Should reports meet minimum Posting Guidelines?

[Cat Scratch]

I voted Yes, YES, YES!

I refer to Whitee's comments particularly as they relate to the Malaysian board. I have lived in Malaysia for three years (and Indonesia before that) and I struggle through the Malaysian board as it is even after Jackson applying the rules! If Whitee had his way then the Malaysian board (and, by extension, all other boards) would end up an incomprehensible mess.

I am not a language Nazi but it seems to me that the purpose of appling a strong but flexible structure to a language is to preserve its accessibiity to the widest possible constituency otherwise it degenerates into some kind local patois that is incomprehensive outside the village boundaries.

In short, respect the World in WSG and leave the "homies in the 'hood"

[Cienega32]

I posted a "MAYBE" vote for reasons that BayBoy mentioned. Sometimes there is a chat room/teenage style that presents itself with personal attacks and/or racial insults. I don't find this to be true within the forums that I frequent on a regular basis but I have seen a few messages of this type in other forums here.

Things said in a joking, friendly manner are fine but sometimes it gets a little bolder than that. I'm talking less than 1 percent of all messages that I've ever read but some of it is silly.

Overall this place is great and is managed in a much appreciated manner. The general posting guidelines are great. I know I don't want to read postings that are made with a street rapper chat room style. Let them learn the language or learn how to write. That I direct towards individuals who have English as their native language. Cheers to Jackson for trying to make literacy hip.

As far as postings that are not strictly defined as reports, I think the exchange of thoughts, practices, knowledge of the area, etc. are all good things as well as reports. Even the short "I scored a SW on (where ever) for $."

When I first came back to this site I was, and still am, impressed with all the information that I found available to me. Fantastic site! Great job by all!

[BayBoy]

I just want to say thank you to Jackson for a great website. Its given me many great hours of pleasure reading through all the reports from around the world.

Its also helped me make my travel plans alot easier knowing where all the "action" is at my destinations and not having to hunt around for where the ladies are.

Now the bad stuff. On the Panama site I still read alot of negative comments about other members and general belittling of other people, and also some very racist comments as well. It just doesn't belong on this site in my opinion.

Also this individual "Nibu" seems to break every rule that you have laid out for everyone else to follow. I'd appreciate it if you looked into it.

Thanks for the WSG.

[Rush 2112]

Jackson,
I agree that the Editor's note feature is very good in explaining why some reports are delayed because of editing work performed by you.

Having said that, I have noticed that some of these blue notes are not short and to the point in explaining the errors. One example of this is the hard return/soft return error. Maybe it would be a good idea to use a shorter explanation at the bottom of the report itself, and post a URL link to a much broader explanation. This would take up less space in the post.

Just an idea,
K.J. Baltimonger

[Langsuan Man]

I am in total agreement with Jacksons minimum requirements for posting. Anyone posting should be using a Word processing program in the first place which should contain a spell checker and or a grammar checker. The grammar checker in Micro$oft's Word should be of assistance to posters who's native language is not English.

I use a word processing program first then paste and copy to the forum and then preview my post. Many times some of the punctuation, commas, semi-colons, periods etc. do not come out correctly during the copy / paste procedure so by previewing the post I can then make the necessary corrections.

It is obvious that most posters take pride in their posts and spend a lot of time preparing them. None of us are natural writers and sometime struggle to get the correct information out. I for one appreciate all of the information that I find in the posts and my way of paying back those who have educated me is to spend a little time getting it right.

For those of you that do not have a word processing program I might suggest downloading ie Spell which is a free spell checker that will work right in the Internet Explorer browser and will spell check your posts in the forum prior to submitting them.

The URL is: http://www.iespell.com/

Langsuan Man

[The Tax Man]

The rules for this website are excellent. I get tired of trying to decipher chat room material. I find chat rooms intimidating because I dont understand all of their lingo. This site is easy for anyone to understand. There are many users here, in which English is not their first language. Our language is difficult without trying to figure out what someone is implying with their informal style. Besides all of the problems mentioned, as a society we are getting worse about our writing abilities. What happened to taking an extra second and following basic grammer and writing rules.

I understand that everybody here is an expert at writing. As you can tell, I am certainly not. But we should at least try to be effective communicators. After all, arent we all here to learn and share tips with each other?

[WSJ3]

Good day to all:

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank Jackson for all his efforts in keeping the board up and running.

Keep up the great work Jackson.

Peace:
WSJ3

[Raynman55]

Hello to all,

Just wanted to toss in my 2 cents.....
Jackson is providing an invaluable service to all of us skirts chasers in the world. This is his website and he does an admirable job managing a massive database. His house, his rules. You dont like it, go next door......and probably pay a membership fee....
So yall quit your bitchin and dont look a gift whorse in the mouth (pun intended )

Be safe and happy mongering!

