread, it’s good to search the forum to make sure that another thread with the same topic doesn’t already exist. The Melonland Forum doesn’t have a rule against reviving or “necroing” old threads, so it may be considered more acceptable to create a duplicate even if the original thread hasn’t had a new reply in a long time.
• It’s constructive to avoid repeating what others have already said in any given thread. Try reading or at least skimming the other replies in the thread before writing your own, rather than simply replying to the initial post. This is a more participatory approach that will allow you to involve yourself in the discussion.

• When quoting a long post, it’s polite to remove most of the text in the quoted post and leave only the specific passages that you are replying to. That way your fellow forum-goers won’t have to scroll through a massive duplicate. If you’re replying to the post as a whole, it may be better to just mention the user who wrote it if you want them to see your reply. You can do this by typing @ followed by the poster’s username.
• On a related note to the above: quoting someone’s post usually means that they will receive a notification and spend time navigating to your post to see what you said to them. If you are merely agreeing with or echoing someone else’s sentiments, or if you don’t intend to enter a direct dialogue with the other person, it may be more considerate to avoid quoting them. You can say “I agree with what (user) said”, “building off of (user)’s points”, or something along those lines instead.

• Should this be a blog post? If you are saying something for the sake of saying it rather than trying to start or participate in a conversation, posting on your blog or website may be a better option than making a forum topic.
• Remember that this is a community open to people from all over the world: if there's a schedule or deadline you want to mention, make sure you mention what timezone the times you're listing are in!

• MelonLand Guidelines
• Etiquette Guide