Please Do Not Cross-Post

[Jason Dunn]

I can't believe I have to say this on the front page, but in the past two days we've had several people cross-post to multiple forums. So, for the record, cross-posting to multiple forums is not allowed here. Forum software does not work like UseNet (NNTP): every message in our forums has its own ID. So when you post to three forums, not only do you force everyone to read your message three times, our "Last Ten Posts" starts to look a little silly:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/cross-posting.gif" /><br /><br />Please resist the urge to cross-post. Trust that your one and only post will be seen and responded to. :wink:

[cherring]

lol, it does look funny, just thought I'd get the first word in.

[lurch]

Part of the problem is probably that someone posts, then presses the "back" button, then accidentally (for whatever reason) hits the "submit" button again, and re-posts to the same forum... although in the case you're talking about there were 2 in the same forum, and 1 elsewhere, which would maybe indicate an accidental submit, and also a crosspost. :?

[Jason Dunn]

Part of the problem is probably that someone posts, then presses the "back" button, then accidentally (for whatever reason) hits the "submit" button again, and re-posts to the same forum... although in the case you're talking about there were 2 in the same forum, and 1 elsewhere, which would maybe indicate an accidental submit, and also a crosspost. :?

Duplicate posts happen now and then, due to user error or server glitches, and that's ok. I'm more concerned about the purposeful "I'm going to post this in three groups so people will see it" type of messages. :wink:

[Gerard]

There are a few of these people in every forum. bbyrd0 at PocketPCPassion and mlp at Brighthand are just a couple of glaring examples. These two are very different, the former being genuinely enthusiastic and trying very hard to be helpful, the latter being a little $#¡† disturber. Just last night the former posted in two locations that AOL 2.0 is available. Lots of bold face, underlines, and italics thrown around to make sure we get the point, that this is REALLY REALLY COOL, and then the admission that he doesn't even use AOL. Good grief.
I wonder if these types ever noticed that there's a 'view newest posts' option, or if their ignorance of that fact is at the root of the problem. Nah, doubt it. I think it's ego.
Then there was the long-standing problem back before PPC 2002 where everyone owning an iPAQ posted every... single... thread... to the iPAQ forums. It meant that if one wanted to help, regardless of what device one had, looking through the iPAQ forums was essential. I posted probably 75% of my answers to problems in 'iPAQ' threads, though the problems posted were almost all OS problems of lack of understanding, not at all model-specific. On the flip side, if one of us Casio users asked something in the Casio or the General PPC areas, the threads died quickly due to a complete lack of iPAQ user interest. We were invisible.
So now we see these repeaters, hammering away trying to spam all the territories with whatever is their little piece of importance, and one rule has become perfectly clear; the message offered is almost never important. If you see any title repeated twice or more, ignore the thread. Don't click/tap on it. It's almost guaranteed to be a pure waste of bandwidth. And if you do open it, and find that indeed it is garbage, report all but the post in the appropriate forum to moderators. One way or another, by ignoring them or hitting them with mod-actions, we've got to deal with these wee men. And they almost all are just that, teenaged boys. Never once yet have I seen a girl/woman do this, nor a male over 18. Oh, okay, I forgot developers. Every once in a while some excitable developer spams a host of forums with identical messages. This is especially noticeable over on pocketnow, with some developers hitting more than 6 places almost at the same time. While I suppose they are adults, they do seem to be fairly young anyway. Probably a degeneration of mental maturity due to excesses of coding. ;)

[trachy]

Besides the 'look at me' syndrome, I think there are a couple of reasons cross-posting takes place. One, is that there seem to be, IMHO, a few too many forums. Some might just want to make sure their message gets out legitimately. That said, do front page forums really need to be seperate from regular forums? On more than one occassion I have gone looking for a post, only to find it in a parallel universe. ;-) OFF-TOPIC/Off-Topic and SOFTWARE/Software are just a couple of examples.

The other reason, I think, is that people come in here all gang-busters, posting away without first getting a feeling for the site. PPCT may have 9,196 registered users, but in reality this is a pretty tight-knit community. All it takes is a few days to realize that there are a pretty consistent group of regulars who roam the forums and rarely let something slip through the cracks.

