Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hello, various guild members. As you may have guessed, this is a guide I have produced in an effort to keep all posts in this part of Gaia relatively coherent. I'm pleased to say that I haven't noticed any of the raging stupidity that can sometimes be witnessed elsewhere, but there's always room for improvement, eh?

Whether you are a seasoned animator or a newly budding artist, you will always have one thing in common with the others on this forum (aside from your appreciation of art), and that is a need to be able to communicate clearly, efficiently, and effectively. There follow a few tips that may help you during your time here. Please ignore the bitterness; I cannot help it, due largely to my British blood. I do not like seeing my language mangled!

Rule 1: I cannot stress this enough! Please, please do not, ever, under any circumstances, substitute "u" for "you". This is barely better than the "l33tsp33k" we all take joy in ridiculing. I am on a shared dialup connection, and I can still find the time to smash my fingers onto the two extra letters of the keyboard that form the actual word "you". If I see you doing this, I will not punish you, but I may randomly deign to rant bitterly at you.

Rule 2: L33tsp33k w1ll g3t j00 b/nn3d, n00b. For those of you who have not studied idiot as a second language, this means, "Do not use l33tsp33k. I will likely ban you and possibly defile the graves of your ancestors." To be fair, however, you may use it sparingly in order to mock those who use it regularly. Everyone likes making fun of Internet stupidity.

Rule 3: Punctuate. For the love of all that is right! It is not very difficult to separate your sentences with periods, or at least streamline a giant run-on post using commas. For example, "Hey I was walking past my neighbours house this one time and I saw his dog and it wouldnt stop barking and chasing me so I ran away what should I do about this" will cause me to vomit a terrifying mixture of rage and organ blood. I need my organ blood, so please remedy such posts thus: "Hey. I was walking past my neighbours' house this one time, and I saw his dog. It wouldn't stop barking and chasing me, so I ran away. What should I do about this?"

Rule 4: Capitalize. The large key marked "Shift" is there for a reason. This rule is ESPECIALLY important regarding the use of "I". When referring to yourself in the first person, it is customary to capitalize. Failure to do so makes me almost as upset as substituting "u" for "you".

Rule 5: TURN YOUR CAPS LOCK OFF, ASSHAT. I will warn you if I see you posting entirely in caps, and if you fail to comply (or provide an acceptable and properly punctuated explanation), I will begin deleting any post you make that I deem devoid of intellectual value, i.e. all of them. If I find that I am unable to delete your posts, possibly because I overestimated my Godlike powers of button-pushing, I might just ban you. So turn your caps lock off.

Rule 6: Virtually all of the above rules can be excepted if you directly ask me for help with your grammar. I am well aware that most grammatical errors are not the product of pure laziness or stupidity, and I am more than willing to be patient with you and offer you pointers on how to improve your posts. Don't hesitate to ask (use this thread)!

And that concludes this instalment of Fiendsworth's Guide to Grammar. I will update it as I see fit. Good evening.

so bitter. I trust you'll do a good job domokun

Why would you be afraid to ask that? I'm here to help if you need it.

Anyway... my first suggestion is this: read. Read books, newspaper, whatever you can be sure will be spelled and punctuated correctly. You don't have to bury yourself in literature; just read for maybe half an hour a day, and you'll be surprised by your improvement.

Second, there are lots of tutorials that can help you out if you're willing to check them in your spare time. You could probably find them on the Internet or in libraries or somesuch.

It can also help to start with the basic rules and practice them until they become second nature. For example, concentrate on capitalizing your I's and the beginnings of your sentences, or on using the correct punctuation at the end of each sentence. Just keep reminding yourself of that until it becomes automatic, then move on to the next habit you want to learn.

Anyway, feel free to ask me for help with any specific problems. Patience and dedication will take you far.

Thank you. It is gratly apreciated

Ye Gods, you're right! Thanks for pointing that out. Everyone, please remember to delete nested quotes and simply use the specific quote you're referring to. You can also trim down larger quotes, as I have done here, to the relevant sentence or sentences.

Eh? But what if you're not computer-savvy, thus can't type as well as the lucky rest of Gaia?

I know many people who couldn't tell you where the period is on a keyboard because they don't spend much ( ninja ) time on the internet or the computer for that matter.

If they can type well enough to put an address in the bar, I think they should put the extra effort in. As for not knowing where things are on the keyboard, it's not really an excuse. I don't know where the Ampersand is off the top of my head, but I can look down and find out where it is. If you type badly, look over your post before you hit 'Submit'. If you type slowly, you'll only get better by practicing anyway.

If you can write English properly, than I would expect a person to type properly as well. We're not asking for everyone to be perfect and have a 130 WPM, we just want to see the effort. Putting effort into your messages shows that you value making a clear point and having everyone understand you.

The time and effort between "hey u gys i dunno what tha is" and "Hey guys, could you exlplain ____ for me" is maybe two seconds. (It actually takes me longer to fake bad typing, but I digress...) However, the first one is harder to understand. If we can't understand you, we can't help you.

You wouldn't type a message all Esperanto, because you know people wouldn't understand it. (Unless this was the 'Let's all speak Esperanto Guild') So it makes sense that you wouldn't type a message in poor English knowing that not everyone would be able to read it.

Bah. I concede your point, although I still think a sound and coherent argument, however disorganized, is generally better than an extremely well-structured pile of incomprehensible madness.

Ah, well. This is a discussion for another time and another thread, although by "another time," I mean "never," and by, "another thread," I mean... uh... "never."

Give me a break, I just got back from a big party.