Nairaland Forum Participation Guidelines

Hello,

The following guidelines have been created specifically for Nairaland, in addition to standard rules of forum etiquette.  These are guidelines, and not rules.

1. Nairaland is an English language forum.  English happens to be our official language in Nigeria. it also happens to be the language of the web.  Please make every effort to use clear English at all times:

• Avoid 'netspeak' or 'SMS-language'. 'You' is spelled Y-O-You, not u!
• Avoid pidgin English, but 'put am inside italics' if you need to use pidgin English.
• Punctuate properly.  This makes the forum easier to read.  Capitalize your I's.
• We have a spell checker on the site.  Use it!
• No swear words.  This one is a rule, not a guideline.

Try to make your posts very easy to read.

2. Avoid posting advertisements or running promotions or contests without the consent of the administrator.  Just send me a private message and we'll iron out things!  Don't attempt to use this forum to promote any commercial interests without the consent of the administrator!

this list is under construction

@diakim:
Your point is worthy of serious consideration.  I'm working with the assumption that posts are more often read than written.  So, the cost of one person spending a little extra time making his post readable results results in a much greater benefit: hundreds of people who will find the post easier to read.

So I can't change this guideline unless I'm able to get a program to automatically translate SMS language to English!  I've tried enabling automatic translation of some words, but it doesn't work very well in practice because of the complexity of English grammar.

I imagine that Nairaland is a different kind of forum:

* Nairaland wants to be taken seriously. 
* Nairaland wants to be as readable as a newspaper. 
* Nairaland wants people to take time to compose their thoughts.
* Nairaland favors the sort of language that anybody can understand.
* People using the Internet for the first time should feel at home here.
* Nairaland wants to be clean enough for even the President to participate.

So welcome to the Nairaland World!  People who come here are not here because they want "a forum".  They are here because they want to share ideas/knowledge with many other Nigerians.  I believe that we need to project a certain kind of image to get there. 

Update: What is the point of posting anywhere if nobody's going to read it?
Update 2: Feel free to use 'sms language'/netspeak if you're posting from a mobile phone.

well, I can see the idea admin is trying to bring in.

THEREFORE
there should be a part of this forum that accommodates all the s**t we don't want Mr president to see.

Plzz abeg, have you forgotten that this forum is also via WAP and as such.  People will post from their phones. There's no keyboard on my phone so I'm limited to SMS language and some other s**t

thanks admin, long live NAIRALAND

still the best