We've all seen them. N00bs. The lowest of the low on the internet, despised and bashed from all sides by older "elitist" forumers and chatters.

Although I don't condone this kind of treatment of the newbies on the internet, I do realize that there's little I can do to help that on the veterans' end. I can, however, do my best to educate newbies in how to at least make themselves look intellectual.

All right, down to business:

1) Don't post in all caps. Phrases and sentences written in all capital letters is the internet equivalent of shouting at someone. Whole posts written in nothing but caps looks idiotic at best, regardless of your mood when posting. It’s also harder to read. If you need to post a rant, please don't do it with CAPSLOCK on.

2) You don't need 45 exclamation points or 30 question marks to get your point across. The more marks you put at the end of a sentence, the greater the emotion of the statement, but ending any sentence with a conga line of !s and ?s is extremely excessive. A maximum of three exclamation points and two question marks is all you need.

3) Use "chat lingo" sparingly, especially in forums. In chat rooms, you have anywhere between 2 seconds to a minute to type what you're going to say and hit send. That's what they have those abbreviations for; to shorten the time spent typing so you can get it out there faster. With forums, you can take as much time as you need to. If you use the "parent" and "reply" options, people will know who you're talking to and what you're talking about (well, usually they do). You don't need to post "ROLFLOLMAO" to let people know you thought something was funny. A simple "LOL", "ROFL", or better yet, one of the emotes will get the job done.

4) Use proper English, please. A missing comma or two, I can understand, but...

"hi! Im lyke nu 2 this forum ne1 wanna be mi friend?"

I cannot read this. When I read something like this, my initial impression is "either this person has limited English or he's a total idiot." Please, if you must post, post it so we can read it. Use a period after each sentence, use commas to separate each thought, and at least try to use correct spelling. I can excuse bad English from people learning the language, but if you know the English language and you're older than five years old, posting this kind of crud is all but screaming "I'M A N00B!!" (Best way to save face if you don’t know the language is to just say so right up front.)

5) When you submit Deviations, put them in the right gallery. Read the description of each option during the submission process; they give you details about each one. If the description doesn't match your submission, please put it somewhere else. If you can’t decide where to put it, go to the Help Desk and ask.

6) Also, in your deviation descriptions, don't go chasing rabbits. Keep it relevant to the deviation, please. The only info you should need is what is it, what is happening in this scene, or what did it take to make it. Talking about having to take your darling little kitten to the vet to get her spayed is best left to the journals.

7) Conversely, avoid deviation titles and descriptions consisting of nothing but ellipses (“…”), “text emotes” (like “<<;”), or things like “um” or “uh” followed by ellipses. I have a guy on my friends list who does this eight times out of ten, and needless to say, it is very annoying. These titles and descriptions say nothing about and add nothing to a deviation. If nothing else, a quick remark will suffice.

8) The same applies to forum threads as it does to deviation submissions; put it in the right forum, please. If you're gonna talk about movies, there is a Movies forum. If you want to post a complaint or a rant, take it up in the Complaints forum. Not everything goes in the Deviants forum.

9) Put a serious damper on the language. I say this for two reasons:
- I don’t want to hear it. Want to discuss something? Great! But if you start it off with a chain of four-letter language, odds are you’re not gonna hit it off with other members. It kinda ruins your credibility with others.
- There are kids on this site. Kids have parents. I know there are parents that will occasionally glance over their kid’s shoulder while they’re online. If Mommy or Daddy sees a post riddled with bad language, odds are, that kid won’t be back on for a long time, and those parents may either stage a protest over it or outright sue DeviantART. Yes, there are parents that’ll do that.

10) Learn what the term “copyright” means. I’ve already seen members who rail against staff for taking down their stuff because they failed to credit the original source. I’ve seen one such member come right out and say that it was copyrighted to him.

As defined in the Wikipedia:

Copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted by governments to regulate the use of a particular expression of an idea or information. At its most general, it is literally "the right to copy" an original creation.

If you didn’t make the franchise or characters, they’re not copyrighted to you. You still have to give credit where credit is due.

11) Know which words are best left unsaid. This doesn’t just apply to foul language; there are non-swear words that are just as bad if misused. One such word is the word kawaii (said “kah-WAH-ee”). This word is Japanese for “super-cute”. Because so many rabid anime fans (or “otaku”, as they are also referred to) abuse the term, it has become one of those words that less-rabid fans (and even non-fans) of the art style have come to despise with every fiber of their being. If you can possibly help it, refrain from using the word kawaii in your comments and posts at all costs. If it’s already part of your online vocabulary, drop it ASAP. Using the word will reduce your online image to that of a four-year-old girl in a heartbeat…guaranteed…regardless of your age or gender.

