I came across a piece from the University of Wisconsin that I thought would be of significant help to this community, the mods, and all of us as regular members. I hope you find it helpful as well. Just change "class" or "course" to "forum discussion" and "instructor" to "moderator".

Disembodied Discussions

A key distinguishing feature of an online course is that communication occurs solely via the written word. Because of this, the body language, voice tone, and instantaneous listener feedback of the traditional classroom are all absent. These facts need to be taken into account both when contributing messages to a discussion and when reading them. Keep in mind the following points:

Tone Down Your Language

Given the absence of face-to-face clues, written text can easily be misinterpreted. Avoid the use of strong or offensive language and the excessive use of exclamation points. If you feel particularly strongly about a point, it may be best to write it first as a draft and then to review it, before posting it, in order to remove any strong language.
Keep A Straight Face

In general, avoid humor and sarcasm. These frequently depend either on facial or tone of voice cues absent in text communication or on familiarity with the reader.
Be Forgiving

If someone states something that you find offensive, mention this directly to the instructor. Remember that the person contributing to the discussion is also new to this form of communication. What you find offensive may quite possibly have been unintended and can best be cleared up by the instructor.
The Recorder Is On

Think carefully about the content of your message before contributing it. Once sent to the group, there is no taking it back. Also, although the grammar and spelling of a message typically are not graded, they do reflect on you, and your audience might not be able to decode misspelled words or poorly constructed sentences. It is a good practice to compose and check your comments in a word-processor before posting them.
Test For Clarity

Messages may often appear perfectly clear to you as you compose them, but turn out to be perfectly obtuse to your reader. One way to test for clarity is to read your message aloud to see if it flows smoothly. If you can read it to another person before posting it, even better.
Netspeak

Although electronic communication is still young, many conventions have already been established. DO NOT TYPE IN ALL CAPS. This is regarded as shouting and is out of place in a classroom. Acronyms and emoticons (arrangements of symbols to express emotions) are popular, but excessive use of them can make your message difficult to read.

All of that makes if I 'm going for a grade. Humor/sarcasm is half the fun of message boards.

its good enough to be posted at other SWM sites.....*goes off to do this*

Thanks Billiv. Makes sense though!!

You don't need to make official citations on the internet when you are aren't publicizing or getting anything out of it. I figured if anyone wanted, telling you it was from the UW would have made finding it easy enough. But if you want the citation, here's the website where this is published.

http://online.uwc.edu/Technology/onlEtiquette.asp

Thanks for posting the guide here Bill

As to the citation thing, since I brought it up, do note that my sentence started with "might" and ended with the "unsure" smiley. Just thought I'd mention it, in case it mattered.

Well theres a few things i have to say about this post.

Thank you bill for posting this because i know atleast for me, this will help me seeing that i do tend to not even think before i post stuff if im debating with someone over something so i know this should help me out personally.

Hey im no stranger to arguments & speaking my views & i will be a man & admitt at times i do get out of hand which i obviously need to work on lol which i tell everyone please dont take offense. Its usualy after i post that i realize that i was out of line & i pm the person to apologize to them for my actions which in this post from Bill i especially liked the write out your post first & then overview it to make sure its appropiate to post, seeing as i just post then i view & realize i think im gonna start doing that.

Its a simple idea that i didnt really think about doing & now instead of apologizing to the person i offended i can now hopefully catch myself before i offend someone & change my post to be less offensive. So yea again Bill thanx for putting this on here, it might not seem like a big deal but it is for a person like me who doesnt think before he types so im gonna keep reading this over & taking tips out of it. Thanx man.