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A piece about forums in general, but mainly this one.
Please note this is a long rant, but I'm in that kind of mood.
I have been active on this type of forum for many years.
I started out on the excellent WHQuestion, now dead, and have been active on alot of other sites.
Overall I have had alot of fun and games and met some very fine people and had to put up with many idiots, flamewars and general stupidity.
What really gets me is the apparent inability of some users to follow even the most basic rules of etiquette when interacting with other people.
Small things like common courtesy, manners and respect are some of the things that come to mind. After all we all give our time and effort freely, but to be derided by, mostly forum newbies, is just plain bad manners.
While I’m on the subject of rules, simple ones like correct places to post. How hard is it to find the board you want and post a question? After all, the main index page has a whole list of available subjects.
Back to forum newbies, why is it that they feel that the use of English and punctuation are an optional extras.
This isn’t a chatroom, speed isn’t an issue, so why use chatspeek. Are they really so thick that a basic grasp of English is beyond them?
OK you can forgive grammar and spelling, we are all guilty of that one at some time, but the out and out laziness of chatspeek is beyond me.
It really doesn’t help their cause or get their question resolved any quicker, as we have to spend time in translating their drivel into useable English. Some of our foreign users have a better grasp and it’s a second, or even third, language to them.
Last couple of things I promise.
The ability to read what has gone before your post, both previous responses and mainly the posted dates. The most annoying thing is when an ancient thread is reopened by someone posting a response. How difficult is it to check the original date and whether the user has been online since? OK some feel they are helping, but please how does posting a response to two year old question really help.
While on posting, do they really believe that repeating the same question on ten different boards will get their question answered any quicker!
Bugger lost my train of thought now. Amuse yourselves for a moment while I try and regain it. Normal ranting will be resumed shortly.
I remember now, hackers, spammers and scammers. Come on are we really going to buy the next wonder penis enhancement pill just because you post it twenty times in two minutes. Are we going to send you our bank account number because you can give us an unlimited overdraft. Are we going to help you retrieve your webmail password just because you say it’s your account.
Come on idiots what planet do you think we are from???
Rant over you may now return to real life.
A final thing to think on: Why is Common Sense so uncommon?
So what really bugs you abot these kind of forums ?
Its happened to me as well. While some answers are going to be very similar, I've had an answer reproduced word for word. I've also seen some people produce answers that they clearly copy and pasted from some website, yet no credit was given to that site.
I think a lot of people who do that think we are all a bunch of nimrods. Especially if one of us sees one of our posts reproduced word for word under someone else. What do these people think that we wont notice? yep, that would get me ticked.
I thought this forum at least would be spared this type of crime - and that's what it is. I know of other forums where this has happened and was able to prove it. Those that continue to do so should be first reprimanded and then reported and thrown out. PERIOD.
a copyright is a copyright, no matter who wrote it, and should at least be 'quoted' and credit given accordingly.
Labman is certainly justified in calling such individuals TROLLS - or worse!
I thought this forum at least would be spared this type of crime - and that's what it is. I know of other forums where this has happened and was able to prove it. Those that continue to do so should be first reprimanded and then reported and thrown out. PERIOD.
a copyright is a copyright, no matter who wrote it, and should at least be 'quoted' and credit given accordingly.
Labman is certainly justified in calling such individuals TROLLS - or worse!
!
Problem is some people just don't see it as a crime. One of the more active members here has posted on more than one occasion that there is nothing new and anything could be found already existing somewhere on the Web.
Look at how many people seem to think it fine to pirate music!
Your so right Scott.One of my favs is "my steal-it software is really slow at downloading".Or,"my P2P connection keeps giving me a virus.An ideas?"
Yes.Go into a music store.Pay your fee,and go home with new,boxed disc.
Its kind of ironic but this site started with similar copying. The opening screen is a copy of AskMe.Com's opening screen. And the name was obviously intended to capitalize on the popularity of AskMe.com.
But I think there is a fundamental difference between copy and pasting someone’s work and downloading music.
If I was to copy and paste Scott’s quotes, that is copyright infringement. I am taking CREDIT for his work.
Pirating music. I am not taking credit for this music. I am not saying that I wrote/sang this song.
While I can see the distinction, the fact is both are still stealing. In the case of plagiarism you are stealing to increase your reputation or get out of doing the work on your own. In the case of piracy, you are stealing to save yourself from paying.
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