If you need links to columns, why not just ask for it on the Post New Topic page?
It would seem nicer that nagging people after they have left the posting page. http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000621.html
Okay, I’ve got a couple minutes before lunch. I’ll explain why your post is here twice.
This is the one you posted at 11:52. The one you posted two minutes later, at 11:54, was the one I answered.
I don’t have time to find the links for you now, but there’s a thread around here somewhere called “trust the CGI - post only once, please” by David that you ought to read.
Basically, once you hit the “Submit Reply” button, don’t click on it again, even if your computer locks up, or you think the boards must have crashed, or you just didn’t get the “Thanks for posting your message” screen.
Either that, or when it brought you back to the topic, you saw that your thread wasn’t there, so you re-posted. Sometimes when the board is very busy (and sometimes just for the hell of it, I think), the software refuses to post your message as soon as it’s received. Sometimes it sits on it for a while, refusing to give it up, like a particularly cranky gummint bureaucrat. You just have to wait patiently, and 99% of the time it will turn up.
Very rarely you will get the Flood Control screen, and then you will have to resubmit.
So: Don’t EVER re-submit until you’re absolutely 100% positive that the computer swallowed your post, like if you come back the next day and it still isn’t there.
Don’t feel bad, we all go through it at least once. It’s a rite of passage, like getting puking drunk.
The reason NOT to multiple post is that the administrators have to do a complicated little dance involving sacrificing a chicken in order to delete the multiple posts, and PETA has been on their case lately about it. So we’re all trying to cut down on our multi-posts. 
Put “CGI” into Search and see what you get.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
Darn , I read this just after doing the double post thing over at MPSIMS . One more thing to put in my “don’t do it again list”.
Thx Mama , and sorry to the admin. people . :o
Came back from lunch and found the “trust the CGI” thread–it’s by Gaudere, not David, and it’s over in Great Debates, not GQ, which explains why I couldn’t find it.
http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/001519.html
Yoj, don’t sweat it.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
No, actually I posted the wrong site and reissued the topic when I realized my mistake.
Whoever closes/removes this topic can close/remove this one now if you like. Thanks.
FYI some message boards, like at Ziff Davis ZDnet, allow the author of a topic to remove it. This simplifies the case when you know or soon realize you’ve double-posted. (This is not a suggestion or request, just trivia)
I’m sorry, L, I didn’t understand you were talking about redesigning the Post New Topic page.
Re closing your own thread, you can click on Close Topic at the bottom of a thread, and if it’s yours, you can close it. However, to delete a thread completely, the admins or mods have to open up the hood and get busy under there with wrenches and things, and as you can see, they’ve got a lot on their minds lately.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
Lamerino, regarding the OP…
I’m not a moderator or anything, so my answer is unofficial, but here’s the deal. The board setup is not controlled by SD. They took a commercial product (UBB) and applied it to their situation. So that may not be a feature that the UBB code supports. It is not the SD staff’s job or abilities to update the UBB code to add that feature.
Other features we now have available were not available with earlier versions of the board. The working search engine being one of them. It is something we have to accept.
That may be an idea for Tuba and the staff to suggest to the UBB folks and see if it can be implemented. Or not.
Other complaints for “missing features” include the ability for each poster to delete and edit their own posts. This is something that UBB can do, but is an option that is turned off here. It works that way because we want it that way - sort of. The reason is to control the history of exchanges intact. We don’t want someone posting something inflammatory, waiting for responses, then going back and deleting their remarks and playing helpless victim for all the vicious replies.
Another is a preview window, where you can see what the post will look like before you actually submit. The edit window being a small inset frame that does not anywhere near simulate the display window size, and UBB and HTML (now disabled) are not displayable.
HTML is another “missing” feature. It was disabled after the last hack attack that used HTML capabilities to gain access. So much for our fun toys.
Hope that answers the questions.
a) Notthemama, can you really close your own threads? Wow! I did not know that.
b) lamerino, instead of posting two threads, why didn’t you just post a second time to the original thread explaining your error and giving the correct link? That would have saved a lot of confusion.
I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!
No, you can’t.
–
I have over 2000 posts, dammit! Show some respect.
http://fathom.org/opalcat/showmerespect.jpg
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com
Two of these is one too many.
So . … I’m closing this one.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
The Straight Dope