NavWeaps Discussion Board Etiquette

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Important Note

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4. Threads that become overly long are sometimes locked to prevent them from crowding other messages off the first page of the discussion.  When you see a locked thread that you want to respond to, please start a new thread.

General Etiquette Rules

These forums operate on the "honor" principle; they are open to all with very few restrictions on content, but they are moderated to some extent.

Participants on these forums are expected to treat each other with dignity and respect.  All participants have the right to engage in heated and even passionate debate.  Please remember that an attack on your opinion is NOT an attack on you, personally.  Try not to take everything said to heart and you will enjoy yourself more.

However, in order to maintain a proper level of discourse, the following kinds of postings are prohibited:

• Using offensive language or posting offensive pictures
• Launching personal attacks against another participant (insults, racial slurs, trolling, flame wars, etc.)
• Posting blatantly false and/or misleading information (hypothetical situations are not covered by this restriction)
• Posting Spam or Advertising
• Posting unlawful statements (such as death threats)
• And the ever popular:  Posting something that really annoys the Moderator

We wish to stress, however, especially for the younger folk and their parents, that you may find an occasional swear word on these boards.  We urge that if you are under 18 that you ask your parents to join you when you are viewing the boards, so they can explain why some of the debates are sometimes quite heated.  Perhaps they can learn some new things as well!

If you find a thread or post that you feel violates the above guidelines, then please post a message on that thread with "Moderator Alert" in the Subject Field and a description of the problem.

or simply do not read that post.

It is recommended that you read the following webpage before posting:  NavWeaps Privacy Policy and Legal Notices

Abbreviations

ADN - Any Day Now
AIGF - All In Good Fun (another way of saying "meant as a joke")
ASAP - As Soon As Possible
B4N - Bye For Now
BBS - Bulletin Board System
BRB - Be Right Back
BTA - But, Then Again (another way of saying "on the other hand")
BTW - By The Way
CU - See You
CUL - See You Later
F2F - Face To Face
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
FWIW - For What It's Worth
FYI - For Your Information
GAL - Get A Life
GIWTIST - Gee, I Wish That I'd Said That
GMTA - Great Minds Think Alike
IC - I See (another way of saying "I understand")
ILY - I Love You
IMHO - In My Humble Opinion
IMO - In My Opinion
IMNSHO - In My Not-So-Humble Opinion
IIRC - If I Recall Correctly
IOW - In Other Words
IU - I Understand
JIC - Just In Case
JK - Just Kidding
L8R - Later (another way of saying "talk to you later")
LOL - Laughing Out Loud
OT - Off Topic
OTOH - On The Other Hand
POV - Point Of View
ROTFL - Rolling On The Floor Laughing
SIWAH - Smack It With A Hammer (computer industry acronym, used to define a computer glitch which has resisted all known methods of correction.  Pronounced "see-waa" as in "See-waa the *&$#(#@ thing!")
TWFM - That Works For Me
WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get
YAQW - You Are Quite Welcome
 

Emoticons

:-)     Smiling
8-)    Smiling with glasses
:-))    Laughing
;-)     Winking
:-p    Sticking tongue out (also means fatigued)
:`-(    Crying
:-|      Bored
:-o    Amazed
:-(     Sad or Frowning
:-c    Really Sad
 

After many requests, I've decided to relent and give detailed instructions about this subject.

Please note, all of the colors used in the following examples are only for illustrative purposes, they are not required to make an HTML command.

To make these HTML commands work on Ezboard, you MUST unclick posting box that says "Convert URL Links."  This appears below the message window.

A HTML Hyperlink command has the following format:

<a href="The entire link path between a pair of quotation marks">Some text to describe the link</a>

For example, to create a hyperlink to the Naval History Magazine article on "What Really Sank the Maine," I would type the following HTML command EXACTLY as shown:

<a href="http://www.usni.org/navalhistory/Articles98/NHallen.htm">Click here for Naval History Magazine Article on Maine</a>

The URL path MUST be typed EXACTLY as it appears in the "location" or "address" window when you are actually at that webpage. When posted to the message board, the above HTML command will show up as a hyperlink looking like this (opens new browser window):

Click here for Naval History Magazine Article on Maine
 

Creating an image HTML command is similar to, but simpler than, the hyperlink command. An image HTML command has the following format:

<img src=The entire link path [no quotation marks needed]>

For example, to post an image of the USS Midway CVB-41 from the HyperWar website, I would type the following HTML command EXACTLY as shown:

<img src=http://metalab.unc.edu/hyperwar/USN/ships/img/CVB/CVB-41_Midway.gif>

The URL path MUSTbe typed EXACTLY as it appears in the "location" or "address" window when you are actually at that webpage. When posted to the message board, the above HTML command will show up as an image looking like this:

If you don't know what "GIGO" means, then please don't try posting a link or image.  Also, please do not put any HTML commands or tags in the subject field, put them only in the message body section.  This will ensure that the boards load as quickly as possible.

Botched attempts will be noted and humanely deleted.  However, I may indulge in suggestive comments as to the poster's obvious inability to properly conduct a nocturnal emission.  HTML commands not in the message field will be deleted as soon as I see them and I WILL tend to indulge in pungent comments about the poster's dubious ancestral lineage.  Comments of this nature will henceforth be known as "Post Toasties."

I await future posting efforts with bated breath.