One of the hallmarks of the Soakerdom forums is a tradition (or, just about as much of a tradition as is possible with online forums) of impeccable spelling and grammar. To put it simply, we're fairly strict about your use of English, and additionally, we expect active members to use good posting behavior. In this thread, I'll define what I consider to be good posting behavior--other threads are more specific about problems other than spelling and grammar.

Spelling--You don't need to pull out a dictionary and trawl through it for every word (or more conveniently, an online dictionary); just make sure you spell to the best of your ability. Not all new users need to be considered n00bs--as long as you don't make terrible spelling mistakes and your posts are clean and legible, you'll easily be accepted here. You're only allowed to be here if you are 13 (or if you have parental permission through COPPA, though I'd hope you have permission otherwise) or older, and if you're that age and if you're smart enough to turn on a computer and register, then I know you can spell properly. On the other hand, typos are allowed unless they're found every line or so--unless you're trying to type out a post like this in under a minute, you should be fine. Just remember that this isn't IM.

Of course, should your grammar be abnormally bad (except for humorous words such as "funnily" and "misunderestimate"), then I suggest using the spell check as some do--I don't, and I do make typos often, but my posts are legible. It might also be easier to run your posts through a word processor such as OpenOffice.org Writer (and some others that I'll conveniently forget to mention). That can also help you with the next problem, which happens to be grammar.

But with both problems, as long as we can understand what you're saying and as long as what you're saying isn't trash, then it should be okay. Sometimes we'll get on you for minor spelling errors--but I can absolutely guarantee that that will only occur if the basic definition of the word changes completely by the typo or spelling error, and especially so if it's hard to see that you made the mistake in the first place. Those types of things are hard to catch unless you proofread (which probably isn't necessary), but if we see them we'll tell you. The important thing to remember throughout is that we're fixing the post, not you, so don't get mad and just change it if it's wrong. We don't have a bone to pick with you.

Grammar--Grammar isn't very hard to get right, and we aren't going to pound you for using adjectives instead of adverbs (such as "good" instead of "well") or anything else that's so petty. Once again, if you remember that this isn't IM, then you should be fine. We're not so picky as to ban you immediately, which is fortunate, because I'm usually big on grammar. I define appropriate grammar for this forum as being "casual," which is looser than "formal" but stricter than "informal." We like to see that you're comfortable here, so talk as you [hopefully] would in real life--that is, with proper grammar but loosely.

Appropriate punctuation is a must, since it's an incredibly obvious thing and also because it's one of those things that really looks ugly when it goes wrong. So watch out for that, and I said above, don't get mad if you get corrected. "Wont" is easily as much like "want" (it's a common spelling mistake) as it is like "won't" (a common grammar mistake, and one that we'll assume for this example), and they can often be used fairly well (but often disjointedly) in certain circumstances. We don't want to get the wrong impression by assuming that you made a different mistake from the one you did make.

Another grammatical problem that frankly shouldn't be a problem and that is annoying is posting in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS (and yes, that was only done as an example). If you're really looking to make a point and say something that will be obvious to the eye, then bold text will be far more effective. It really catches the eye more, it seems more polite and calm, and it uses proper grammar. Also, as joannaardway so effectively put it quite a while ago at SSC, using all capitals is very much like shouting. Expect to be severely warned if you use all capital letters.

If you're using paragraphs as I should hope you do, then make sure they're separated by an empty line in the middle as they are in this post. As with every online forum I know, parsing is on; this means multiple (ie, more than one) spaces in between two characters will be deleted in a way such that only one space remains. Also, it will take away all the spaces if there's no character on one side; that is at the beginning and (unseen) at the end of a line. Thus, if you try indenting your paragraphs by using several spaces, they will disappear when you post and everything will look terrible. It's just cleaner like this, and it's easy, so everybody should do it. I don't particularly like parsing (it prevents convenient text drawings and a huge amount of spaces gets you past the word minimum), but it's here to stay since those text drawings look terrible.

And finally, and obviously by this point, you should be writing in English. Or, at least, in a language workable with using these characters (so, probably a Western language) and for your own benefit readable by one of WWc's active members. What I'm getting at is that you really shouldn't be using leetspeak/1334 (used as an example) at all, so don't. That will be considered to be spam, and if you ignore our first warning, then you're outta here, no questions asked. Even if you do have a good message to make, if we can't understand it (I can't really, and I don't mind playing dumb), then it's spam. As with the other rules, if it's illegible, then it's spam--though that also means we're less strict about everything else.