Good Posting Practices

Mikefule said:
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.
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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.
 
Floyd1 said:
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.
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The in-joke/snubbing new members palaver is what ruined b3ta. Tedious.
 
escargot said:
The in-joke/snubbing new members palaver is what ruined b3ta. Tedious.
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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).
 
escargot said:
The in-joke/snubbing new members palaver is what ruined b3ta. Tedious.
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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].
 
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Yithian said:
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.
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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.
 
Yithian said:
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.
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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.)
 
Horsa said:
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.)
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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.
 
Yithian said:
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.
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O.K. Thank you very much for the information.
 
PLEASE format text your copy here.

This means:

1) Abbreviating (and ideally capitalising) long headlines if they are to be a thread title.

2) Ensuring paragraph breaks.

3) Stripping stock images and their captions.

4) Removing internal links.

5) Cutting adverts.

6) Ensuring the link is clean and free of referer references and redirects.

Copy+paste+post does not do the job.

@Floyd1 & @maximus otter take note.
 
Yithian said:
PLEASE format text your copy here.

This means:

1) Abbreviating (and ideally capitalising) long headlines if they are to be a thread title.

2) Ensuring paragraph breaks.

3) Stripping stock images and their captions.

4) Removing internal links.

5) Cutting adverts.

6) Ensuring the link is clean and free of referer references and redirects.

Copy+paste+post does not do the job.

@Floyd1 & @maximus otter take note.
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Tangential note: Despite your using the @ symbol before my user name, this message didn’t appear in my “Alert” feed; l stumbled on this post by accident.

Some error somewhere?

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
Tangential note: Despite your using the @ symbol before my user name, this message didn’t appear in my “Alert” feed; l stumbled on this post by accident.

Some error somewhere?

maximus otter
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My mistake.

I missed out the usenames and then edited them in.

The @ function is triggered when the post is first submitted and subsequent edits don't work.

I should have deleted and reposted.
 
Yithian said:
PLEASE format text your copy here.

This means:

1) Abbreviating (and ideally capitalising) long headlines if they are to be a thread title.

2) Ensuring paragraph breaks.

3) Stripping stock images and their captions.

4) Removing internal links.

5) Cutting adverts.

6) Ensuring the link is clean and free of referer references and redirects.

Copy+paste+post does not do the job.

@Floyd1 & @maximus otter take note.
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When I Copy+paste something I often paste into Windows Notepad - or TextEdit (Mac) - first, which strips the text I'm copying of any formatting (and everything else), and I can then tidy it up, copy it again and paste it where I want it knowing that it'll take on the default format (font and font size) that I have for the document (or forum post) I'm pasting into.
That would be one way to avoid the text you've pasted into the forum appearing in huge ugly letters.

The only thing is it also removes images and links in that text, but I guess they could be added afterwards if they're important.
 
Robin said:
When I Copy+paste something I often paste into Windows Notepad - or TextEdit (Mac) - first, which strips the text I'm copying of any formatting (and everything else), and I can then tidy it up, copy it again and paste it where I want it knowing that it'll take on the default format (font and font size) that I have for the document (or forum post) I'm pasting into.
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I do that too.
 
I usually 'paste as plain text' anything I copy from elsewhere. Which I find formats everything to whatever the default is here for font and text size etc, removing any links. Then it's a matter of abbreviating and 'parsing' to remove anything that doesn't make sense or is a numbered reference to (what has become) an obsolete reference.
 
pandacracker said:
By that, do you mean when an article has a word in blue that when clicked takes you to another site?
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Yes, but only the ones that you don't know what they lead to, mainstream news sites are safe enough.

More important is a 'clean link', not one that goes via an index, a search engine or a social media site and is cluttered with information showing that—because such links are far more likely not to function in the future.
 
Robin said:
When I Copy+paste something I often paste into Windows Notepad - or TextEdit (Mac) - first, which strips the text I'm copying of any formatting (and everything else), and I can then tidy it up, copy it again and paste it where I want it knowing that it'll take on the default format (font and font size) that I have for the document (or forum post) I'm pasting into.
That would be one way to avoid the text you've pasted into the forum appearing in huge ugly letters.

The only thing is it also removes images and links in that text, but I guess they could be added afterwards if they're important.
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Mythopoeika said:
I do that too.
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Trevp666 said:
I usually 'paste as plain text' anything I copy from elsewhere. Which I find formats everything to whatever the default is here for font and text size etc, removing any links. Then it's a matter of abbreviating and 'parsing' to remove anything that doesn't make sense or is a numbered reference to (what has become) an obsolete reference.
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We do really appreciate it when people make an effort.

