2 questions around multiple posting

[David75]

Hi,
I understand the purpose of this rule.
But the thing is that it's not totally fair for 2 reasons:
1)It's very hard to remember it when you do not post on a regular basis, and participate
only in a few threads.
2)The stats of the thread title are not changed when you edit it, only the message ones are.

For the first point, on a forum that seems to have gone (desync) I think the merging of the last posts from the same user in one single thread was automatic. Meaning no double post ever existed there. I don't know if such a function exists or is possible here. If yes, then that could be a good idea, provided it's not too demanding.

For the second point:
I'll quote someone on another topic:

the first post on a thread doesn't draw people as much as the sheer volume of people viewing and participating in the thread draws in newcomers.

Ok the volume stats keep updating if you edit your last participation.
The thing is that for someone wandering around the forum where the thread is, even if you make additions to the thread, it's impossible to know since nothing as changed!
I don't know if there"s something to do about it, I do not ask for the thread to bump up, as the multiposting rule is set to prevent that (and have better readability).
But at least having the time of the last edit updated in the title... of even pushing to having the thread going to unread (but not bumping up) would be nice. That's meant for the last post of a thread of course.

otherwise there's no point in editing the last post of a thread...


C u

Edit 1: Just to show how it works
Edit 2: The edit of 9:06 and that one does not impact anything on the thread title

[masamuneehs]

You bring up an eccellent point, one that seems to be an unanswerable quagmire in the internet.

How do you "bump" a thread, on a forum, without spamming the forum with your sole activity?

For example, it would be fine if you could majorly edit your thread and then it would be bumped to the top of the forum section, since you've added a noteworthy addition to the subject in question. However, the problem arises when people edit for very small things such as grammar, or maliciously editting their posts. If I change "theres" to "there's" in a post from 1991, should that entire thread be 'bumped'? Should it come to the rest of the forum's attention?

I don't think so, and apparently so agree others, since the general rule is that you have to make an entire new post to create the "bump" effect, which is all about garnering attention to the subject the thread is about in the first place.

It gets super annoying when one person gets off on an issue/subject that only they care about, and starts spam posting it to constantly bump it. This would happen if any forum style internet space enabled the ability for people's "editting" of original posts to "bump" the thread. People naturally abuse these things, and so far the only effective way to counteract it is to strictly suppress double posters, hence da rules.

Unless VBulletin has some kind of awesome new function that will make me 'gasm in joy...

[Deadfire]

Two things I will put in here:

First, On Gotwoot there is no point in posting to "bump" your thread as if it died it's best to stay dead. There are many many examples of this. Also a User SHOULD be using the search feature if they wish to find your thread thats old and has not been posted in awhile. The only thread type that I would see this being useful is a personal thread about say, art or other creative works, however that type of thread is not really needed (We never really had a good personal art section anyways which is why I made a art site in the first place for gotwooters and others to use)

Second, Us staff have always had it be a good week or 2 wait before a double post can be done to bump a thread. This however is very rarely used as I explained in the first statement I have. As this condition is not something we do often, as well a action only done by the staff it is not added to the rules.

Bottom line: Don't fix something thats not broke.

[Kraco]

Second, Us staff have always had it be a good week or 2 wait before a double post can be done to bump a thread.

This is basically a case almost restricted to the episode discussion threads where releases are posted, and those are usually a week or more apart from each other. Quite a few series are such that they have many watchers yet for some reason only a few people ever post in the threads. So, it's easy to make even triple postings, but the posts can be weeks apart from each other.

Edit: A meaning altering typo corrected.

[David75]

I was not able to explain my point properly...

I understand bumps are used as a annoyance most of the time in BBSes...

My idea was not to bump the thread up with Edit.

It was just to update the date and time of the last contribution when editing, in the title.
But the thread remains where it is.
For readers like me, a difference in date/time can lead me to check the thread again
Ideally, it goes to unread, but remains the same place after editing by the same last user.

That way even the editing for small grammar or othograph mistakes isn't that
annoying.

SelfBump is not what I seek if you see my point.

c u

[complich8]

afaik, on the technical side, that stuff is not something vbulletin supports, and it sort of doesn't make sense. I don't want my thread subscriptions spammed every time someone edits a typo... I can usually read through the typos because I'm a human and have a fully-functional semantic context-matching system. I expect most people are probably in the same boat, although they may have a different usage pattern.

If you make a post and then come up with something else interesting to say on the topic a couple days later, but nobody's posted in the thread since then, I wouldn't fault you for double-posting. It's mostly contentless double-posts and pointlessly fast ones that annoy me personally. So like, if you write something and come back 5 minutes later with something else, you should edit instead of reposting and not worry about the 3 people who might have seen the thread since you actually made your last foray into the thread. The longer the time that passes and the more unrelated the two posts, the more acceptable a double-post becomes.

This is somewhat why I advocate following the "spirit of the law" rather than the "letter of the law".

[David75]

Ok I admitt being quite new to the forums, and wasn't able to clearly identify the limit in double posting

I'll keep that in mind for later.

thanks.

[KitKat]

First, On Gotwoot there is no point in posting to "bump" your thread as if it died it's best to stay dead. There are many many examples of this.

