Online forums are a great place to ask question you might be too embarrassed to ask anyone face-to-face. If you’ve joined our Choma Mxit forum, you’ll know that there is usually a community of chomas just like yourself who can give advice. But there are some unspoken rules you should follow when chatting on forums, chat rooms and even social media.

Here are our DOs and DON’T’s for chatting online:

• Do be kind. People come onto forums to seek help and advice.   Don’t judge or bully them, even if you don’t agree with them.
• Do report or block anyone who harasses you online.
• Do be as clear as possible.  Try to explain your situation or question so that others understand and can help you.
• Do give good advice.  When replying to someone else’s problem, try to make sure your information is correct and helpful.
• Don’t give out too much personal info. Chomas, don’t share things like your phone number online. Anyone can use this to harass you or even track you down.
• Don’t use CAPS. USING CAPITAL LETTERS LOOKS LIKE YOU’RE SHOUTING OR ARE ANGRY and people might not want to chat with you.
• Don’t get into petty arguments online.  When someone directs a mean comment at you, it can be very tempting to respond with something equally mean.  By all means, defend yourself but don’t keep replying to someone who is clearly just looking for trouble.
• Don’t spam the comment threads with links or the same comment over and over again.
• Don’t be offensive.  Please respect other’s cultures, beliefs and genders and don’t post anything that may be seen as sexist, racist or offensive in any way.

Happy chatting, chomas!