Excessive quoting off site

dthead · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:51 am

I would like to thank Andrew and Tony and I hope it shows many others that differences can result in misconceptions and bad timing. Let's try to keep that in mind in the future. I commend both parties, as you are both an asset to Railpage Australia™.

Now another point ( to keep on topic as I should obay my own rules on this thread) to learn and note is the use of quoting in forums. While we have okayed the amount in the International forums, it would not be a good thing for someone to try that in the other forums, ie NSW VIC, WA etc.

Usually the best practise is to have a opening message "eg found this interesting xxxxxx at ( giving the url to the original article)" - then quiting not all of the article. Then your own summary at the end in why you wanted to post it.

As I said that would be my normal idea. Yes sometime one will quote all the article, soemtime without comment.

Therefore there are places the proactise is allowed, and also areas not to ge too excessive in.

PM a mod/admin if you have difficulties or use the report post feature.

Now, back to work in foggy Melbourne !

Regards,
David Head

574M · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:35 am

ParkesHub · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:44 am

Well said, TLD™, you must have broad shoulders!

michaelgreenhill · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:37 pm

Gwiwer · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 7:04 pm

A very satisfactory resolution to what might have otherwise festered as a sore spot in our community.

Many thanks to those involved for their input and a warm welcome back (albeit "on a smaller scale") to Tonymercury.

CEO Penhayle Bay Railway. Ferroequinologist. BA Hons (Honourable Bachelor of Aquatarts

)
The wise yet mysterious Sir Gwiwer Greybeard

2001 · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:45 am

...... and they all lived happily ever after .

2001

Member Falls Creek 2018 Olympics Committee.

wurx · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:47 pm

Riccardo · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 1:20 pm

My 2 bob:

My disagreements with Tony have been about other things but the posting of news articles from overseas is helpful (no, invaluable!) for a person like me, especially since a lot of it is political.

I do somewhat feel that placing helpful articles on this board is, to quote the Bible, "casting pearls before swine" so if the longer term solution was a dedicated board or blog that would probably be best.

If have certainly quoted Tony's postings on my own blog, particularly on more extreme proposals like Eurasian land bridges and so on.

Good to have Tony back.

If you need to get in touch, drop a comment at the Transport Textbook or on my blog.

Johnmc · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 4:21 pm

drwaddles · Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 1:46 pm

I have little interesting reading what Tony posts. However, I do similar to what he does on another forum and am a beneficiary of others who post news articles on other forums.

Given that I do a lot of research, having a thread on a topic with a succession of news articles in it serves as a fantastic archive and as an easy reference. Rather than having it on a blog or whatever, having it on a discussion forum (a) allows discussion and (b) makes it easily visible and in a potential viewer's mind as they are viewing other discussions. It is very easy to forget that a blog is there for the casual visitor who may not be interested enough to read only the one subject (e.g. International News)

My only request would be that all articles are provided with a URL (if taken from the internet) or if copied from an electronic newsletter/typed up from somewhere then the author and source is given. This (a) respects copyright and (b) makes them useful for researchers or anyone else who wants to read further on the subejct.

Some have suggested only copying a segment of the article. I have my reservations about this though as if someone looks at the thread in, say, three years time and wants to read the full article it may no longer be there. That's the beauty of all this information that is collected. Whether RP is the place for it or not is up the mods/owner.

I also prefer to revive old threads on the same topic if new developments occur because of the archival factor. E.g. PalmerEldritch's great "This is what is going to spur the CFN-DNG triplication" thread is a perfect example - and it would be silly to start a new thread every time a news article comes up. Now, if someon is interested, they can just read through the whole thread and it is all in one place.

I was thinking of a similar thing for the Railway Archaeology forum where each old line etc. could have its own one thread, making it easy for researchers or those simply curious to see what info is out there.

People who talk out their asre usually have bad breath.

Clarisworkz · Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 3:43 pm

I've seen some of the posts from Tonymercury, and while it does appear to be excessive and rather long-winded, it seems limited to one sub-forum, so I don't really see what the beef is.

If you don't like what he posts, don't read it. Pretty simple.

Plenty of other forums to read.

I noticed the people who've commented positively on his posts like what he says. It's News to them and readworthy.

I joined mainly for the Victorian and WA forums (I love Red Rattlers and Harris' Trains), and the modelling forums. If he was flooding every forum with it I could see an issue, especially in those forums.

But he's not.

Remember, forums rely on information that others want to know about.

Without good posters, there's really nothing here to look at ...

My Two and three-quarter cents ...

Smile

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluemoonvoyager/ ... http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a19/Clarisworkz/