Rant about Forum Posting
 

I apologize in advance for this little pseudo-rant, especially to Jeremy, to the moderators, and to the members who don't do this. I'm also not trying to target any specific users. And yes, I know it's been covered before.

I love being a part of this community and being able to help others. However, I feel that recently people are (once again) not learning how to post.

I'd like to just address a few issues, mainly to get them off my chest, but also in hopes that someone sees a solution.
[list=1][*]Members do not read the rules -- this is evident in the following items.[*]People do not provide distribution names, software versions, or exact error messages. "When I type foo, it gives me an error." WHAT error?[*]DO NOT post in multiple forums. What is so hard about that? One of the most helpful things on here is the contributions of multiple members: IN ONE PLACE.[*]Do not say "help me!", "urgent!", or similar things in your title. Just because it is urgent to you does not make it urgent to me.[*]Do not bump threads all the time. Ok, we get it, you want an answer. We'll get to you if/when we can.[*]I speak/read/write English. And some German. Not l33t, not 'half-sentences', and would prefer not to have to read a stream of obsenities about something not working.[/list=1]

Now that I'm done ranting, I want to say THANK YOU to Jeremy and all the moderators who do work to keep the forums clean and operating efficiently.

Closed. No, not really :D You get used to it, yes it's annoying but, to be fair, the vast majority of transgressors do learn not to do it. The best thing to do is to report the post(s) and to calmly and politely explain to the user what they have done wrong. That way they come back and don't leave in disgust.

I agree about STUPID PEOPLE!! but again, grace so they don't leave in a huff.

titanium_geek

Thanks for the comments guys. Part of that "grace" and "calm" you asked for came in the form of me making this post. We all need to vent once in a while, I guess. Better here than in some poor guy's thread who just happened to have the bad topic that broke the camel's back.

In this case, it was just a "View Threads with Zero Replies" list that looked like:

• Urgent!!!
• I'm a duplicate thread
• I'm a duplicate thread
• I'm a duplicate thread
• I'm a duplicate thread
• Need help...
• can u guys h3lp?

:D Thanks for tolerating my rant.

What I really hate?

LOL. Exactly. Or how about:

Can you all stand a serious suggestion here ;)?

Will there ever be a way to auto-censor "semantically null" (ESR?) crap out of peoples' posts, esp. the titles? I have in mind you type "URGENT" & the forum chides you for excessive capitalization as well as using a stupid word.

If that isn't practical or politically correct, how about giving the moderators a 1-click access to standard correction msgs. for the most common stupidities. For that matter, how about adding a menu of std. complaints to "Report this post" -- don't eliminate the text comment, just streamline reporting "double post" & the various idiocies mentioned above.

How about a "Lame Title" sub-forum in each of the existing forum areas, where moderators could move such stuff.
(BTW, are threads ever deleted rather than just closed?)

One "bug" I believe still exists in the site software is that if someone realizes that s/he has a bad title on his/her thread, editing to change the subject does not change the reported title. Not a whole lot of incentive for people to fix their mistakes.

Forgive me, I think I'm venting too.

I do think thread title editing is a critical point.

Matir, great post! :) Let's hope they make this thread a sticky (not that anyone will actually read and/or heed it)

You know, my comments are actually derivatives of things in most of the stickies.

You know, I see many threads where the only replies are "ok, what error? and what version are you running?", etc. So many threads waste the energy of anyone willing to help on pulling information out of the OP like pulling teeth.

I agree, we don't need them to go away mad, we just need them to go away!
Seriously, yes, the hlf wrds R (sic) annoying as @#$, as is the 1337 crap, but I think alot of these people are just kids who don't yet know any better. At least, that's what I tell myself when I feel like shoving my hand down the digital cable modem line and strangling them at their computer.:)

I think you missed the point in my humor. I know some people don't read them, or even if they do, they ignore them. :(

I share your pain, the crap thread titles and everything do my head in :(. People shouting at you, LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME is also very annoying. There's someone on LQ (his name escapes me right now, but he's a Brit too, IIRC) who has a cool signature about using English properly in posts :D.

Edit:

Yeah, I believe vB has the ability to let users edit their thread titles. Hopefully Jeremy and the mods will look into enabling it. Apart from fixing mistakes, it'd be good to be able to put "(Solved)" or something in our titles, for obvious reasons.

Please use search on both these things, as they have been discussed countless times before.

Jesus, sorry :/.