12) Do some research before arguing with someone over a subject. I say this for three reasons:
- The person may actually know what he’s talking about.
- It’s very easy to make yourself look like a complete idiot for starting the argument.
- In most cases, it’s very hard to stop the argument once it’s been started. Many times, an argument will devolve into one member trying to end the argument, and the other digging it back up to get the last word in. (If you get stuck in such a situation, just shut up and stop replying to it.)

13) Know what trolls, flamers, and spammers are. I’ll try to define them as best I can to save you the research time.

Spammers are people who post or comment for no other reason than to increase their post count and/or pageview hits. These people often say things that are irrelevant to the topic being discussed or repeat what other people have said on it. They many even go so far as to promote themselves and their artwork in (often vain) efforts to encourage hits and comments.

Flamers are people who verbally attack other members, often with personal insults. These are often confused with members who politely offer correction to other members; unlike the latter, flamers go out of their way to make their posts as insulting as possible.

Trolls are the internet equivalent of a playground bully. They post inflammatory statements, and then tear other members apart for disagreeing with them. Or they post artwork and welcome constructive criticism, and then lash out at members who post anything negative about the piece. Many times, a troll will resort to spamming another member’s gallery with inflammatory comments in retaliation. You can say trolls are flamers and spammers rolled into one.

If you come across any of these while online, the best option is to simply report them to the Help Desk. For spammers, I’d simply (but kindly) direct them to rules prohibiting their activities (if someone else doesn’t beat you to it). For flamers and trolls, just report them; replying to them only encourages them to do it more. If someone accuses you of spamming/flaming/trolling, back up, take a look at previous posts, comments, and journal entries, and if you find something you said that someone may have taken the wrong way, apologize to them and, if possible, delete the remarks. Do not spam, flame, or troll anyone in retaliation. Flaming, spamming, and trolling forums and comments is prohibited by site rules, even if it’s in retaliation for another member’s flaming, spamming, or trolling you. Doing this is apt to get you reprimanded and/or banned as well. Note also that “chain messages” are often considered a form of spam.*

14) This one comes in parts:
A: Don’t bash other people’s interests. Whatever you slander someone else for, rest assured, you probably have something for them to rail on you for, too.
B: Don’t pressure people into explaining their interests to you. Ask me why I like country music, and I won’t answer you, because to tell you the truth, I don’t know why I like it myself. I just do. Even if I did know, it’d be none of your business, anyway.

15) Refrain from starting threads in the Complaints forum every time something changes on dA. I say this because:

1) There may already be five or six other threads open by the time you get yours out there.
2) Those five or six threads may be filled with comments similar or identical to yours.
3) Those same comments flood the Complaints forum every single time a change is made to DeviantART, no matter how minor it is.

The first two or three threads I can deal with, but after that, it's no better than outright spamming the forums...which it is. Under that line, I urge other members who frequent the forums and are as disgusted as I am at this behavior to start reporting such threads as spam. We don't need half a dozen threads criticizing the newest feature on this site.

16) Don't post threads about how such-and-such an art form (more specifically, literature) is underrated. Better still, don't post these threads and bash everyone else for not reading your stuff, because if you do, they'll actually have a reason not to. Plus, it'll result in counterthreads being opened, and there are already plenty of those going around.

17) Be careful of what you put in your signature. Everyone wants to use their sigs to show off their wit, and I'm all for that. However, putting something like "I'm a(n) <insert commonly used furry species name here>" in your sig will only guarantee one thing: people are not going to respect you that much, if at all.

18) Don't post messages including lines such as: "Don't tell me Product X is better than Product Y." That's how flamewars get started...with you as the primary target. The problem gets worse when you add the phrase "because I use Product Y and I say it's better."

Like I've said in the past, the higher you sit on your high horse, the easier it is to get your head shot off.

19) Don't hide behind ADD, dyslexia, or whatever other disorder you have or think you have. There are millions of people on this site, I'm betting many of them have to work around those same disorders. You're not special because you're brain's messed up.

20) Discard the notion that nobody can tell you what to do. When someone tells you "you need to/have to/should do XYZ", it's because they've been a part of this site for some time, and they've become familiar with how this site works. They're telling you this because they've found that doing "XYZ" guarantees greater success.

That's all I can think of for right now. I will add more points as I think of them.



*Not to mention quite annoying. I will not participate in the circulation of such messages for that very reason; if it annoys me, it annoys other people, too. I have better ways of accomplishing that than filling their message center with sappy chain messages about being friends and stuff.