[Improve Orchid] Orchid group manners

[aggie.p]

Hi All,

I’ve been a member for 4 years and lately have started posting. At
first whe4n I received an email from one of my postings privately I
shrugged it off. The sender was telling me my answer in the
Stuller’s loyalty thread was too long and they had just skipped it. I
was told to make short replys. Since then I’ve noticed most have had
similar to mine, long replys. Unless everyone is getting similar
private emails, I now find that person’s email rather offensive. Use
good manners when contacting people privately. If you don’t like them
personally, by all means skip their posts. If you find what they
said is wrong, then correct it but explain why so all will
understand. If it is to correct bad behavior, do it with some common
courtesy. Sorry for being lengthy again.

Agnes
Old lady in Florida

[ringdoctor]

That post was certainly not overly long. It is ok to ask that others
be polite and respectful. At least the “corrections” were made
privately in email, rather than publicly, but still, you have the
right to express your opinions as you see fit, as long as they do not
injure others.

Jim

[marly_harris1]

Agnes-

I’m also an old lady (but in Southern California where it’s illegal
to age) and my only response to you is the word paragraph. I
generally enjoy long posts filled with vital but it’s
good manners to break those thoughts into chewable segments.

Marly

[PrueBiddle]

Agnes,

I completely agree with your post about manners on Orchid.

Its all too easy to be very rude in the virtual world and I do not
feel this is acceptable. Unless people say so I cannot see this will
ever change so thank-you for standing up and saying so.

Lets ensure Orchid is the friendly, helpful forum it should be.

Prue
(old lady in rural SW England)

[Mark_Parkinson3]

Hi Agnes, I wouldn’t let the self appointed forum police worry you.
There is one if every bunch who thinks the world would be a better
place if we all thought just as they do. I’m glad you’re posting
(long or short), please continue as the forum only benefits from new
participants.

Interestingly I just had a discussion with my son about this very
subject last night. I was reading a long post on another forum and
the next poster wrote “TL;DR”. I asked my son what that meant and he
said it’s an abbreviation for, too long; didn’t read, and that it’s
internet slang that is commonly used on forums. I told him that I
thought that if you weren’t friends with the person, that posting
TL;DR could only be interpreted as overly aggressive and insulting
(that sounds like how you may have felt). He said that he often see’s
it used by the poster themselves. An example, I might write a long
winded post and then at the very end have a final line that begins
with, TL;DR and then summarize my long post in one or two sentences.
The apparent reason for this is that the reader can skip down to the,
TL;DR, and read my summary, if it sounds interesting they can then go
back to read the whole long post

TL;DR Glad Agnes is posting. Explanation of the abbreviation TL;DR

Mark

[Nel_Bringsjord]

Hello Agnes,

I have also noticed some of the uber-lengthy posts some people write
but never commented or written about it. Your post was really short
so don’t worry. What I have found over the years I have been on
Orchid is that when someone writes a lengthy post and there are no
paragraph breaks, I will not read it…period. I don’t care if it
is a thread that interests me or not.

I have little time to spend on any forum to begin with, so to have
to try and keep finding my place because the sentences run on and on
with no respite is beyond my patience. My monitor is 15" tall and I
have the type settings at “Medium”. If the post goes beyond those
limits, forget it. Paragraph breaks, in my view, equal respect for
the reader. Lack of them, in my view, equals loving to hear yourself
talk.

The other thing that truly offends me is plagarism. I found one
lengthy post a few months ago rife with text lifted directly off of
another website. I found this out when the subject matter was
interesting and I was compelled to do further research. If one
cannot have the good taste to put the bit into one’s own words, I
won’t read that person’s posts again.

Just my two cents.

Thank you Agnes for opening the subject.
Nel

[Noman]

I'm also an old lady (but in Southern California where it's illegal
to age) and my only response to you is the word paragraph.

Amen! I don’t bother reading those posts that are one giant diatribe.

[Noman]

The other thing that truly offends me is plagarism. 

And it’s so easy to include some “quotes” and copy & paste a URL.
Tsk

[MikiSunshine]

As primarily a reader and rarely a contributor to this forum (bless
all of you who share your knowledge I’ve learned so much over the
past few years), the only thing that really bothers me are the long
posts without relief.

It’s well known that paragraphs increase reading speed and
comprehension. If you want your posts to be easily read and
understood, break them up with paragraphs.

When a post is so long, with no breaks, it’s like a run on sentence.
My mind can’t finish reading a few of sentences before my eyes lose
their place. Or sometimes I want to think about what was written
before I read more. To get back to where I stopped reading, I often
have to read prior sentences again. Very, very frustrating and makes
it TL;DR. Thanks, Mark. LOL

So really, make your posts as long as you want. But please break
them up with paragraphs. Even if they’re random, it just makes for
easier and quicker reading and better comprehension of what you’re
saying.

My two cents. Take it or leave it.
Michele

[Jamie_Hall1]

We all have the right to read or not read anything we want,
anywhere. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you what you should or
shouldn’t write on Orchid! I like to read the digest every morning
with my cup of tea, and if you all wrote short posts, then I’d finish
the cup of tea before I finished the digest! Regarding posting
without paragraphs - I don’t know whether anyone else gets this, but
my posts often lose all their formatting before they get posted in
the digest - it really annoys me, because I take so much care to
write properly!

Jamie Hall
www.primitivemethod.org

[Noman]

I don't know whether anyone else gets this, but my posts often lose
all their formatting before they get posted in the digest - 

Ever since ditching my 650mb hard drive and upgrading from windows
3.1 I’ve stopped worrying about bandwidth and digests.

[Mark_Parkinson3]

I don't know whether anyone else gets this, but my posts often
lose all their formatting before they get posted in the digest -
it really annoys me, because I take so much care to write
properly! 

I’ve had the same problem. Sending the post using the Plain Text
setting seems to help resolve that. It appears that Orchid’s system
jumbles it if not plain text.