The Ten Commandments of the Forum

I'm not much of a fan of forums. They irritate me beyond end. To illustrate my grudges against them, here are, in my opinion, the "ten commandments" that every forum inevitably worships:

1. You are the User, a God. Thou shalt have no other Users beside you.

• Monopolize your posts. Bulk up on posts, even if most of them are your own. Every time your threads get more then 4 hours old, add another post. You want to keep people responding to your posts and only your posts, so don't let any other wannabe users try and take over.

2. Thou shalt make for everyone graven images, whether in the likeness of a human face, or of symbolic references; thou shalt bow down and worship them.

• Put smiling emoticons, frowning emoticons, laughing emoticons, emoticons rolling in empty space, and images of beer and hearts everywhere. A good emoticon, and even a bad emoticon, can liven up any post.

3. Thou shalt make no rightful use of previous topics.

• No recycling a previous topic that was done some weeks ago, or even a few months ago. This is more than no necroposting; creating a new thread about the same subject is a no-no.

4. Forget the thread's topic and keep it holey.

• Actually, forget the whole "content" thing. Just make a joke that's barely relevant to the topic, or argue with the posts above. Do as much as you can to steer the "conversation" from the topic; leave the critical discussion for the nerds.

5. Honor thy followers only.

• Praise those who follow your twisted logic, and argue against everyone who says otherwise. Insult everyone else who tries to rebuff you with side logic; say that you were just making a point, and no one has any right to argue with you. Everyone will believe you and your comrades eventually.

6. Thou shalt murder the English language.

• talk in lower letters with wierd spelings thru out yur pst also abbr yur lang to mak it cnfsng 2 NE1 l's on teh frm lawl

7. Thou shalt commit to adult language.

• Fuck this piece of shit. Swear your ass off all over your fucking posts. Show those motherfuckers above you who can fuck the hell out of this fucking shitty excuse for a thread.

8. Thou shalt steal other people's comments.

• Say something that was already said. Say something that everyone else was already thinking. It can be brief, or you can expand it to some arbitrary length. It can be something that supposedly contributes to the forum but actually doesn't, or something that does contribute to the forum but in some obfuscatory way. Just say something that has already been said.

9. Thou shalt bear false attitudes towards the newcomers.

• Be nice to the person, but not to their posts. Be ruthless. Rip their arguments to shreds. Respond to their pleas with a "I don't mean you, you're okay, it's just your post I have trouble with". Ignore (or ridicule) the idea that perhaps some people are putting effort into their posts.

10. Thou shalt not covet your neighbors' threads.

• BORING!!!!! We've already seen this before. <groans in irritation> If I whinge about this thread long enough, maybe people will agree with me and chime in. When can we talk about something INTERESTING?

(Then again, maybe I'm empathizing with the wrong users...)