Forum & Site Discussion
Have you ever looked at Today's Top 10 Posters on the Forums? Some people add between 45-60 posts in a single day! As a result, many great things happen at Sal's, and at the same time many not so great things. We cover it all and rest assured we do it well in this month's issue. Meen gives us a detailed rundown of Sal's History and Julz(DJ)4433 appeals for better grammar on Sal's. Enjoy!
- Master Neverdead
Sal's Realm - So Far - By: Meen Masheen
How many of us knew that the massive RuneScape Fansite, that we all know and love, started out as free Geocities job? Meen Masheen reports.
It all started out when an average RuneScape player decided that, after about one year playing, people needed help on RuneScape. This player was Salmoneus. In an interview with Dissentor for the Salcast, Sal said that, "Of course, there were already fansites out there, but their information was often outdated and unorganised.and I thought I could do a better job."
The goal was set. Salmoneus made his first RuneScape help website on Geocities, but this site only lasted about a week due to lack of patience. Had Sal given up then, we'd be stuck with the likes of Rune HQ or Tipit! Ahh!
It was in September of 2002 that Sal started his second website - Rune Conspirator's Realm Of RuneScape. Apparently, Sal wanted to think up a catchy, new name...he dreads talking of it now. This site, hosted on Freewebs, was going well until Sal unfortunately hit the seven-page limit. Never giving up, the site was soon upgraded to a premium service, and the site building went on.
Then, for a while.there was nothing. In nine months, there was just one update. Then, in July 2003, Sal finally got his act together and started updating the site again! Later that month, he apparently added a bulletin posting board- but it was inactive and was not a huge success, Sal deleted this because barely anybody used it.
It was through a suggestion of 1800151100, a friend of Sal's whom he had met through the question submission feature, that the (now, 'old') forum was opened in 2004. Sal and 1800 spent the 21st and the 22nd of November building the forum, beta tested on the 23rd, then it was opened for buisness on the 24th! In the first fortnight, one hundred and fifty people had signed up for the forums! Some of these people are members today - Ashish , TitanTyrant , iTush , AnImp3HitMe , elvis66 , Sketchy , Cameron , Bluefire , Salek , Sey , DLA , Impy , Huzzamaster , ZMM , Lann , lsnicket , Gardener , Snowzak - to name a few. These boards are now offline, but can still be found here. 1800, who first helped Sal set up the forums, is a Distinguished Member on the current Sal's Forums - but is now known as ©hris .
The forum and site grew enormously, with many members submitting site content themselves. After the Invisionfree forum had been up for nearly a year, it had 2,210 members, with a further 7,753 people signing up but not validating. Overall, Sal's Realm had achieved a total of 304,003 posts! Now, though, it was time to move on.
Sal was moving to IPB 2.1. This was a fresh start for Sal's RuneScape Forum - the board was better looking, (most) banned people were allowed to return, people could put the past flame wars behind them.there was more possibility here. Before ' The Big Move ' was announced, there were a lot of rumours and unexplained mysteries. It was leaked that post count would reset at the end of October 2005. This was true, but was obviously missing the bigger picture - many forumers were confused.
The forums moved. One board was deleted - two were added, but it was similar to the old one. Despite this, it really lifted the mood of the entire site - the activity levels must have tripled in the first week of the new forums's opening!
Since then, Salmoneus's RuneScape fansite has continued to grow. 8,828 people visit the forum, and - at the time of writing - there have been over 150,000 posts. As well as the big move, many other memorable events have occurred - and can be found here .
This is the history of Sal's, but certainly not the end of the road. We can be confident when thinking that the site will keep going for many more years - long live Slams!
Sources of information:
· The Chronicles of Drokarus (bad language warning).
· Old Forum Updates & Announcements .
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Grammar is your friend at Sal's Realm! - By: Julz(DJ)4433
Here at Sal's, grammar is your friend. It is of course if you want people to understand you and actually take notice of what you're saying. In this article I will be talking about why you should use good grammar and the benefits it gives you.
The good thing about using good grammar on Sal's is the feedback you will get from other members. By improving your grammar I guarantee that people will respond to your posts a lot more and take notice of what you're saying. It's a lot easier to read than "1337 Speak" as the letters are identifiable a lot quicker, thus giving the reader more accessibility to your posts. The posts also look a lot nicer on the eye and to the mind when reading. The topic I would like to bring up is the "Stop the 1337 Speak" signatures. There has been a lot of discussion going on about this and I'm getting a bit tired of it. These signatures might.. get through to some people so they will start using good grammar but the majority of them won't. The people that have these signatures are simply sick and tired of people posting like "tht iz leik prty gud" and just want to tell people that it annoys them. Another positive reason for these signatures are that they promote good grammar, which I'm sure is a good thing.
I can't really see why people get annoyed at these signatures, maybe they do say you have an IQ below 50 which I don't think is acceptable as it is just bagging the people out, not actually notifying. They could also argue that they are from different countries and find it harder to use a lot of the grammar that we use, this I find is the only sensible argument as it provided a solid reason why. What I don't like is that these people might use this as an excuse and continue posting normally. If you find it hard, try to learn off the people around you and try too improve, and then this will certainly be acceptable. 1337 Speak or Chat Speak is very popular among people on the internet as it allows them to chat faster and to get messages out. I see no harm in using 1337/Chat on Runescape or places such as MSN or Novus, but on Sal's it's a different story. On Sal's you don't need to get messages out fast as people will take awhile to see it, so you can take the time to use proper grammar and of course proper spelling.
I believe I mentioned "benefits" on my opening sentence and that is what I'm going to talk about now. The benefits of using proper grammar and spelling on Sal's Realm is that you will also write a lot better in your school work, believe me I know from experience. In Yr 7 when I wasn't very active on Sal's I was doing poorly at English, I was coming near last in the class and was horrible at grammar(I wasn't a bad speller though). I started to use Sal's a bit more and learn't that people respected you more if you used proper grammar and spelling and might even notice you. I made an effort too use it and slowly started to get better with my grammar, I was using commas and full stops in the right places and making my posts look a lot better.
By year 8 I was starting to get active on Sal's and my English was improving, by Half-Year I was coming second in the class and feeling very proud of myself. I continued to use good grammar and started improving my grades and my respect on Sal's. I'm now in Yr9 and coming first in my class for English in one of the high classes. As you can see my grammar improved as I made an effort, I'm not saying people don't make an effort but if you find something you like for example Sal's and it requires you too use proper grammar and spelling then make that effort. You will enjoy the rewards and benefits and be respected on Sal's. Well that just about wraps up my article, I hope this inspired a few of you to try and make an effort to use proper grammar and spelling in order to earn some respect on Sal's and maybe even improve your grades.
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