Ram Heavy Duty Forum

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

PLEASE STOP POSTING THREAD TITLES AND TEXT IN ALL CAPS!

Status
Not open for further replies.

Brutal_HO

The Mad Irishman
Staff member
Joined
Feb 1, 2020
Messages
12,033
Reaction score
21,373
Location
Douglas County, CO
Per the Site Rules, please do not post in ALL CAPS (mods excepted).

I'm noticing a lot of new threads and body text being posted in all caps. It's OK to add emphasis for a few words or phrase, but thread titles and the bulk of a post in all caps is not allowed.

It really doesn't matter how important you think the subject is for you, stop posting all caps please.

Failure to heed this warning may result in thread edits, deletes, and/or warnings issued.

Thanks for your cooperation.
 

Distillusion

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2019
Messages
342
Reaction score
356
Disclaimer: Any CAPITALS or red that might be used in this post are for discussion purposes and should not be considered as shouting or impersonating of staff, they are merely provided as examples.

It's funny how the "standard" has evolved. In the old days, computers were limited to caps only. Teletype, keypunch, and terminal limitations. Then mixed case came along, but only in the academic and research environments. Only a couple of operating systems even supported mixed case. Back then there weren't "forums," just "bulletin boards" and mailing list servers. People used to deride anyone using mixed case as "ivory tower" types. After a few years, especially as personal computers became popular, mixed case became an acceptable norm. But there was no way to emphasize portions of text. If you wanted to highlight a word or phrase, you had to use CAPS, or one of only a few *special characters* that were supported.

Even the oldest typewriters supported underlining and bold, just by backspacing and retyping or adding underscores. But computers didn't.
Now, years later, you can use alternative fonts and effects provided right on the forums themselves. This includes underlining, bold, italics, larger and smaller fonts, colors, and more. The funniest part is that a lot of us old timers still use caps for highlighting out of habit. It's much *easier* to use caps or a symbol on the keyboard to add emphasis. You have to screw around a lot to use some of the other options, or know special key combinations.

And in many modern systems, caps are still used a lot. Most of the people I know that text don't use correct case at all, everything is lower case. They use caps just for emphasis, and caps are the only emphasis they use. They often consider special characters *bad* or /inappropriate/ and even _laughable_ or @offensive. Flipping between text messaging and forums just adds to the excitement.

By the way, Brutal, I had read the site rules to see what exactly they say, a while back when you commented on it. It reads:
"3. Please do not post threads text in all CAPITALS since this is considered to be shouting and is not necessary."
It's not 100% clear if this means just a word, or an entire post. I have tried not to do it as much as I normally do, so as not to offend the sensitive. (Even though half of America is offended by everything.) I may forget on occasion, but I think I usually catch myself here. If I do forget, apologies in advance. I don't ever consider myself shouting in public forums.

It also reserves red as a color for staff only, in another rule. Just feedback to the site admins: a fair percentage of the male population is red-green or more fully colorblind. Use of red text is not particularly useful in emphasizing stuff. You may want to avoid it if you're trying to get everyone to understand your emphasis.

It would be nice to have easier-to-use methods of highlight text in the forums. At the same time, any kind of highlighting might eventually be taken as "shouting" by someone. What would the site staff and admins like to see used?
 

silver billet

Active Member
Joined
May 6, 2020
Messages
100
Reaction score
128
Personally, underlining and bold are about the only polite and sane emphasis markers (used occasionally), with smaller/larger maybe being used for comedic effect.

If you're thinking you need to use caps or colors a lot, perhaps you need to put down the caffeine or go for a walk or something. What you have to say is generally not that important to the vast majority of people, if you can't get your point across without text emphasis, then maybe you need to rethink what/why you're posting.

I get that everybody grew up differently or had different experiences, but there is just no need for it anymore. I had a customer who would type full emails in all caps, even though the language and phrasing was very calm and polite, he just loved looking at his prose in all caps I guess. Very hard to read.
 

Brutal_HO

The Mad Irishman
Staff member
Joined
Feb 1, 2020
Messages
12,033
Reaction score
21,373
Location
Douglas County, CO
The thread post was primarily intended to capture the attention of new members that have been using a lot of all caps. It's distracting, annoying, and in some cases self-serving. Kind of like those poser bling wheels (sorry, RIMZ) some people put on their trucks.

Thanks for the history lesson, I've been doing this stuff for 40 years and never would have known. <eyeroll/sarcasm>

There's simply no reason to go on about the post. I thought about locking it when I created it and in retrospect, probably should have, Most of the rules are copypasta from the 5thgenrams site with accommodations made for some of the "special" people as issues come up where the rules apparently weren't detailed enough for them to comprehend and conduct themselves with proper and generally accepted online/forum etiquette.

Perhaps it was not anyone's intent, but I would also add that being snarky with staff outside a participatory discussion, not related directly to moderation, is frowned upon. Rule #5.

Lastly, we do not have rules for Cardio, Double Tap, or beware of bathrooms, so there's that to be thankful for.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users who are viewing this thread

Top