Cutting and Pasting Etiquette

[BobD]

I've said it before, but the net is a weird place. Knowledge is power, and we literally have enormous power in our hands.

We can cut, paste, copy, link, e-mail, PM, manipulate, and send that information and knowledge ANYWHERE with just a few key strokes. And if we can do it, anyone can do it. That is the risk we take when we post anything in an open forum.

But among friends, like I hope we all are here on the board, I think we should establish a few guidelines. There are things I would say among friends that I wouldn't say in the general public, and the friendly nature of this board, tucked away in our corner of the net, makes us sometimes feel more like we are in someone's living room than in an open place where Google bots are searching our every word.

We all know about the bots and spiders checking out every thread, and we are at least aware of the lurkers, but we don't always think about them.


So I propose this: Let's not cut and paste a thread directly into an e-mail to send to someone else. Send a direct link to the thread instead. No one needs to log in or register to read threads, so anyone can read it. That protects everyone.

It just makes sense to send people to the source; then there is no question of whether or not someone said or didn't say XX; the only one who can change a post you made is you or a moderator, and the forum logs any such edits. Then there are no questions. It changes hearsay to proof.

Bob Duncan
Technical Editor

[Minnesota scroller]

Originally Posted by lucky788scroller

Why does that number really bother anyone? Sure, its nice to know exactly how many members there are, but we all know the active ones, and a lurker is really no problem, we all gotta learn! Dale

What's interesting is, I'm a member of a photography forum which has over 34,000 members. I think this forum has more active members than theirs does. Actually, I'm a member of 4 photo forums and none of them has as much activity as this scrollsaw forum. This is why this is the only scrollsaw forum I need. WE ROCK!

[BobD]

OK.
I've remove all of the posts that didn't pertain to my original. It's a slippery slope and people insist on adding teflon to it.

I'm not censoring anyone; the parties involved in the original situation know who they are, and can deal with it in private if they so choose. I posted this because I wanted to prevent something like this from happening again. My message seems to have gotten through on that. Lets just let this go as a group.

Bob Duncan
Technical Editor