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AussiePam Introduction

I am an Australian woman in search of intelligent, sparky, international-minded people to have meaningful conversation on just about any topic. I must say I am a little daunted by the Management Requirements for only constructive remarks. Being an Aussie, I'm bolshie at the best of times and do not speak The Queen's English or even American English. Down Under, we speak Strine - sometimes laced with dodgy phrases like 'Crikey' and 'Stone the Crows'. I avoided the normal expletive in the last exclamation. So this forum may be far too highbrow for me. My arguments at times lack rigour. I can hold - albeit politely I hope - two mutually exclusive opinions at the same time, and sometimes I don't really know what I think till I read what I've written. In addition, and it's possibly my most fatal flaw, I don't do gravitas very well. Still, I'll give you a go, if you give me a go.

Introduction AussiePam

Welcome, I'm Brandon

It's great to have you on board. Our Community is large, but do not be intimidated by it. We want to help you get around, so do ask questions you may have here in this, your Introduction Thread. Please let me share some links with you that are very helpful:

Posting Policy | See All Boards | Site Map | FAQ

Now, you can find the Board of the Topic you are interested in and Post your interests there. To find the Board click on the Site Map link at the top of this page.

AussiePam Introduction Sharing Member & Introductions

Welcome, AussiePam!


I understand well what you mean about not really knowing what you're saying until you're reading it all at once on the page itself, as I tend to do that myself, pretty consistently, and sometimes the things I write don't make nearly as much sense as they did when they were in my head. Although I don't use it like I should, I'm slowly working on it, the best method is to use the ADD REPLY button that opens up a full editing/posting window, instead of typing things in the QUICK REPLY box, and being able to Preview your post before submitting it.

The Spell Check button, which I ignore as much as I can, is something I'm going to have to rely on a little more, as my eyes are getting worse, and my fingers don't seem to want to codorniate with each other like they used to, whether it's the web or email or anything else I'm writing, so really the Preview and Spell Check buttons are two pretty significant tools that can be used to minimize malformed posts. (smile)

Don't know quite what to say about your "slang" and such, if it could be an issue - I tend to write like I think I'm an arrogant Nobel prize winner for English, which I am not (the Prize was only for fitting 27 sheep into a phone booth). I used to chat to a lady from Australia that would have a lot of sayings that were kinda peculiar. I remember her saying "I'm going to go down to Bris-Vegas on hols so I can pop open a tinnie with the rels". I wasn't even sure if she was speaking standard English, heh. I also remember her saying she came to the US once and asked for a can of Coke at a restaurant once and they brought her a piece of chocolate cake. "Oyd laiykah kinna kaik playze."


The ID forums here ARE quite large and "busy", lots of topics and categories, and PLENTY of FAQs to read (which I'd recommend doing at least now and then, if you weren't going to at all, just to learn more about how things work around here, which helped me a lot). But while the requirements are definitely stronger than most any other forum or site I'm familiar with, as much as I personally bristled against it to begin with, I have to agree with the administrator, JayBee, that these policies, and the staff's very solid moderation do a very good job of maintaining a baseline level of thoughtful and useful posting, rather than what is referred to as "teenybopper" level of "participation" and chatspeak/weblish, so in that way, I can appreciate the intent, reasoning and implementation, but do agree newbies can feel a little daunted, so if you give it time and find things here to be of interest to you, it doesn't take all that long to get into the routine and the "do's and don'ts" are mostly revealed to be common sense, just sense we're not used to having to use on the internet in general.


So again, welcome, and I hope you find things to your liking - if you need, you can always ask in your own thread here, or any other poster's, including mine, for general help with how to do things (though you'll always also be directed to read the appropriate FAQs so you might as well locate them to help start your own research as well as not unduly busying the staff).