A guide to good comments

So, I’m assuming you all know how to post comments, so here are some basic bits of info about how to put together the perfect comment.

Basic styles

I previously posted A Short Note About Commenting, which covered most of this stuff, but this is handy guide which is easily accessible from every page.

In your comments, you can use <em>, <strong>, <del> and <blockquote> to make things look all high impact-y. For easier commenting, highlight the examples below, copy, paste into your comment and write your own text inside the tags. Et, viola!

<em>Text in italics</em>

<strong>Bold text</strong>

<del>Put a line through this!</del>

<blockquote> A block of quoted text goes here</blockquote>

Blockquotes force a new paragraph for quoted text so, if you want to quote within a sentence, use:

<q>inline quotes like this</q>
[delete the inverted commas / quotation marks, as they are automatically added for you]

Links

If you want to include a link (even to pictures of cute puppies, hot chicks and the like), you MUST use a URL shortener like TinyURL, SnipURL, Bit.ly, Ow.ly or something similar. Any link shortener will do. we have no preference as to which one you use.

Long links break the site for people who read it in their iPods and Blackberries, so I will delete them, and directly posting YouTube links now embeds the video, which causes a huge slowdown on the page for everyone.

If you include more than two links in one post, then you’ll almost definitely have your comment held back for moderation. It’s a system thing to stop porn spammers.

If you really don’t want to use a link shortener, you can format your links like this:

<a href="http://www.yourlink.com/">Your link text</a>

Rating of comments

This site is rated with WordPress as mature, so feel free to be as explicit as you like in your comments. Swearing and graphic sexual descriptions are both welcomed and appreciated.

TXT SPK

Please write in something approximating English.

We are very accommodating, as a huge percentage of people here don’t actually speak English as a first language. But there’s no excuse for writing like you’re an imbecile. Use capital letters, punctuation and real words. Lower case and txt spk is only for quoting ee cummings or the titles of Prince songs.

Normal internet shorthand – BTW, IMHO, LMAO, YMMV, etc – is, of course, acceptable.

Long words

Just to remind everyone, words of greater than 36 characters – for example, writing ‘Noooooo’ with 50 Os – will again break the site design in hand-held devices.

To help you out: thirtysixcharactersinonewordisplenty

Anything longer than that, you will feel my wrath.

Football

Football is either:

• a game played by every single country in the world and regulated by FIFA which draws record TV audiences for its World Cup every four years (over 1bn people watch the World Cup final, as opposed to less than 100m for the Superbowl)
• a game played pretty much only in Australia

The thing played by men in padding is American Football or gridiron. Calling football ‘soccer’ will make me absolutely apoplectic.

Can I have an icon after my name?

You may have noticed that some people have a little flag after their name. Why? Well, because they’re special, that’s why! Or, if you want a more technical answer, because they’re either logged in or have a website link which can be used as a CSS hook for me to code against.

If you have a WP.com account or you have a personal site that you’re willing to include as your URL in all future comments (your FoxSpace or Twitter page, for example), and you want a flag against your name, then email Dev and ask for one.

Clom and Dev – because we’re extra extra special – have stars to go with our flags, to denote that we’re site owners.

If you can’t see all the flags/icons, or they look effed up to you, then you’re using IE6 and I’m afraid that we only provide partial support for IE6 users. Don’t worry, 99% of the site will look and work the same as it does for everyone else (except at Christmas, when the show effect goes to town on the header); you just miss out on some extra prettification.