[Whitee]

Hello, Jackson,

OK, thanks for the explaination and patience . I have no better suggestion, so I will now shut up, grin and accept it. Thanks for the Forum

[Whitee]

Jackson, you still don't get it do you?

I m not against the rules, just those blue notes. It scars the whole forum.

Okay, now I understand, so let me explain (for the 10th time, not to you, but to other's in the past)

The "Editor's Notes" strategy has proven to be the only effective method for policing the Forum.

Originally, I tried just editing the reports, but I got tired of repeatedly editing reports from the same Forum Members who were consisently ignoring the Guidelines.

Then, I tried sending emails to the authors of the reports I was editing, advising them that I had edited their report and asking them to please follow the minimum requirements of the Posting Guidelines. This was quite time consuming, and in the end proved to be ineffective given the large percentage of email address in the Forum database that were either abandoned or rarely checked.

Finally, as a last resort, I adopted the Editors Notes concept, which has proven effective for several reasons, as follows:

1. Forum Members generally read their own reports, and thus there was a high probability that the author of an edited report would subsequently read my Editor's Note at the bottom of their own reports.

2. Other Forum Members would read the various Editor's Notes, and thus would be made aware the existence of the Posting Guidelines and govern themselves accordingly.

3. The Editor's Note was much easier for me to implement because I could copy and paste a notes directly into the report on an "as needed" as I was performing the normal daily routine of moderating reports.

4. The Editor's Note, coupled with the downside of having their reports delayed, and the upside of potentially being upgraded to Senior Member, is effective, although I sincerely wish that more new Forum Members would read the Posting Guidelines first before they start posting, thus saving all of us from watching them go through the education process.

5. Finally, I did seek the input of the Forum Members regarding the concept of using the Editor's Notes in this survey section, and the overwhelming response was positive.

Anyway, that's why I currently employ the Editor's Notes concept, but if you have a better suggestion, then please let me know,

Thanks,

Jackson

[Late Night]

Buffalo Bill,

YOU SAID >>>I thank him for his efforts and express my admiration of his dilligence, intellegence, and tolerance.<<<

"Intellegence" is misspelled!

BTW, I voted >>>No. I don't believe there should be any minimum posting requirements because I believe that they may intimidate some people from posting reports.<<<

[Buffalo Bill]

The standards that Jackson insists upon have made this one of the finest sites on the net! I thank him for his efforts and express my admiration of his dilligence, intellegence, and tolerance.

[Ljohnson]

Jackson is very lenient when it comes to spelling and content; even to the point of allowing posts which are difficult to decipher. I believe he does this out of respect for the Member doing the posting.

Issues which may seem petty to some; e.g., spelling, punctuation, format, control of spam, etc. make this Forum more readable and user-friendly than it otherwise would be.

Jackson is not holding us to an unreasonable standard. He is just preserving the integrity of HIS website.

LJ

[Whitee]

Jackson's interference is getting overboard. This is the latest of his irritating blue notes from hell at the formerly fun-to-read Malaysia's postings.

Jackson,I know you are vetting and delaying my posting because of my objections to your heavy handed editorial. Let's see if you allow this to be on the board.

Some samples of Jackson's grammar paranoid:

EDITOR's NOTE: Posting of this report was delayed pending revisions to add a space after commas and after periods. To avoid delays in future reports, please include one blank space after commas and one blank space after the period at the end of sentences. Thanks!

EDITOR's NOTE: Posting of this report was delayed pending revisions to remove the forced hard returns in the text.

For those of you who may not be familiar with this concept, a "hard return" is created when you press the "enter" key while typing, thus artificially shortening the length of the text by forcing it to begin on the next line. Hard returns are also caused by some word processing and email programs.

More preferable would be a "soft return" wherein the text is allowed to continue automatically on the next line when it reaches the right side of the screen thus automatically adjusting to the varying width of each viewer's screen.

If your reports are being composed in a word processing or email program that is artificially inserting hard returns in the text, then please consider composing your Forum reports in another program or in the Forum's "Add New Report" window.

To avoid delays in future reports, please consider composing your report in the Forum or in a word processing program that does not insert hard returns in the text. Thanks!

If you can't write like an intelligent person, then please don't post.

Thanks,

Jackson

[Tube Steak]

The only problem I have in the is in the punctuation department. The addition of extra periods can say so much, without actually saying it; exasperation, contempt, duplicity, etc. I reccomend reading Celine's " Du Nord" for example... TS