I want to be a good poster, I try but sometimes run into a catch 22 situation:
Sometimes when posting is a forumn (usally GQ) I offer my point of view and/or counter opposing points of view on the OP.
The problem is sometimes the other posters will reply (sometimes insulting me which I don’t beleive I have ever done exc. the pit) and the postings will drift out of the fourmn. How far can I go in supporting my replies (assuming I am supporting them instead of attacking the others)?
Also another question:
If a topic is obviously in the wrong forumn, should I post as if it were already moved?
IANAHWM (though I’d be happy to join up if TubaDiva ever needs any help on this forum :))
Though I do speak with some degree of experience on this, having never shied away from offering my opinion in GQ or a factual answer in IMHO. As I’ve noted in other posts, I stay away from other forums as I’m temperamentally unsuited to them (the Pit and GD) or too shy to participate fully (MPSIMS).
I think as long as your post is valuable to the discussion, most folks would welcome it. There are limits, though, and there are forums (particularly GD) where those limits are stricter than others. My experience has been that the forums are listed in order from strictest to most lenient in terms of how closely your posts should stay on topic. But even in that most of the “rules” apply to OPs. Unless a thread gets completely hijacked and no one is paying any attention any more to the OP, it usually won’t get moved or closed.
On your question about replying to a thread that is headed elsewhere, I’ve never let it stop me. Sometimes (usually) I’ll even try to play the numbers a little and say something like “I think this is headed to IMHO, but here goes.” So far, I think I’m about right about 75% of the time. The rest I chalk up to mods not moving things because they drop off the list of recent threads too quickly.
I would prefer it if you didn’t. Sometimes posters think that a thread should “obviously” be moved, when it actually shouldn’t be. A particular peeve of mine (though this hasn’t happened in a while) is when someone posts a somewhat inflammatory OP in GD and various dopers say, “well, this is going to the Pit anyhow” and procede to flame the shit out of the OP. Then I come along, read the OP and decide it is an acceptable GD topic, but any potential for reasonable debate has been completely sidetracked, and so I have to step in and try to haul the mess back on track and issue tons o’ warnings. Part of this depends on what your responses actually are, too; I don’t like flames in GD, period, no matter what the justification, but I am not upset if someone posts a MPSIMSy thread and gets MPSIMSy responses while it is in GD. If you want to be safe, as long as a thread is in a certain forum, post according to the rules of that forum. You probably won’t get into any big trouble if you post as if the thread has been moved, but then again, the Mod might decide the thread shouldn’t be moved and then you’ve got less-than-appropriate responses in there.
Just to back up Gaudere here, I also much prefer that folks abide by the rules of the current forum. If the thread’s going to be moved so soon anyway, then you might as well wait for it to actually happen. If that’s too long to wait, then you can e-mail the moderators of the forum it’s in to alert them to it.
I feel like that character in Blazing Saddles, who in response to “My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening thru a cosmic vapor of invention!” can only say “Ditto!”
Ditto!
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator and provincial putz
I have been the object of similar deviants many times. That’s one of the reasons why I went through the bother of creating the below site. Henceforth, I intend to simply respond to those instigators with passive resistance as follows, and you’re welcome to do the same. It’s the only way, because it’s impossible to debate rationally with people who are just seeking to pick a fight for the mere sake of fighting. Eventually they might get the hint and lay off:
"I wish SDMB would implement the below feature. Then there would only be one extraneous post, instead of the two extraneous posts which will clutter up this thread as soon as I click “Submit”. http://features.homestead.com/files/index.htm.html
P.S. I even respond that way to people who insult the site. It doesn’t deter me, I just respond again with an identical or similar message including, YES, the site!
And you’re not feeding me a trick question. It’s not a question of last name or first name. People die in alphabetical order by their surname, regardless of culture.