Forum Moderators: open
In the CSS forum there seems (to me) to have been an extraordinary number of first time posts lately. This is a good thing I reckon, but I think that an exceptionally large number are asking their questions with a minimum of context and content, and dropping in personal links.
<Side stepping the whole 'personal links not allowed' question, which clearly seems to be permanently and officially settled.>
I've wondered of late whether I should respond to such posts at all, and if it would be a more effective policy to ignore such posts completely, until a moderator handles the issue, and then step in after the post has been cleaned up and pronounced fit.
I've also seen some posts disappear completely, which I don't care for, unless implemented as a consistent policy. I have crafted a response to a couple of these, and when returning to answer the post has, for whatever reason, simply been gone.
I have been unable to remember where it was, but several years ago I was required to pass a 'quiz' before completing a registration. The questions were well crafted, and it was not possible to pass without reading the TOS. The questions did not lend themselves to intuitive answers (I tried:)). It was very well done, and there was no way around having to read the TOS, or to not know which terms were of particular import.
Would the average new person reading the TOS here (if they read the TOS) have any idea what a hot button it is? The CSS forum lends itself to URL drops, because of the nature of the questions. Perhaps it is much less of an issue with other forums. It's hard to see how the CSS mods don't go crazy. As just a user, it's still a pain.
Ignoring such posts would take care of that, but it strikes me that this is a reparable flaw of the system, but one which won't improve without decisive decisions on the front end.
<Not complaining - just observing.>
May work better to either put it in really big letters in front of them, or set it so new members can't post url's for the first 20 posts or so. The technology is already there - try adding a url to certain sites and they're automatically #%&$@*-ized.
Is there in any way possible to post a link in my message to my personal site?
Why? Becuase it's not very efficient to cut/paste several hundred lines of xhtml/css code (unless it's a very trivial problem).
Is there in any way possible to post a link in my message to my personal site?Why? Becuase it's not very efficient to cut/paste several hundred lines of xhtml/css code
Nope, both posting links to personal sites and posting hundreds of lines of code are against the rules at WebmasterWorld.
Why?
You can't post links to your own site because, no matter how good-intentioned you are, we don't allow any self-promo at all. If we start letting people link to their sites for help, then people who wanted to promote their sites would come here for "help."
As for posting code - take a peek at our guidelines for posting code [webmasterworld.com]. This will tell you why you can't post hundreds of lines of code at WebmasterWorld - and how to post the right bits of code for the help you need.
But (in my case) let's say that there isn't any obvious error or misbehaviour on the site. It validates, it works almost perfectly everywhere but still breakes sometimes under certain (unknown) circumstances.
How can I effiecently present my problem? [:
By reducing your code down to the bare minimum needed to reproduce the issue, you are making it easy for others to focus in, because you are posting only the RELEVANT parts. And sometimes in this process, you can even uncover the answer for yourself, because this is one good way to do troubleshooting,
And sometimes in this process, you can even uncover the answer for yourself, because this is one good way to do troubleshooting,
A point that can not be overstated, and one of the best reasons for not allowing personal URLs. It's too easy to dump a URL, and ask someone else to fix it. It requires effort to whittle down an issue to what will fit in a post and to ask the question clearly. Though I sometimes find a URL to be useful, URL dropping encourages laziness.
Often as not, a general description of the problem is all the pros here need to set me on the right track. They well know the usual suspects for each issue, and can quickly point to resources and previous threads that deal directly with the question at hand.