Individually it's a matter of thirty seconds to fix most problems, but those can add up to a hell of a lot of time in total.

We have a to-do list of many, many threads of broken links and weirdly formatted posts to rectify: whole posts in capital letters or bold font seems weirdly common, quite apart from broken quotations and spelling errors in thread titles that make them effectively search-proof.
 
Request to regular posters

The Fortean Headlines thread (in the Fortean News sub-forum) is properly intended only for headlines—almost invariably those that may be read as referring to bizarre events but actually turn out to be comparatively mundane.

Please do not post long extracts or full-article texts there (perhaps just a three-line 'reveal').

This is not a general thread for quirky news articles per se.

If you have a genuinely Fortean news story, please present it in its own thread in the Fortean News sub-forum with a full preview.

As ever, if in doubt, post away and one of us will do our best to arrange things nicely. It's just that there's a lot to do and many staff have off-board commitments of late.
 
It would be helpful if members did not post to 'warn' new members that their post is breaking the rules and they could be in trouble with the moderators.

In the first place, we are hardly likely to ban or delete posts by practically brand new members who have very possibly never looked in the Website Issues section—because we're not absolute idiots.

Second, we know from experience the style of approach most likely to be well received—but it's hard when someone has jumped in and pissed on their chips already.

Please leave it to us.
 
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Yithian said:
Killjoy alert.

In the last three months alone, we've had approximately fifty Cromer 'jokes' on threads that are not the dedicated Cromer thread (yes, we've counted). Around half of these were in CHAT, but the rest were scattered across a variety of Fortean threads where they have no place. We haven't included in this total the numerous Cromer jokes in profile posts (that's your personal domain), but around thirty of the duddest or most incongruous found elsewhere have now been removed.

I usually prefer not to name names, but two posters of long-standing and good character form the core of our Cromer-tangent production team: @ramonmercado and @Tigerhawk.

If they and everybody else could now limit this tendency to the Cromer thread, we'd be most grateful; we have asked nicely in the past.

It's off-putting to newcomers to have pointless derailments about crabs, and the joke is past its best before date in terms of humour.

Edit: this is not now 'a thing'—we don't plan to police use of running jokes or humour; it's just that this one has run so long that that particular domain has been left very far behind.
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Bump.

This is still in force.

Don't waste our time, please.
 
Right, the Mods are all busy with various real-world concerns and things are getting disorganised. We're going to need more co-operation from our regular members on three fronts:

1) We are getting too many double posts, mostly images going around on social media. We've had a lot of the same photos cropping up on the Optical Illusions / Simulacra / Pareidolia Threads multiple times.

You are not expected to decide with 100% precision which the best location for a post is, but please do check recent contributions to see whether a conversation on the matter you wish to discuss is already taking place on a thread active within the past few days. Old and ancient reposts are not a concern.

2) Multiple threads are being derailed by lengthy tangents about sex/sexism/sexual rôles/sexual etiquette/gender rôles/body image/fashion/linguistic propriety etc.

We do not say these matters are unimportant, but we do say that most people who aren't regular readers do not come here to read about them. For a few weeks now we have been patiently moving such digressions to the re-rail the de-rails thread; as from last night, they're simply being deleted.

3) Don't spam Fortean threads with pointless one-liners—especially not in response to three or four other pointless one-liners. Doing so will simply result in their deletion and a temporary ban for repeated offences.

Thank you.
 
Yithian said:
Right, the Mods are all busy with various real-world concerns and things are getting disorganised. We're going to need more co-operation from our regular members on three fronts:
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Just to add for those who have complained that moderators haven't dealt with other people's mistakes to their satisfaction in a timely manner: this wasn't rhetoric—we're busy.

We do our best, but we all have jobs and families that aren't pixelated and some days we don't see everything.
 
Yithian said:
Right, the Mods are all busy with various real-world concerns and things are getting disorganised. We're going to need more co-operation from our regular members on three fronts:

1) We are getting too many double posts, mostly images going around on social media. We've had a lot of the same photos cropping up on the Optical Illusions / Simulacra / Pareidolia Threads multiple times.

You are not expected to decide with 100% precision which the best location for a post is, but please do check recent contributions to see whether a conversation on the matter you wish to discuss is already taking place on a thread active within the past few days. Old and ancient reposts are not a concern.

2) Multiple threads are being derailed by lengthy tangents about sex/sexism/sexual rôles/sexual etiquette/gender rôles/body image/fashion/linguistic propriety etc.

