Probably the most important part of The Comment Revolution is our education on commenting. To do this, we will of course have a "Guide to Commenting" or "Guide to Better Commenting." We don't need a name for it just yet.

What we need to discuss is how we're going about building this guide. We will need the critique guide that *ivyc is working on, which will be an integral part of the complete piece. There are other necessary parts though, such as a set of general steps to leaving a comment, a list of reasons why deviants should be spending more time on comments, and whatever else should be included.

I'd like to start coming up with ideas on how to organize this large guide, and how to separate it into sections, such as the "Critique Guide" part. We can use other guides as examples, but I expect our final product will be much more detailed than anything else available here.

Though I haven't come up with any solid structure yet, the following is a glimpse into what I envision. Feel free to add/edit/remove/suggest anything.

Guide to Commenting

Introduction

Briefly mention commenting and what this guide is all about (and more, though I don't know what yet).

Why Spend Time Commenting?

This is very important. We need to make it clear to the deviant reading why it is so important to comment well. I believe that this section has the most potential for converting people from one liners to more involved comments.

The Rating System And You

Go over the Rating System. Why it should be used, how it works, who it effects, and why better commenting will help your comments stand out in not only the artist's mind, but in the deviantART community as a whole.

Before You Comment

The steps that should be done before commenting, such as reading the description, spending time really looking at the piece, and looking at the other comments so as to not repeat others.

Comment Structure

The structure of a good comment should include most if not all of these things:

Interpretation
Critique
Compliments
Questions

(these all come from `leodadominico's How To Give Better Comments journal entry)

Language and Emoticons

Mention the language barrier and how deviants that don't speak English as their native language should feel free to write the best they can. This is where we make sure we aren't alienating foreign deviants. Also, we should bring up the emoticon usage issue and encourage deviants to keep the usage of these items at a minimum. A mention of l33t speak and using all CAPS should be in here as well.

Guide to Interpretation

This is a possible item. I'm not sure if we need a separate guide for this, but it might be useful. Basically we'd just go over the basics of how to explain your interpretation of a piece and how to get that message across to the artist.

Critique Guide

The large section *ivyc is working on right now. This will probably be long, so we may need to pull it out of this guide and link to it as a separate guide.

After You Comment

What to do once the comment has been written. Includes revising, spell checking (even if just rereading for errors), grammar checking, etc.

Closing

Some final thoughts, reiterate the entire thing, and remind user why commenting more professionally is good for him/her and the artist. Plus we should emphasize our goal is not to alienate those who can't be bothered with leaving lengthy comments.

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`splat
Patrick Haney, not a sausage
Designer, developer, deviant