The Art of Using a Carp Forum

Prior to, perhaps, the year 2000, the carp forum was a rare thing. In order to get a steady supply of information, the carp angler (we shall call our fictitious angler Rob) had to resort to the weekly and monthly magazines, his local tackle shop, or his friends. The essential and most important feature of all these information sources is that they are in-bound. That is to say, all Rob had to do was either listen or read.

The carp forum has changed that because, now, Rob, in order to participate, has to write. And, having read my own way through a vast number of forum threads, I have concluded that writing would seem largely beyond the reach of Rob and many (but not all) of his cohorts. I am not criticising Rob (nor anybody else for that matter), and I am not saying that he is not a good or keen angler. Neither do I mean to suggest he is lacking intellectually. In fact, I attribute no cause whatsoever to this state of affairs apart from, perhaps, that Rob missed the odd English language lesson at school.

This phenomena has caused me to write this short essay and hold it up with a possibly vein hope of improving things in the way of forum posting.

I do so for a very simple reason. When Rob makes a post on a forum thread, he is trying to impart information, either to an individual, or to the public at large. I think, logically, we are on safe ground so far. However, if Rob's message is to find its mark, and find it with maximum impact, then the clearer and easier it is to understand, then the more successful Rob's effort will be. Again, I think that is logically sound.

But there is more to it than that. Forums are not places where we meet person to person. The only means Rob has of projecting himself and creating an impression, is through what he writes and the manner in which he writes it. We perceive others through our words, and Rob can raise himself up in the esteem of his peers with a few well chosen and nicely delivered phrases. Should he focus his energies, he may even be classed as “educated”. And should this be the case, then the “educated” Rob may well be thought of as having knowledge, and then, in turn, intelligence. This is a truism, but also a fallacy. Knowledge and education do not lead automatically to intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to draw conclusions from, or make judgements on, knowledge. Knowledge on its own butters no parsnips.

But the opposite is also true. If Rob is renowned for unreadable blobs of blather, then, needless to say, he may very well be judged a blathering blobber, or, in extreme cases, a perfect brute. And who would like to be seen as such a man?

But let us be clear. It is not necessary for Rob to be the world's leading wordsmith in order to achieve success. On the contrary, a few simple rules will do him in order to raise the quality of his post's by a significant factor. So do please read on, and let us see if we can work things out for Rob.

The first thing we need to consider is the English language itself, and the modest number of structures necessary in order to convey a clear and concise message.

We will start with spelling. We are not all blessed with this art. In fact, with the advent of the word processor, we have seen a dramatic decline in the number of those able to count spelling among their accomplishments. And we cannot look to the spell checker to help us to any significant degree. Take the following sentence for example:

“wee can lock their at a examp0le too see if its rite. sum times its knot rite an did no help”

This will pass most spell checker tests, and yet there are no fewer than eleven spelling errors and five grammatical. No, no, no. This will not do. The only way to check the spelling of a word about which you are having doubt is to consult a dictionary. You may resort to a handy pocket edition, or for even easier access, visit this on-line site:

Dictionary Site

Now to grammar. This can be a tricky subject, but Rob needs only to understand a few basic rules and he will be well on his way.

First, the sentence. A sentence always begins with a capital letter and almost always ends with a full stop (or a period if Rob is American). Each sentence should be separated from its brothers by a space. Occasionally, a sentence may be enhanced by the use of a comma. A comma is simply a device to create a pause in a sentence. For example:

“We had a fine day fishing and we caught many fish, but it was hard work.”

From this we can see that the comma enhances the sentence and makes it easier to read.

There are many more aspects to sentences we could discuss, but this is all Rob needs to know in order to make good progress.

Next, the paragraph. A paragraph is simply a collection of related sentences, Paragraphs should always be separated by a blank line (except in books - it saves space), as can be seen from this essay. Paragraphs are a simple item to understand, and their use makes Rob's posts far less blobby.

So much for Language. Now to subject.

It is always advisable to place in the subject line something that will draw the attention of others, and in dong so, make them read what you have to say. A subject line of: “lots of” for example does not thrill or excite. Worse, it may confuse or even disturb. A far better example would be: “Back wind or clutch”. This immediately engages (as it were) and draws the reader in.

Now that we have established a fine set of language rules, and created a thoughtful subject line, we can proceed (using our language skills) to produce the finished post. A few further rules are all we need:

Always be courteous.
Always consider your audience.
Always show gratitude for any helpful replies.

And lastly, always enjoy using and learning from the excellent medium of a carp forum.


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