Using the JFK Forum

[Bernice Moore]

john i realized that AFTER of course..ta b

[Don Jeffries]

Thank you, Raymond. I've mentioned this subject before. To those following long threads, it is especially exasperating to have to scroll past old post after old post to finally see the new post (which is often only a single line).

If everyone would try to remember to do this it would make reading these threads a lot easier.

[Evan Burton]

I am happy to provide a tutorial for all the Board functions if people are interested.

[John Dolva]

Evan, I think that is a great idea. (Perhaps in the process making a prominent comprehensive Help file/FAQ). (Including the structure of the Moderating team and their permitted capabilities?)

[John Simkin]

Thank you, Raymond. I've mentioned this subject before. To those following long threads, it is especially exasperating to have to scroll past old post after old post to finally see the new post (which is often only a single line).

If everyone would try to remember to do this it would make reading these threads a lot easier.

Message from reader Chris Lightbown:

Amen to Don Jeffries’ post, above. Why anybody ever quotes anything from previous posts has long mystified me.

Anybody contributing to a thread is, by definition, replying to something already written in that thread – so why repeat it?

Since we all read threads from the top downwards, we know what is being discussed by the time we get to any given post, so the point arises again – why repeat it? It makes no sense and it slows down the whole reading process.

The worst offenders are The Serial Squabblers and The Incomprehensibles, who tend to write at inordinate length and to repeat each others posts as they do so.

It gets worse. Some members – step forward The Squabblers – repeat what are frequently massive posts from a thread they are bickering over and then, as Don says, add a one-line reply at the end. Why?

Do they not understand that we have already read what they are replying to and therefore it doesn’t need repeating?

In the rare cases where something genuinely need repeating - often because it’s a fine-tuned point buried inside a mass of text - then all that’s needed is for somebody to say they want to pick up So & So’s point about XYZ and take it from there.

It’s difficult enough making sense of Kennedy’s assassination without the forum being cluttered up by these sorts of pre-adolescent mistake and since we are talking about elementary blunders, how about those of us who have not discovered the paragraph button, finally making an effort to locate it?

It’s a few buttons to the right of your P and L buttons, it doesn’t bite, it is not a CIA mind-control device awaiting activation and it will help make your post easier to understand……..

If I was one of the Langley Zombies monitoring this forum from my room in the bunker, I’d crack up laughing every time I saw mile long posts being incessantly repeated or the forum descending into levels of shrieking that would disgrace a crèche at feeding time.

In the frequent periods when this forum’s monitors appear to be asleep, (where are they when some of these appalling attacks are made on Jack White?), The Squabblers do more damage to their own cause than a regiment of Langley Zombies could do in a year. The latest multi-thread Zapruder bicker-bout being a classic example.

So what’s to be done? Simple. If The Squabblers could stop squabbling, The Incomprehensibles discover the English language and all of us discover the long lost paragraph button, that would just leave us with who killed Kennedy and the associated issues generated by examining the assassination.

A shrewd thinker might say that was more than enough for us to be getting on with…..

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

. . . of an exceptional breed!

I do this most of the time

But some times I include all quotes if I am debating a subject with someone

If the thread goes onto another page it is much easier to read the how the debate has progressed instead of going back to the last page and looking for the post

And as far as John saying he is wearing out his scroll down wheel on his mouse I have a solution, I dont know if John remembers the old days (he looks kind of young) before that nice wheel was ever on the mouse, we had to scroll down the old way

Just go to the scroll bar at the right side of the screen and you can either click the down arrow or you can grab the blue bar inside the scroll bar and by holding the left click and draging it up or down

I would have thought you knew how to do this, but since you are wearing out your wheel you must not know of this old school method

I hope this helps

Dean

Thanks, Dean...for the offer of help. Young people like you who were raised on computers think all this is easy because it IS to you.

I did not learn (self-taught) to use a computer till I was 64; I am now 83...so I know how to do stuff, BUT DO NOT UNDERSTAND

TECH ASPECTS. I have used a Mac competently for 19 years TO DO THINGS I NEED TO DO. But learning NEW stuff is tough for

me. I only have time to do stuff...not to learn new things to do.

An analogy: I have driven a car competently for more than 60 years, but have only a faint idea what is under the hood or

what makes it work. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks...well, keep in mind that I am a VERY OLD DOG.

Thanks.

Jack

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Message from reader Chris Lightbown:

Anybody contributing to a thread is, by definition, replying to something already written in that thread – so why repeat it?

