You certainly can put quotes within quotes (within quotes within quotes…), but it doesn’t happen automatically. You have to manually type the QUOTE tags, and copy/paste the text into them.
Jodi, So sorry to have come back to this so late, and thank you for asking. (I’ve never taken note of who is “in” and who is not - or maybe it is just that I can’t remember names for the life of me…)
Maybe an idea is - look at the whole page or two of thread titles in the forums. Click on some started by somebody other than who you already know and are comfortable with. Don’t skip over a post that doesn’t have any replies in it yet. There may be some worthwhile info, or even something to laugh about, in there.
I admit to being a user of “um…”, and it is to convey a certain tone of voice. Hesitant, not really wishing to intrude, but feeling a need to sneak in anyhow. I don’t tend to use it as a “filler” word in real life.
I also must apologize for being one of those folks who may comment and then not come back to a thread – I really am pressed for time most days, and I would rather come in here when I have time to sit and think about responses than to fling out something ill-considered. I think it makes me hesitate to enter the MMP posts - seems like you need to be in there many times a day to be heard.
Customs is what trips you up? Did you ever get caught in violation and thus get put on “the list?” Because I’ve probably been through US Customs more than 100 times and never been delayed longer than it takes to hand them my form.
In Utah?
Cliques?
How would that work? (or maybe I am so NOT one of the Cool Kids that I am clueless as to how the whole system works)…
My aggravation at posters eviscerating others in the Pit ends there-I don’t like it when others then take it upon themselves to relentlessly chastise the offenders. The idea of the Pit is that it is a place to get your licks and take them. I think everyone knows that.
And I never could figure out that quote within quote thing-- I need to click reply on one of them to see how it’s set up. Someday I will.
I have been on message boards that automatically do the quote-within-a-quote, which is nice. It will do the whole stream, so you can follow the conversation. I try to do it when it seems like it will help the reader, but I think the proper format is the second post within the first, not the other way around. Like this:
You aren’t clueless…I don’t think there ARE cliques. Some people just have long-standing relationships with other posters, and they know who will back them up or give them a good argument in a debate. Some love going toe-to-toe with a particular person. That’s not the same thing as a clique.
There may be cliques. But I personally think it’s just a perceptional thing… you always see the same people in certain kinds of threads, and then assume (or initially upon registering I did) that they must somehow be interconnected. In my experience, that simply hasn’t rang true and has much more to do with shared interests rather than friendships, etc… Obviously, others MMV.
Just so you know when I read the “um” in my mind it can easily be replaced with “Hey dumbass”. It comes across as very condescending. I don’t mean from you necessarily. I don’t remember a post from you using that so I would have to see it in context. When I have seen it used by others it has given me that impression and I think it does to others too.
Yep. It’s actually banned at Television Without Pity (a wildly overmoderated board) because of its perceived snottiness.
Posting this ‘Quick Reply’ will take 5 minutes
I don’t think there are cliques here, but I think what you stated above is sometimes perceived as a clique. If you post here a lot, you are going to naturally make friends with other posters and want to engage in dialog with them. I don’t think this is wrong or rude. But if you don’t post a lot, it can be frustrating when your post is seemingly ignored while a post that makes the same points hours later is engaged. I think Max said it best:
My other frustations have been mentioned, but I didn’t see this one:
The ‘Name your favorite’-type CS threads that derail into responses that don’t even fit the OP’s basic criteria. I think there was one recently, ‘Name a popular band that spawned two or more popular solos acts’. Sure, you can expect to see people name non-popular bands or popular bands that spawned non-popular solo acts – I mean popular is subjective. But then you get bands that spawned only one solo act, then no solo acts, then a solo act that spawns a popular band, then a book about a solo act except they weren’t popular, then someone’s friend that was in a band and he went solo, then just someone’s friend who wanted to form a band but he died, then someone’s cat who loves listening to the Genesis song ‘Land of Confusion’ and everyone knows that Genesis spawned Mike+Mechanics.
I don’t like “me too” posts.
Ironic, isn’t it?
Things I dislike:
Gross overstatements.
Ridiculous black-and-white thinking.
Blind adherence to a particular political party.
Rampant non sequiturs (“There’s a bad man running around who has killed Americans, therefore the only way to keep my family safe is to render the Fourth Amendment meaningless and ignore the Geneva Convention.”)
Persecution complexes.
An apparently insatiable drive to insult people who hold opposing views, unironically using the same word for political opponents as they would for child molesters.
A belief that people with opposing political opinions exist solely to get a rise out of them; the very act of stating their beliefs is apparently intentionally irritating.
(Despite this post’s ostensibly unilateral aim, all of these criticisms cut both ways here. And everywhere, really. I can think of at least one poster on the opposite end of the political spectrum from Plan B who seems to violate all of these on an hourly basis.)
On an unrelated note, it burns me up to see the Most. Punctuated. Sentence. EVER. over and over again.
And on a similar note to Anaamika’s gripe, I’m often irritated by the dearth of linguists here. Often I feel like I have to play the linguist role, and it gets uncomfortable for me because I’m an undergrad and I’ve only taken one linguistics class so far. Seriously, what the hell? I know there aren’t that many linguists around in general, but surely a board such as this would attract a couple more.
I have been guilty of both of these on a few occasions. SDMB, I hereby formally apologize.
I think that’s the thing most offenders are forgetting. I’ll try to make a conscious effort to visualize the person at the other end.
