Top 10 Ways To Fail On WTF.com

In typical “Top Ten” fashion, we’ll start at 10 and work our way down. Of course, this means that fails will start with simple little things and then degenerate to the straight up stoopit. Yes. I spelled it “stoopit”.

10) This one’s perpetrated by veterans and noobs alike: Table-Breaking images. Okay, look, guys. Resizing photos is not an aneurysm provoking computing operation. In fact, it’s quite simple. So simple, in fact, that most image hosting sites will resize them for you. Photobucket, for example, hosts all images you see here that are posted by yours truly (unless I just steal the URL from elsewhere on the net). They will not cause the entire site to crap itself and drool. You might, but not the site.

9) Broken tags. Most veterans get away without messing up the forum tags, but occasionally you’ll see a “[quote] no u [/quote” somewhere on the forums. You know what? Phail. You could go through the trouble of previewing the post before you officially put it on the forum, but who does that? However, the site has always allowed you to edit your posts for a short while. To further hold your wittle hand and help you along; once you post to the forum, it takes you to it so you can do any last minute modifications before anyone reads it and sees what a dumbass you are. You cannot begin to fathom how many times this nifty feature has saved my virtual buttocks.

8) This one was too easy to pass up: Asking for serious advice on a forum populated by smartasses and trolls. Seriously, guys? Seriously? Okay, that one I’ll give you, but how you gonna get pissed off when the trolls start trolling and the weisenheimers start cracking wise? Get real, get over yourself, look around, and see what goes on every single day the site is up. On that note, does anyone know what I should get my fiancé for Valentine’s Day? I was told an ironing board was a sweet gift…

7) Missing obvious sarcasm. Okay, in the absence of a sarcasm font (perhaps simple italics would work) the ambiguous ones are easy to overlook. This means there are no contexts in which to view the statement to see if the author is genuine. For example: no immediately contradictory statements, no “rolleyes” smiley, and no blatantly obvious “[sarcasm][/sarcasm]” tags. In the presence of these cues, however, one must seriously start evaluating the sarcastic nature of the populace of the forums. Remember who you’re dealing with: weisenheimers and trolls.

6) Misinterpreting peoples’ posts. Okay, some of you do this for fun, just to put words in mouths and get a reaction. Yes, it’s hilarious, and it wouldn’t be the site it is without people like you. However, there are those of you who would twist and contort the words of your fellow posters primarily because you’re too stupid to reconcile what they’re saying with what they mean. Maybe sometimes it’s not a completely elucidated statement, and that’s okay, but if you’re a constant violator of number 6, you’re just an idiot.

5) Down for sex?

4) Noobs who join, flaming pretty much the whole site, who then become butthurt and offended when they get the same treatment in turn, which, consequently, is the same treatment given to every single other noob who crosses these thresholds. Everyone else gets the same “GTFO read the rules and die” welcome. It’s practically on our doormat. By the way, our doormat is made of 100% recycled perma-banned noobs. Enjoy it.

3) Pissing contest with the moderators and/or admins. Look, here’s the deal. They know the rules, and like the site to be a place where people are easily understood so all snide, rude, and snarky comments can be passed freely from person to person without any major misunderstandings. In the past there have been disruptions. These disruptions culminated in the rules. Violating these rules will get you banned, and arguing with the mods/admins will get you nowhere except a place on our next doormat. You are not going to complain yourself an exemption from the rules. Like it or GTFO.

2) Taking the moral high ground. We all get it. Not everyone looks at things the same way. We can disagree amicably. That’s the best way to go. Arguing that you are right and everyone else is wrong will do nothing but make you look like an arrogant tryhard who OBVIOUSLY knows everything better than everyone else . There are lots of people on the site whose opinions differ, and they get along just fine by avoiding the whole “flaming sword of divine justice” that so many people like to bandy about.

1) Jumping in without looking, then getting pissy because you didn’t take the opportunity to learn how the site works before crapping it up. This includes posting off topic nothingness in threads, wondering why everyone is so hateful in Bait and Tackle, why new people to the site are so poorly treated, why pornography isn’t allowed, and why you have to have so many posts before you can play in the arcade. It overlaps a lot of my other finer points, and is most hilarious when it happens, occasionally culminating in the need for a bigger doormat. We once had one that stretched all the way around the site, but we decided that when the tardgates broke, and the poo-flingers started flocking to the site we didn’t want to hose off that much poo.

Well, I might have to go with “Being [Hostile]” on number 1, actually. Haven’t made up my mind yet. I think an honorable mention is in order.