The halfbakery is a great place, yes. Part of what makes the halfbakery great is that it elicits strong opinions, and lively debate. What? Debates? Yes, since the halfbakery allows for annotation of ideas, an established idea often garners a long string of annos, which discuss the merits and pitfalls of the idea, and often stray rather far afield into additional, often completely unconnected topics. This is fine in my opinion, because surely if someone has anything important to say about the idea, they can just anno again, with disregard for such things.

Often the annos are more entertaining than the ideas, and this is as it should be. As I understand it, ideas are supposed to meet certain criteria, and be semi-serious concepts which just might serve some purpose, or at least function as described in the post. Also, the annos are usually made by dedicated halfbakers, who have spent years perfacting their trade, so that these annos generally contain the true wit, temper, and sensibility or otherwise that makes the halfbakery great.

Unfortunately, some annos are not at all like this. Some annos just bring me down, and I suspect that they bring everyone down. For ideas, there are MFD categories, and a help file to assist people in predetermining whether their idea is worthy of putting up at all. For annos, there is really nothing except the idea poster's own ability to delete undesirable posts.

I feel that a help file for annotation, so that newcomers and oldies alike can agree on certain etiquette is desirable. As anyone reading this has been grabbed by the title, you too may feel the same. Thus, I suggest a few guidelines, all of which I have broken in the past... Well, maybe not all.

1: Don't bemoan the degeneration of the halfbakery: It was great for you. It is great for me. If you feel that the halfbakery has strayed from it's previous greatness, either post a great idea yourself, tell me how I can make great ideas, or shut up. I come here because the halfbakery is articulate, fun, and informative. If you can be none of these, I have no patience with repetition of how things were "better back in the day." If you can explain how they were better by being articulate, and informative, I'll listen.

2: Do not personally attack others: Yes, we all get a little impatient with the bozo that posts what whe don't think of as "ideas." but that is not because the person is bad. Maybe they're just inexperienced and need a little coaching, or maybe the halfbakery isn't quite the place for them. Help them out instead. If you can help them develop a real idea, so much the better. If not, then help them OUT of the halfbakery by showing them some related site where they might fit in better.

3: Use good science: Just because they can't be bothered to get the facts straight doesn't mean you have to use their bad science to explain things to them. You don't need to ask the flat earther why people don't walk sideways near the edge, because good science has a number of ways to prove that the earth is in fact round.

4: Give a reason if you yell "Baked!" I don't care if I'm talking about inventing a single pane glass window to look through, if I post the idea, I must live in some cave where I've never seen it, so show me a link that proves they exist. Do it enough, and I'll try to get out more before my next "idea."

5: Give a category if you MFD: Most of us newbies, such as myself really have read the help file for ideas, so either we're morons that don't understand the categories, and need education, or we didn't notice that it fit one, and we'll need the category, and some explanation.

6: Explain why you bone. Most of us really do want the halfbakery to still be great. Sadly, us newcomers are a little denser than the oldies, so if we don't get it right, please tell us why. You oldies are better at guessing who's trolling, but throw me a fricken bone here, and lemme know i'm not posting to the bakery celeste.

7: Give advice, damnit! Even if it's bad advice, that's what we want!

8: Think twice before posting "Why not...Instead." This is the halfbakery, where we prefer to attach a jacob's ladder spark system to the bottom of our gas grilles, because piezo sparkers are boring and magic. Most of us are intelligent enough to know that a good alarm system will solve our problem more easily than training an army of robotic barbies to fight using all twelve styles of kung-fu... but the barbies would be way cooler. If your "Why not" includes something that already exists, think three or four times before posting.

9: Come back on topic every now and then. No, really, it helps. I like poems, and discussions, and even some rants, but a little returning to topic adds that patina of legitimacy to what we do here.

10: Try not to rant. Yes, I know, it's really tempting to go off when you see an idea about giving every substitute teacher a gun, and maybe there's some merit in getting into a deep discussion there, but do remember what the idea was about... Second amendments, wasn't it?

11: Thou shalt not have an eleventh guideline, for eleven is sacred to the Agape Republic.

12: Edit and delete wisely. Try not to make the people who respond to you look like crazy morons because what they're commenting on is gone now.

13: Use the silly // for quotes, and put names in [brackets] I don't know why we do it, but we've always done it that way, and some traditions are worth keeping. Then again, maybe this isn't one of them... On a similar vein, we correct spelling, and suggest better categories to put ideas in around here too. Patina of legitimacy and all...

14: Read the other annos. Now that they've been helped they should be more entertaining than ever, and if they say what you wanted to, you can save yourself the effort of typing... and check out the ideas of someone who thinks a lot like you. (just click on their name, newb!)

15: keep in mind that you may not be able to respond to every post. When you have to refer to a post four, five, or ten posts back, what you write often ends up just sounding stale and desperate... sort of like most of my ideas and annos... Or maybe they're still funny, but nobody really jokes much about them after that, which kills half the fun.

16: Wait. If you're doing every other post, it may be worthwhile to let a third or fourth party get a word in edgewise... or it may have developed into a rant, flamewar, or completely unrelated topic worthy of private discussion rather than forever taking up [jutta's] somewhat precious badwidth.

Now, lemme hop off this little box of irish spring, so I can stick my head in the sand for a few days.