#1 - Saying you don't do meta on a meta post does not mean you do not do meta.

#2 - Saying you are nice, centered, kind, decent or supportive as you work behind the scenes to denegrate your fellow OSers doesn't go unnoticed. You're selfish and hateful. We know it.

#3 - We know what you did last summer.

#4 - Being sanctimonious will get you everywhere. When asked about your motives, habits or preferences, always say,"I won't list their names here, because I tend to resist those sorts of shows of favortism."

#5 - No one cares about the "celebrities" you know. Sure, you may have 30 people willing to rate, comment and appreciate the fact that you once pissed in a stall next to Juice Newton at Studio 54. All of them live with their parents.

#6 - True honesty only comes from anonymity. Most of the people you're afraid of here you've already friended on Facebook under their "nice name."

#7 - If you don't like the editor, don't worry. We'll get a new one for Christmas.

#8 - If you need to speak through an inanimate object, you are probably an inanimate object.

#9 - You can take a photo of a cat crapping in a fishbowl and get 10,000 hits. If you truly want to be a tortured artist, try writing poetry.

#10 - Your poetry sucks. No one will tell you this because they are not poets. They are plumbers and accountants. If you are a poet, try a poetry site. Then you'll see how "good" you are.

#11 - Regurgitating a CNN "Breaking News" email and attaching a personal memory to it is not "reporting." It's a digital scrapbook. Fondly remembering Michael Jackson does not make you Christiane Amanpour. It makes you a douchebag.

#12 - When in doubt, point out hypocrisy. If you can't find any, point and laugh at typos. It won't make YOUR work any better, but you can experience the joy of the discomfort of others.

#13 - Quality is neither subjective, nor democratic. Just because a bunch of your sycophant friends have phlegmed all over you doesn't make you Flannery O'Connor. Look up subjective. And sycophant. And Flannery O'Connor.

#14 - Lose the thesaurus. No thesaurus for you until you've mastered the dictionary.

#15 - Stop writing in text shorthand. You look like a fucking lunatic. Don't use it just bc u can.

#16 - Emergency grammar lesson:

They're: contraction of "they are"
Their: possessive of multiple people

Your: Possessive of a single person you are speaking about
You're: Contraction of "you are."

When you've finished writing, go back and take out at least half of the commas.

Semicolons are not to be used for "variety" when you're bored with the comma. They separate two phrases that could stand alone.

#17 - "Beautiful, yet haunting" = We have no fucking clue what this shit is about.

#18 - You do not want "constructive criticism" - you want validation that what you used to scribble in your "Chicken Soup for the Lonely Woman's Soul" journal is interesting to someone but you. It is. Consider carefully exactly who is interested in your writing because the editor at the Penny Saver would make you cry.

#19 - Believe it or not, the drunk-ass husband, the lack of sex in your life, the shitty bad day you had, the fact you hate your life, and the fucked-up stuff that happened to you in childhood are NOT the subjects of good writing. What sense you can make of them, or even a Surly-esque rant ARE. Please find a POINT before you start typing. Things may need to incubate, and you probably need to evolve.

#20 - A guy in Toronto was arrested for marinating his cat. One more fucking cat video, and we post the recipe.

#21 - There is no contest to see how many posts you can wring out of one death.

#22 - Fuck off, Surly.

#23 - Profundity does not lie in proximity. If someone is liveblogging their colonoscopy, it is not news. If someone is liveblogging their wedding, it is pathetic. If someone is liveblogging their breast augmentation, it explains a lot. Like a Phish tour, all of these things benefit from sobriety, retrospection, penicillin, a little distance and a lot of lying.

#24 - It is not brave to refuse to apologize for being unmedicated if you are currently causing damage.

#25 - No one cares what you think Avatar meant.

#26 - Open Salon is no substitute for electroshock therapy or lithium. Do not skip either in favor of writing about your first dog.

#27 - The line between being flirty and being a defendant is not nearly as broad as you think.

#28 - Don't call someone a Nazi for telling you to shut the fuck up, and then turn around and post about how awesome Leni Riefenstahl is. It's confusing. Did you mean Nazi as a compliment? Because if so, I can tell you to shut the fuck up all day long.

#29 - That handy red line that appears under words does not mean that you won the lottery - it means you need to use a spell checker more often.

#30 - If you are going to plagiarize, then do it with gusto and stand still so the arrows that get slung in your direction don't miss the mark. Otherwise, hit a few more keys and attribute. The other author thanks you.

#31 - Anything over 500 words better be really compelling.

#32 - Drinking and writing are only a good thing if you're Ernest Hemingway, and even then, not always.

#33 - Multiple personalities posing as (multiple) separate voices/ authors is not as clever, cute or authentic as you think. (Unless we do it.)

#34 - IP addresses are searchable.

#35 - No one cares that you did, ate, traveled to, met, saw, wore, or whatever the same as the person writing.

#36 - Hubris is not spelled B-A-L-L-S, but it might be when you post about someone else's life without explicit permission from them to do that.

#37 - A sock monkey is no substitute for a troll.

#38 - It is not rude to read and not rate. It is not rude to rate and not comment. It is not rude to comment and not rate. It is rude to rate and not read.

#39 - This is a website, not a finishing school. Readers read your posts. What they do with them is not up to you. Readers who rate out of habit and do not read do a disservice to those who use ratings to guide what they read. When you rate something that sucks, Baby Jesus cries.

#40 - You do not have a right to ratings. You do not have a right to comments. You have the right to post - we have the right to not bother.

#41 - If you are supporting someone's misguided idea that the world is yearning to hear about their latest yeast infection expressed in poorly constructed iambic pentameter - you are the bride of Satan - bend over and receive the Cock of Evil.

#42 - If putting your therapist's phone number on your blog sounds like a good idea, it probably is.

#43 - Putting a knitted vest on a chihuahua doesn't make it a service animal.

#44 - I'm calling from inside the house.