We do not say these matters are unimportant, but we do say that most people who aren't regular readers do not come here to read about them. For a few weeks now we have been patiently moving such digressions to the re-rail the de-rails thread; as from last night, they're simply being deleted.

3) Don't spam Fortean threads with pointless one-liners—especially not in response to three or four other pointless one-liners. Doing so will simply result in their deletion and a temporary ban for repeated offences.

Thank you.
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I came in here to post this anyway, and see it is relevant to your (fairly) recent post - what is the best way to cross-reference posts? For example, someone posts a Guatemala-related post in some thread or other (lets say Sinkholes, since they turn up regularly in Guatemala City) and I would like to link that somehow in the dedicated Guatemala thread in Fortean Travel - I wouldn't particularly want to double-post. Is it simply a case of dropping in a hyperlink and brief summary?
 
SimonBurchell said:
I came in here to post this anyway, and see it is relevant to your (fairly) recent post - what is the best way to cross-reference posts? For example, someone posts a Guatemala-related post in some thread or other (lets say Sinkholes, since they turn up regularly in Guatemala City) and I would like to link that somehow in the dedicated Guatemala thread in Fortean Travel - I wouldn't particularly want to double-post. Is it simply a case of dropping in a hyperlink and brief summary?
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You can QUOTE the post you want to use as if replying to the thread that it is posted on, and then cut and paste the resulting content from the reply box to the reply box on the thread you wish to add it to—and append your comment to that QUOTE.

In these cases, the belt and braces approach is to explicitly state where it comes from (even though clicking on the quotation will take the reader to the origin thread):

"I found this story on the Sinkholes thread interesting..."
 
Following on from @Yithian 's perfectly valid point in the Jimmy Savile thread that I was going off topic on a conspiracy thread I feel that there was a germ of a potentially interesting discussion here that maybe could be moved somewhere else.

Trouble is, I'm not sure where, or even if it is worth it.

I think that an effect of the Savile revelations has had a detrimental effect on the way society views relationships between age groups, certainly sexual relationships, but also long term relationships and friendships. A sort of assumed grooming scenario from old to young whatever the reality of the situation.

I wonder why certain events seem to have this effect and others don't. I'm thinking Satanic abuse panics, bogus social workers etc. but did they have any long term effect on other areas of society? (I know we have threads on these but I'm not sure if this fits in those)

Were/are people who wanted to become GPs or neonatal nurses following the Shipman and Letby revelations treated with suspicion. Have fewer mothers wanted to give birth in hospital or are these seen as tragedies that should have been spotted but weren't; let's get back to normal.

Are there other events that have had long term, perhaps not immediately obvious effects on how society in general reacts to certain groups or situations and if so why? Is it to do with the reporting and the media or do some events trigger a sort of group reaction that reverbates far more when others don't?

Does this discussion have any merit and if so is it worth a new thread (and if so what the hell do we call it)

Alternatively, am I talking complete Horlicks, which is not unknown and I should forget the whole thing? :dunno:
 
Tunn11 said:
Following on from @Yithian 's perfectly valid point in the Jimmy Savile thread that I was going off topic on a conspiracy thread I feel that there was a germ of a potentially interesting discussion here that maybe could be moved somewhere else.

Trouble is, I'm not sure where, or even if it is worth it.

I think that an effect of the Savile revelations has had a detrimental effect on the way society views relationships between age groups, certainly sexual relationships, but also long term relationships and friendships. A sort of assumed grooming scenario from old to young whatever the reality of the situation.

I wonder why certain events seem to have this effect and others don't. I'm thinking Satanic abuse panics, bogus social workers etc. but did they have any long term effect on other areas of society? (I know we have threads on these but I'm not sure if this fits in those)

Were/are people who wanted to become GPs or neonatal nurses following the Shipman and Letby revelations treated with suspicion. Have fewer mothers wanted to give birth in hospital or are these seen as tragedies that should have been spotted but weren't; let's get back to normal.

Are there other events that have had long term, perhaps not immediately obvious effects on how society in general reacts to certain groups or situations and if so why? Is it to do with the reporting and the media or do some events trigger a sort of group reaction that reverbates far more when others don't?

Does this discussion have any merit and if so is it worth a new thread (and if so what the hell do we call it)

Alternatively, am I talking complete Horlicks, which is not unknown and I should forget the whole thing? :dunno:
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I would have thought that a lot of the legitimate material brought up in this aspect could be covered in any of the threads that revolve around "The Madness of Crowds".
 
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