This is taken from a Wikipedia article that has since been removed. A list of suggested courtesies for this and other forums.
1Please read all the rules and guidelines established by the forum owner. Self-regulation is far more helpful than having the moderators get on your case.
2-One goal of conduct is courtesy to other forum members. Don’t say anything in a post that you wouldn’t say face-to-face when sober.
3-Please refrain from lashing back at a poorly behaving member or participating in a flame war; instead, notify the message board’s staff of the event. We will respond as quickly as we can, but bear in mind that we all have full time jobs.
4-Please avoid the use of all CAPITAL LETTERS in posts. ALL CAPS is considered "shouting" and causes readability issues.
5-The use of bold and italics is helpful for emphasis. Bolding your entire post kind of defeats the purpose.
6-Color may be used for emphasis, but should be used sparingly, again for readability.
7-When quoting a previous post, delete all but the most relevant portion of that post. Be careful to keep the opening (quote) and closing (/quote) tags using square brackets in place of the parentheses.
8-Before creating a new topic thread, please search to see if a similar topic already exists.
9-Please, insofar as you can, use standard grammar and spelling. This isn’t a writing class, and we’re not all that critical, but members will appreciate your making an effort to communicate carefully.
10-When making a technical inquiry, include as much technical information as possible, especially in the subject line.
11-Contributors are asked to stay on-topic. Often we respond to the previous post without looking at the topic. Your moderators lack the time to inspect and delete off-topic posts, so self-control is encouraged.
12-The forum is categorized, so please post in the correct section (ask your chemical questions in the Chemicals subforum).
13-Contributors should avoid double posting and cross posting.
Cross posting is the act of posting the same message to multiple forums, mailing lists, or newsgroups. Cross posting is considered bad form because it multiplies traffic without adding any new content. In the extreme case, if all messages were cross posted to every group, then every group would look exactly the same. Cross posting can be helpful if the message is of interest to a larger audience, but cross posting to groups that are irrelevant to the message could be considered spamming. A cross poster can minimize this problem by specifying that all responses be directed to a single group.
Double Posting, involves posting multiple messages (even the same message multiple times) to a single forum or subforum. If you've done it accidentally, please delete one of the duplicate posts.
14-To avoid appearing self-absorbed, respond to topics started by others more often than starting topics of your own.
15-It’s not often useful to resurrect a very old topic if nothing significant will be added. This practice is known as revival, bumping or Necroing. Occasionally someone may do this to see if there are any new developments.
1/20/2015, 9:15 pm by 
Calendar
Subject: Forum Etiquette, Courtesy on the forum 
