A Public Service Announcement, in a way.

[Brandon Martus]

So, I've noticed a number of new (and veteran) users who haven't quite got the hang of all the essential features that are included with vBulletin, the forum software we use. I thought I'd go ahead and explain a few of the essentials, to hopefully prevent a few double-posts and such.

Edit
There is an edit button on every post. If you are the owner of this post, you can edit it. When you post something, and then realize 2-3 minutes later that you forgot to say something, try to edit the post, rather than post another right after it. Thats the whole purpose of the edit button.

Quote
If you want to reference someone's post above, click the 'quote' button on their posts. This will start a new reply with their text already quoted/bolded/etc. A few people have bolded, italicized, and such, which is inconsistent with how 90% of the users normally quote text. Thats the whole purpose of the qoute button.

Preview Post
Take a look at what you're going to post before you post it. You may realize something is missing, looks wrong, or shouldn't be said before you post it. It may help in the long run.

Report post to moderator
Rather than harrass someone who's posted something, and risk causing even more problems, hold off on replying-to/yelling-at the user publically, and report the post to a moderator. The post will get reviewed, and if any necessary action is required ... it will be dealt with. This causes less hassle, less flaming/harrassing/bickering/etc and make the forum environment a little less crazy.

Search
If you're going to write 'I dont know if someone posted this or not but ...' at the top of your message, at least go search for the topic before writing that. The search is pretty easy, semi-effective, and doesn't take more than 2 minutes. Doing this will keep the forums more orderly and easier to read. I would rather look at 1 long thread on a topic, rather than flipping between 4 different threads on a single topic.

Anyway. If I think of any more helpful hints, I'll reply to this thread. Feel free to do the same.

Thanks,
Brandon

-edit-
Another thing to remember: Sarcasm does not come across too well in text.