I have no solution for the latter problem, but maybe paring things down a bit might resolve the first? Anyone agree with me, or am I just hallucinating? Anyone have any ideas on how to get the noobs familiar with site protocol?

[Don't Panic!]

It's actually quite perverse, attempts at acquainting people with nettiquette usually lead to even worse behavior. Just my 2 cents. :)

Don't Panic!
Bobby

[CESkins]

It's actually quite perverse, attempts at acquainting people with nettiquette usually lead to even worse behavior. Just my 2 cents. :)
Still, one has no choice but to try. :) Jason's approach is probably best because it appears on the front page that everyone sees. Cross posting coupled with starting new threads on old, discussed @ length topics is one of the major turn offs with visiting forums. Features such as "view new topics/posts" and "search" need to stand out. A newbie FAQ would help and I think BrightHand considered doing so at one point but I haven't seen a FAQ. If newbies were redirected to a rules/FAQ page after filling out their registration forms this may help. However, it would not address the issue raised above with more seasoned members of the various forums cross posting. :(

[Ainvar]

Also most posters lack the patients of waiting for someone to reply to there message. In there inpatient little mind, they think that if they post enough times in enough places they will get a faster response. It is the same way with driving and those people who think that if they ride your bumper they will get wherever they are trying to go much faster.

[Jason Dunn]

That said, do front page forums really need to be seperate from regular forums? On more than one occassion I have gone looking for a post, only to find it in a parallel universe. ;-) OFF-TOPIC/Off-Topic and SOFTWARE/Software are just a couple of examples.

Yes, we do need those. The reason why is that those forums at the bottom of the forum page are linked to the front page, while the others are not. We could hide them, since people can't post to them, but then how would people read them? :-)

[Gerard]

At least there are very few of the old <bump> posts these days. Back about 2 years ago it was like a plague on Brighthand. Even some relatively senior members seemed obsessive about posting ever more 'clever' bumps. At one point I got so annoyed that I did up a gilded, 60 point BUMP image and posted it, in a thread where there had been about 30 of them (to be fair, the thread was called something like "What does 'bump' mean?"). It got a laugh, though not a big one, and effectively killed the thread within a day or two. I thought, and still do, that a good solution is sometimes to make the abusers see just how ridiculous is their habit, at which point they will often stop it, if only for the moment.

[trachy]

Yes, we do need those. The reason why is that those forums at the bottom of the forum page are linked to the front page, while the others are not. We could hide them, since people can't post to them, but then how would people read them? :-)

I don't mean to be difficult, Jason, but why not just put the front page articles into the regular forums? Why keep them seperate in the first place? If the goal is to distinguish them, why not just make the titles of front page articles unique - maybe by making the titles all caps?

BTW, I haven't lost sight of the fact that this is your site, and you can do whatever you want with it. :D

[Jason Dunn]

Yes, we do need those. The reason why is that those forums at the bottom of the forum page are linked to the front page, while the others are not. We could hide them, since people can't post to them, but then how would people read them? :-)

I don't mean to be difficult, Jason, but why not just put the front page articles into the regular forums? Why keep them seperate in the first place? If the goal is to distinguish them, why not just make the titles of front page articles unique - maybe by making the titles all caps?

BTW, I haven't lost sight of the fact that this is your site, and you can do whatever you want with it. :D

Because it's not technically possible with our current system - the front page forums have been configured so that anything INITIAL message posted to them will appear on the front page. Any reply, even by an admin, will not appear on the front page. Now if we tried to do that with the community forums, we'd have to have an admin-only box for every posting to define whether or not it was "front page". That would mean hassles and errors - it's just not an elegant solution. phpBB 2.2 will allow us to "nest" forums and improve the structure of the forums.

I hope this explanation helps. :wink:

[trachy]

I hope this explanation helps. :wink:

I can see clearly now. :-) Thanks for the explanation.