Ugh! Seriously! There are some people here who I really, really like, who royally piss me off when they turn everything into a reference to a Buffy episode. (Like IRL, but fortunately I don’t hang out with many “Buffy people” anymore.) Buffy sucked (unnatural dialogue, disappointing execution of promising plot ideas, irritating and unconvincing characters with no chemistry, not enough actual slaying of the undead, the list goes on) and now it’s gone. Deal with it.
I’m pretty sure I’ve done this. (In fact, I think I’m doing it right now.) I can assure you that, in my case, it’s because those were the specific posts I had responses to. (I have a lot to say.) I read the post first, and then I look at the username. I often have a “Oh, sounds about right, they’re a respected board member” reaction, but I also have a “Hey, cool, that’s a newbie, she’ll make a good Doper” reaction sometimes and a “Wow, I used to think that guy was pretty irritating but he’s got an excellent point” reaction other times. I don’t say anything because in all three cases it would seem patronizing to me.
That’s the whole point. I’m rather grateful to the “PC police” that are so beleaguered in this thread; one of these supposed pedants taught me that “deaf mute” is offensive, and that probably would’ve gotten me in trouble if he hadn’t stepped in and told me so. It was tangential to my OP, but it was important. That’s just one example. One of the great things about this multicultural board (even though it is predominantly Western, and mostly American/British/Commonwealthian in particular) is that we can learn things about other cultures that we wouldn’t otherwise. Learning how not to step on peoples’ toes in another culture is an important part of figuring those people out.
Where to/from? I’ve only left the country once, to go to Israel and back, and both times customs was a major PITA. And I gobbled up all the pamphlets I could and followed every rule to the letter.
Ick! No! The first post was quoted inside the second, right? So the first post needs to stay inside the second. It’s all about preserving formatting. This is in the same realm as the people who put their response to a quote before the actual quote. I mean, I see where you’re coming from, but please don’t do it!
Nor do I!
About 17-18 different countries, mostly Europe and South America. Israel I know is a special case, however, so yeah if you go there you’ll risk getting the “full treatment”, sort of like when you go to Cuba. But I thought RedFury was coming into the US from Spain, and I’ve been to Spain several times and not had a problem.
The only times I’ve ever had problems were when people thought my passport was fake because information on my passport often confuses them. Among other things, I’ve been challenged on my age. I’m nearly 40, and I’ve been called aside because passport control folks were certain I was really 20. Passport control at Heathrow once called me aside because I had “too many trips to the UK” (I think I had something like 4 in two months). Taipei passport control thought my passport was fake because it had a crease in it from being stuffed into my pocket whilst I was shopping in Snake Alley. However, if you’re carrying a laptop and expensive luggage, dressed smartly, speak professionally and courteously, and present your P.E. ID card or other credentials to show you’re on business, they just let you through with about a minute’s delay.
I’m sure it’s not only the SDMB, or even just message boards generally, but I hate the notion that changing your mind is a sign of weakness. Too often in a debate, one party (occasionally both) needs to acknowledge that the other one made some good points, but sometimes, they just won’t do it - they’d rather carry on producing a string of spluttering denials, even though it’s obvious to everyone (including possibly even themselves) that the other guy just said something that was true.
Agreed. It seems like the culture of debating here has degenerated into staking out a territory and defending it to the death, no matter how untenable it becomes, rather than an actual interchange of ideas. Not everyone does this, of course, but it’s common enough that it starts taking over threads.
Long ago, I used to like browsing Great Debates, because I learned a lot following the ebb and flow of the discussion. Now it seems to be taken over by people to whom not giving an inch is the most important thing. Or maybe it was always like that, and I’m just getting crotchety.
Really? I’ve noticed quite a few; certainly at least one linguist pops into a language thread and handles arguments better than I could. I have a degree in it myself, but I’ve forgotten enough by now that it’s difficult for me to argue any deeper than basic principles.
There is, however, an extraordinary number of prescriptivists on this board who see no problem at all with bemoaning mere language change, far more than I would have expected.
Well, coming in, it hasn’t been that bad…even if it’s still a pain what with with the picture taking and digital print machine and the ton of inane questions. The particular “scrotum incident” actually happened on my way out of Miami. Since the rules appear not to be standardized across the board yet, I wasn’t required to take my shoes (sneakers actually) off, and when I went into that closed box thingie that puffs air, the red lights came on. After waiting for a bit – there were like another three boxes at that particular gate and only two guys working them, I was told the machine had “detected traces of explosives on me” :rolleyes: I then had to sit aside with the rest of the “suspects” (which included an elderly American couple – also fuming BTW) and that’s when Scrotum Man came over. Meanwhile, some big Momma was busy ripping the insoles of my brand-new Nikes. Result? Nothing of course. Should have farted on Scrotum Man so he’d get his “explosives.” Still, you’re left with a feeling of powerless anger with the whole BS. And that’s nothing compared to the ordeal another Spanish friend of mine had to go through…that was at Dulles though. Kept him in a small room for close to ten hours. Interrogating, prodding, insinuating, etc.
I haven’t made nearly as many trips as you have (about five within these past 12 months, maybe 20? since the new security laws are in place) but compared to the way I get in and out of Spain (or even here, the Dom Rep), it sure is a hassle getting in/out of the States.
Oh, and no…no violations or lists that I am aware of.