Wise words from Mr. Lightbown.

I suggest the general rule should be: SIMPLY DELETE EVERYTHING BEFORE YOU REPLY, unless you are willing to take a few minutes to learn the SIMPLE steps involved in quoting a previous poster.

I recommend that Evan B. and other interested moderators contact the worst REGURGITATORS directly and show them what to do.

I also recommend that NEW MEMBERS be automatically given guidance on this issue.

The last post on this thread by Jim Fetzer is a classic illustration of the problem. Jack White wrote I AM A VERY OLD DOG,

to which Fetzer replied OF A VERY RARE BREED. But in order to make his pithy riposte, Fetzer felt it necessary to REGURGITATE Jack's entire post and thereby waste everybody's time.

This makes Dr. Fetzer look stupid, and the rest of us too, by association. Dr. Fetzer: Please read the guidelines given in the very first post on this thread, and you may learn something about how to win friends here, and influence people.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Message from reader Chris Lightbown:

Anybody contributing to a thread is, by definition, replying to something already written in that thread – so why repeat it?

I am tempted to rename this forum DEJA VU AD NAUSEAM.

I keep seeing the same posts repeated over and over as if no one here has ever figured out what the DELETE BUTTON is for.

If you are not willing to take a few minutes to learn how to use the forum software (as described in the first post on this thread), then PLEASE DELETE the post you are responding to before you post your reply. Chris Lightbown reads the forum and you are driving him crazy. No doubt Chris is a spokesman for the SILENT MAJORITY.

Consider this: If no one here can figure out how to use the DELETE BUTTON, how in God's name can we expect the solution to the JFK mystery to emerge here? And if it did, it would be lost in the clutter.

[Evan Burton]

[John Dugan]

Message from reader Chris Lightbown:

Anybody contributing to a thread is, by definition, replying to something already written in that thread – so why repeat it?

I recommend that Evan B. and other interested moderators contact the worst REGURGITATORS directly and show them what to do.

The last post on this thread by Jim Fetzer is a classic illustration of the problem. Jack White wrote I AM A VERY OLD DOG,

to which Fetzer replied OF A VERY RARE BREED. But in order to make his pithy riposte, Fetzer felt it necessary to REGURGITATE Jack's entire post and thereby waste everybody's time.

well said

Just remember, this is all for the good of the forum. Thanks to all the mods.

Edited January 17, 2010 by John Dugan

[Jack White]

The problem is with the forum software. Whenever I try to edit a quoted message,

I usually get an error message saying my message is invalid because QUOTE MARKS

DO NOT MATCH, or some such nonsense. So I just quote the whole message. Replying

to a message without quoting the message is often confusing, since a reader who

has not read the whole thread does not understand the reply.

Jack

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Whenever I try to edit a quoted message,I usually get an error message saying my message is invalid because QUOTE MARKS DO NOT MATCH, or some such nonsense.

I had the same problem in the beginning. It takes experimentation to get the quote marks to work out correctly.

In a simple case where you are responding to one key passage in a previous post, the only quote marks you should retain are the VERY FIRST quote marks (the first line, which includes the posters name) and the FINAL quote mark in brackets.

If this is not working out, then:

1/ DELETE EVERYTHING except the passage you wish to draw attention to

2/ HIGHLIGHT the passage by drawing the cursor across it

3/ then click the WRAP IN QUOTE TAGS symbol which is 2nd from the right in the line of symbols above the REPLY page.

When you go to PREVIEW POST the highlighted text will then appear like this:

Whenever I try to edit a quoted message,I usually get an error message

[it's like learning to ride a bicycle. Once you get the hang of it, its a piece of cake.]

Edited January 17, 2010 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

So I just quote the whole message. Replying

to a message without quoting the message is often confusing, since a reader who

has not read the whole thread does not understand the reply.

Jack: I wouldn't worry about readers who are too lazy to read the whole thread. If they don't care enough to read what has gone before, they probably won't care about what YOU write either.

[Jack White]

So I just quote the whole message. Replying

to a message without quoting the message is often confusing, since a reader who

has not read the whole thread does not understand the reply.

Jack: I wouldn't worry about readers who are too lazy to read the whole thread. If they don't care enough to read what has gone before, they probably won't care about what YOU write either.

My Mac mouse scrolls VERY quickly through extraneous material with no problem or inconvenience.

Get a Mac.

Jack

[Craig Lamson]

Get a Mac.

Jack

Learn to use he software....