Good Posting Practices

[Floyd1]

Although it is not always deliberate, "in jokes" are a form of shibboleth. They help to differentiate between those who are "in" and those who are not. If this place is to remain lively and entertaining, we need new people and fresh insights. Anything that tends to make new people feel like outsiders is a bad thing. Personally, I don't mind the Cromer jokes, but I can see that too many of them may be harmful to the interests of the forum.

Why would it make anyone feel like an 'outsider' though? Everybody here was new at one time. Taking the p**s out of Cromer (or whatever) is hardly going to stop people wanting to join the forum.

You get to learn who's who and what their preferred threads are, what hobbies they like etc and anyway, if you really don't like what they say you can always just ignore it/them.

There's always going to be references to certain events that have been posted by certain members over the years and if you think that I'm going to let the 'upstairs understairs cupboard' thing go, you're very wrong young man.

Trev and the incident with the goat, no, that won't be mentioned again, granted.

 

[escargot]

Why would it make anyone feel like an 'outsider' though? Everybody here was new at one time. Taking the p**s out of Cromer (or whatever) is hardly going to stop people wanting to join the forum.

You get to learn who's who and what their preferred threads are, what hobbies they like etc and anyway, if you really don't like what they say you can always just ignore it/them.

There's always going to be references to certain events that have been posted by certain members over the years and if you think that I'm going to let the 'upstairs understairs cupboard' thing go, you're very wrong young man.

Trev and the incident with the goat, no, that won't be mentioned again, granted.

The in-joke/snubbing new members palaver is what ruined b3ta. Tedious.

 

[Floyd1]

The in-joke/snubbing new members palaver is what ruined b3ta. Tedious.

I would never snub a new member. Unless it was Swifty, obviously.
Anyway, I consider myself still 'new'. Compared to you old gits longer serving members, I always will be too.
As for b3ta, I have no idea. Sounds like treason to me - Fortean or nothing. (Maybe a bit of the YouTube every now and then for some Lynyrd Skynyrd and the local fb page to check on potholes and how crap the council are, but that's it).

 

[hunck]

The in-joke/snubbing new members palaver is what ruined b3ta. Tedious.

In-jokes are OK if a bit tedious but snubbing new members is a no-no which I don’t think goes on here - what’s the point? The FTMB is I think generally welcoming to new people until they show themselves to be twats/have an attitude/are full of shit etc. If they pass the relatively benign non-twattery level, they’re in.

[Edited]

[Grovel] The mods deserve a lot of credit in their efforts to keep things in order & stomping on trouble which sometimes flares up. [Grovel over].

 

[Yithian]

Having spent a good while over the past few weeks 'patching up' old threads, we've found that this has become more and more noticeable among those threads that have been active from c. 2016 to the present. Where possible, dead video links (usually but not always YouTube ones) are replaced with active ones, but we're finding that a large proportion of those that no longer function are music--frequently because they have been removed for copyright infringement.

We'll leave YouTube to their own policing, but we're now asking for a cessation of the 'Every Thread Needs a Theme Tune' posts. If you've got an especially witty one for a CHAT thread, it's probably fair enough, but threads in the Fortean sub-fora are all the better for their absence. They're an irritation to remove or maintain, and of very negligible value in terms of furthering conversation. It's perfectly possible to mention the existence of a song and post the name of the artist and track without supplying a YouTube link to it--we all know how to find music online.

As ever, sorry if this makes us appear kill-joys; we're just trying to ensure that the machine runs smoothly, and we're unconvinced that there's all that much joy you're missing out on with this one.

Bump to the above.

@Coal and others.

If you're wondering where the YouTube song you posted went, this is the explanation.

There are too many musical interludes on Fortean threads. A year after posting half of them are dead links without any clue what they once pointed at.

CHAT is different, but tangential music videos on Fortean threads are now being treated like spam.

 

[Horsa]

Bump to the above.

@Coal and others.

If you're wondering where the YouTube song you posted went, this is the explanation.

There are too many musical interludes on Fortean threads. A year after posting half of them are dead links without any clue what they once pointed at.

CHAT is different, but tangential music videos on Fortean threads are now being treated like spam.

Just a question. Do you prefer music videos with a song-title or piece title in the case of classical & singer or instrumentalist name afterwards (unless I give a good enough hint to that for people to know) typed in so people know what it was if taken down as well as a reason for sharing to just a music video? I'm asking so that I can bear it in mind before I share. (Help me to have fun with people while still helping you somewhere down the line.)

 

[Yithian]

Just a question. Do you prefer music videos with a song-title or piece title in the case of classical & singer or instrumentalist name afterwards (unless I give a good enough hint to that for people to know) typed in so people know what it was if taken down as well as a reason for sharing to just a music video? I'm asking so that I can bear it in mind before I share. (Help me to have fun with people while still helping you somewhere down the line.)

Yes, please.

At least then we have the option of replacing it if the link dies.

More generally though, we'd prefer not to have song links posted just because a) someone posted a phrase that happens to appear in that song, or b) this discussion reminded you of it.

In CHAT those things are fine, of course.

 

[Horsa]

Yes, please.

At least then we have the option of replacing it if the link dies.

More generally though, we'd prefer not to have song links posted just because a) someone posted a phrase that happens to appear in that song, or b) this discussion reminded you of it.

In CHAT those things are fine, of course.

O.K. Thank you very much for the information.