[Crystal Eitle]

At least there are very few of the old <bump> posts these days. Back about 2 years ago it was like a plague on Brighthand. Even some relatively senior members seemed obsessive about posting ever more 'clever' bumps. At one point I got so annoyed that I did up a gilded, 60 point BUMP image and posted it, in a thread where there had been about 30 of them (to be fair, the thread was called something like "What does 'bump' mean?"). It got a laugh, though not a big one, and effectively killed the thread within a day or two. I thought, and still do, that a good solution is sometimes to make the abusers see just how ridiculous is their habit, at which point they will often stop it, if only for the moment.

Okay, pardon my ignorance, but I don't know what a "bump" is.

[Doug Raeburn]

Okay, pardon my ignorance, but I don't know what a "bump" is.

A bump is when someone (usually the originator of the thread) posts a message that says "bump" or something else of no real content, just to get the message back to the top of the thread listing. Most forum software is designed to display the threads with the latest posts at the beginning, and the "bump" takes advantage of this.

[Noel]

http://www.seespotruninc.com/images/Bart%20Crosspost.jpg

[trachy]

Sweet! How did you gen' that? I need something like that for the next time I'm in the dog house! 8O

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.seespotruninc.com/images/Bart%20Crosspost.jpg

ROTFLMAO....!!! :lol:

Well done sir! :werenotworthy:

[Doug Raeburn]

Coincidentally enough, I recently pointed out to a newer member on Brighthand about the netiquette of not cross posting. I did it in a very gentle and non-combative manner. The member to whom my post was directed was very receptive, but then a number of other Brighthand members took it upon themselves to attack me for pointing this out, calling me a "self-appointed hall monitor" and "nanny". It's not as if I do this all the time, ragging on other members for "lapses" in netiquette. This is probably only the second time I'd ever done something like this, and I only did so because I had already responded to the cross post in another thread. And of course, nobody else with a knowledge of netiquette either read the thread or bothered to post to support me. I finally got sick of the abuse and deleted my posts.

[Noel]

:beer:

Thanks trachy n Jason...
My fave used to be "I WILL NOT WASTE CHALK"

[JvanEkris]

Coincidentally enough, I recently pointed out to a newer member on Brighthand about the netiquette of not cross posting. I did it in a very gentle and non-combative manner. The member to whom my post was directed was very receptive, but then a number of other Brighthand members took it upon themselves to attack me for pointing this out, calling me a "self-appointed hall monitor" and "nanny". It's not as if I do this all the time, ragging on other members for "lapses" in netiquette.
Personally, i think this is part of being a community: telling people that certain behaviour is not acceptable to other people. As a moderator on a board myself, i appreciate the effort of members "correcting" each other, in fact it is a goal of the moderators on my board to stimulate people to act like this. This because it creates a community of aware people, all agreeing on tolerable behaviour. As a moderator you can focus more on participating than on correcting people.

About cross-posting. I agree that it is not a nice thing to do. However, i can inmagine that on extremely large boards (like the large Linux boards), people will focus on their own part of the board. Cross-posting has some use there. However, on relatively small boards 90 % of the people will focus on the "new post" button, and see the post regardless of it's position. Cross-posting in that case is countre-productive, since it spreads the discussion, without bringing the knowledgable people together.......

Jaap

[Pony99CA]

About cross-posting. I agree that it is not a nice thing to do. However, i can inmagine that on extremely large boards (like the large Linux boards), people will focus on their own part of the board. Cross-posting has some use there.
Actually, you still don't need to truly cross-post (posting the exact same message in more than one place). You post your full message in one place and short "I have a question about [whatever]. Please check my thread at [wherever]." pointers in any other relevant threads Of course, [wherever] should be a real link (if possible) to allow people to easily go there.

I don't think cross-posters are all ego-driven maniacs, though. In the case Jason showed with the three posts, that guy only had 5 posts (including the three). He was probably just a newbie, and didn't know that cross-posting was considered bad form.