Well, not always. There are some really fantastic threads that get forgotten about due to the sheer number of other threads and get forgotten once they drop off the front page. I wouldn't fault anyone for this unless they were consistently the only one posting in the thread and constantly bringing it back when obviously the community is uninterested. Personal art threads being an exception to this, of course. I don't see double-posting in general as being a big deal as, say, posting off-topic, or creating double threads.

Edit: A meaning altering typo corrected.

Better stay off those meaning altering drugs!

[Kraco]

I don't see double-posting in general as being a big deal as, say, posting off-topic, or creating double threads.

It's not much of a problem here because it seems to be rarely enough done and/or is moderated effectively. But I've seen places where the situation Complich mentioned is all too common: Somebody posts something, then a couple of minutes later remembers or thinks of something else and instead of editing the old one adds a new post. That's quite redundant and can be even viewed as artificially increasing the post count (despite my high post count, even I don't resort to that).

Of course there are places where editing after a short period is disabled altogether due to some inane excuse of avoiding arguments arising from the editing of old posts to say something else they previously did. Goddam those are annoying places... (And not because of my use of meaning altering drugs...)

[complich8]

I'm a big fan of leaving things editable as long as possible. If you want to reference what someone said and are worried about them editing it later, that's what the quote button is for .

Now, deletions are another story. I don't like letting people delete their own posts, because it tends to leave holes in the discussion and generally lead to confusion.

[Kraco]

Sometimes it could be nice to delete a post you just made. Usually I think pretty carefully what I'm posting, but sometimes you just misunderstand something that was posted before, and respond in a manner that makes little sense. And you notice it right after submitting the post. I don't know, during those rare moments I panic and try to quickly think of something intelligent I could replace the original post with.

[complich8]

yeah, that'd be neat ...

In the config options, there's 2 things that govern editing and deleting of posts. One's "time limit on editing/deleting" and the other is a per-group/per-user "can delete own posts".

If I want indefinite editing, then either I have to allow indefinite deletion, or I have to disallow deletion entirely. If I want a time limit on deletion, I have to impose the same limit on editing your own posts.

I'm thinking ... if you make a post that you'd like to have go away, you'd be better off just hopping on irc and finding an alive mod there and asking them nicely to get rid of it for you.

[David75]

I think we can say this topic is closed, at least regarding my questions.

Thanks for the inputs I had.

I have to say it's the first time I am on a forum with such a set of rules. I'll try my best to keep them in mind while I post, which is not that much compared to other communities I am. That makes those rules harder to remember.
however I feel these rules tend to make more qualitative participations, they also force everyone to share at a better level.

c u

[Board of Command]

Rule of thumbs: You're not allowed to double post as a means of quoting different members. Put all the quotes in one large post.

Aside from that, you can double post if it's clearly justified.

[Munsu]

Sometimes it could be nice to delete a post you just made. Usually I think pretty carefully what I'm posting, but sometimes you just misunderstand something that was posted before, and respond in a manner that makes little sense. And you notice it right after submitting the post. I don't know, during those rare moments I panic and try to quickly think of something intelligent I could replace the original post with.

Just edit out all the content, then ask a mod to delete your post in bold.


As for the double posting thing, I agree with what comp is saying. Double posts to post releases are fine. Double posts to add some interesting information after a couple of days have passed thas fine. A double post to discuss a newly released episode should be fine also. In fact, I wouldn't care if you posted 20 posts in a row because you're the only one discussing the anime and no one has posted after you after new releases. For one, I'm one to watch series in binges, and once I'm done I like to read what people have thought after watching an episode, even if it's only a monologue.

Double posts are bad when they are minutes or hours apart and when it's to post meaningless things.

There really shouldn't been an iron clad rule for double posting, as long as mods understand your intentions for double posting, the rule should be flexible. I've done quadruple posts here and there myself, though now that I have the merge post function handy, I merge posts as appropiate.

Let's say I've posted 2 times in a row, and I'm going to triple post. I post for a third time and merge the previous 2 posts. That way the thread gets bumped and I really don't add another post to the thread.

[David75]

Sorry to revive that old thread.
I don't know why I wanted to check wether vbulleting had a new mod for double posting...
Sometimes ideas strike your mind...
What's even funnier is that I think I'm finally not double posting anymore (it was hard)

So here's the link to the mod:
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=96602
It seems that you can set the timespan as you wish.
If someone is double posting, the new reply will be merged.
If timespan is exceeded, then new reply and thread bumped.

I hope this helps, and will help future members with this rule
That will prevent airheads like me from behing scolded everytime they are
airheads.
I guess that with a 48 hours timespan for example, there won't be any problems
with new releases that usually have a week period at best?

Have fun

[Kraco]

I don't think this forum keeps the moderators particularly busy or stressed, so if they rarely get a chance to scold somebody (=you) about double posting, I think they deserve that little bit of fun. Lest they forget they are mods in lack of moderating.

[David75]

I don't think this forum keeps the moderators particularly busy or stressed, so if they rarely get a chance to scold somebody (=you) about double posting, I think they deserve that little bit of fun. Lest they forget they are mods in lack of moderating.

I didn't go as far as Openly writing that, eventhough I thought about it. It seems it's a sound argument