Steve

P.S. Post #2000! Woo hoo! (Well, it could be post #2002; there's a bug somewhere in phpBB. :-()

[Brad Adrian]

I agree, Pony, that most cross-posting isn't being done to egotistically draw attention to the poster. More often than not, I think it's result of impatience and the fear that a post won't get read quickly enough.

Actually, I think this is merely a sad symptom of our contemporary hedonistic society, which has created an overwhelming drive for instant gratification. Gone are the days of patiently engaging in relaxed conversation; instead, we are driven to...

[Gerard]

Yeah, that's another element alright, the impatience of people who've grown used to the remote control offering satisfaction in mere seconds, offering up an all-you-can-eat buffet of media feeds. Many's the thread I've seen started, then followed up not even an hour later with comments like "Geez, I guess no one cares enough to offer a new guy a hand. Thought I'd get some help here from all you 'experts' but it seems my little problem isn't interesting enough!" Hard to calm those guys down, but offering a bit of technical help does often work. It's odd that so few people seem to realise that the world is always at least 1/3rd asleep, and that usually there are no more than one or a few other members of the forum looking at the newly posted threads at once. And most of these won't have a clue as to the solution, if any is to be had. And, many of these posts have such vague titles that it's a lottery draw that a proper answer will ever come.
Seems there's a general lack of skills and manners, and that this is something we have to put with or go nuts trying to hose it down. There will always be newbies.

[Kati Compton]

Actually, I think this is merely a sad symptom of our contemporary hedonistic society, which has created an overwhelming drive for instant gratification. Gone are the days of patiently engaging in relaxed conversation; instead, we are driven to...

What? What are we driven to?? Don't leave me like this... Finish your post!! I don't have all day to wait...

:razzing:

[Jonathon Watkins]

Actually, I think this is merely a sad symptom of our contemporary hedonistic society, which has created an overwhelming drive for instant gratification. Gone are the days of patiently engaging in relaxed conversation; instead, we are driven to...

What? What are we driven to?? Don't leave me like this... Finish your post!! I don't have all day to wait...

:razzing:

:lol: Very droll Kati :lol:

[Pony99CA]

Actually, I think this is merely a sad symptom of our contemporary hedonistic society, which has created an overwhelming drive for instant gratification. Gone are the days of patiently engaging in relaxed conversation; instead, we are driven to...
What? What are we driven to?? Don't leave me like this... Finish your post!! I don't have all day to wait...

:lol: Very droll Kati :lol:
Please do not feed the Droll.

Steve

[Jonathon Watkins]

Actually, I think this is merely a sad symptom of our contemporary hedonistic society, which has created an overwhelming drive for instant gratification. Gone are the days of patiently engaging in relaxed conversation; instead, we are driven to...
What? What are we driven to?? Don't leave me like this... Finish your post!! I don't have all day to wait...

:lol: Very droll Kati :lol:
Please do not feed the Droll.


Even better Steve - what were you doing lurking under that bridge anyway? :wink:

We should feel free to help if someone is not aware of polite net behaviour. What else are Friends for? :mrgreen:

[Pony99CA]

Please do not feed the Droll.

Even better Steve - what were you doing lurking under that bridge anyway? :wink:
Waiting for unsuspecting Gerbils, of course. Properly skinned and prepared, they're quite tasty.
:ninja:

Steve

[hollis_f]

Please do not feed the Droll.

Even better Steve - what were you doing lurking under that bridge anyway? :wink:
Waiting for unsuspecting Gerbils, of course. Properly skinned and prepared, they're quite tasty.
:ninja:

SteveSkinned! But all the vitamins are in the skin.

[Jonathon Watkins]

Please do not feed the Droll.

Even better Steve - what were you doing lurking under that bridge anyway? :wink:
Waiting for unsuspecting Gerbils, of course. Properly skinned and prepared, they're quite tasty.
:ninja:

SteveSkinned! But all the vitamins are in the skin.

:shocked!:

Right - that's it - I'm going armed round here from now on! :armed:

I've no wish to be :onfire:

and become an :angel:

[abid786]

In my first post here, I cross-post.

Really sorry about that :oops: oops

Abid