Posting Guidelines

[Admin]

This subject was closed to further posting on 12-31-03.

If you have additional comments on this subject, please post them in the "Comment on Site Rules" area of the Site Administration section of the Forum.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment on this issue.

THIS IS THE TEXT OF THE ORIGINAL ISSUE
AS PUBLISHED IN THE FORUM ON 9-01-03:
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POSTING GUIDELINES

Our next subject for discussion is the Forum's Posting Guidelines. Frankly, this discussion should probably have come before the discussion on Senior Member criteria, because Senior Member upgrades are based largely on a members history of adhering to the Posting Guidelines. Nevertheless, I elected to have the Senior Member criteria discussion first simply because I knew that there were so many Regular Members who were (sometimes impatiently) waiting to be upgraded. Besides, every new Senior Member means less moderating work for me, so I was also anxious to formalize the process.

Here are my proposed Posting Guidelines:

PROPOSED FORUM POSTING GUIDELINES

WHAT'S GOOD

Letter Format:
1. An optional greeting, followed by a blank line.
2. Paragraphs of reasonable length, each separated by a blank line.
3. A optional salutation at the bottom, separated from the body of the report by a blank line.

Standard Punctuation:
We all learned this in elementary school, and in the Forum it generally amounts to putting commas between phrases and periods at the end of sentences.

Standard Capitalization: Again, we all went to elementary school, and we all know that you should capitalize the first letter of sentences, names of people, places, streets, cities, countries, names of races and religions, etc.

General Politeness: This reminds me of the old saying about pornography "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it". The same follows true for recognizing uncivil behavior. generally, "General Politeness" just means referring to other members with some minimal level of civility.

WHAT'S NOT GOOD

Chatroom Style Writing:
Writing that is completely devoid of capital letters or punctuation.
The Forum is not a chat room, it's a permanent archive of travel reports.

Chatroom Abbreviations:
Specifically utilizing any of the following abbreviations:
The letter "i" instead of "I".
The letter "u" instead of "you".
The letter "r" instead of "are".
The letters "cuz" instead of "because".
The letters "ur" instead of "your".
The letters "um" instead of "them".

Universally recognized abbreviations of multiple words such as "FYI", "LOL", etc., and abbreviations on the Forum's Terms and Abbreviations List are all acceptable for use in Forum reports.

Weird Punctuation:
No period at the end sentences.
Multiple periods at the ends of sentences.
No space at the end of sentences.
Unwarranted dashes and dots throughout the text.

Of course everyone makes occasional typos, what I'm referring to is the consistent use of these writing aberrations.

Writing in all CAPS:
This is the internet equivalent of shouting, It's difficult to read, and it's simply not necessary unless you are either lazy or an egomaniac.

Links to Competing Websites:
I think this may come as a surprise to some members, but you cannot use my forum to promote competing forums.

Email Addresses:
The current policy is that if you have information to share, you can post your email address and invite others to contact you.

What you cannot do is post a request for others to post their email addresses to receive your information, because this leads to an unacceptable number of useless junk posts.

In addition, you cannot post your email address as part of a general request to receive information because this bypasses the purpose of the Forum.

However, this entire subject will be addressed in a future forum discussion.

Banned Words:
The words "*****", "*****" and "****" are not allowed because these words are commonly used to denigrate women, and that's not what this website is all about.

Spam:
Spam is defined as postings to the Forum that are contrary to the purpose of the site, including:

Commercial Messages
Links to Adult Websites
Discussions of Sex with Minors (under 18)
Homosexual Messages
Transvestite Messages
Repetitive Postings
Advertising Yourself to meet Women
TYPING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS
Typing in Blue Font (Reserved for Editor)
Threatening the Webmaster
Personal Insults & Attacks
Postings not in English
Hate Messages
Racist Messages
Race Taunting
Religious Messages
Warnings from Law Enforcement
Deliberate Disinformation
General BS

WHAT'S NOT CONSIDERED

Quality of Writing:
This would be an impossible task.

Spelling:
Again, I just don't have the time.

THE PURPOSE of POSTING GUIDELINES

SPAM Control:
Uncontrolled SPAM will kill a Forum like a cancer.

Better Readability:
Standard capitalization and punctuation rules have been utilized for centuries because it's simply faster and easier to read writing that follows these generally accepted conventions.

Improved Reporting:
It's my theory that people tend to write better when they are asked to adhere to minimal punctuation and capitalization conventions. Instead of just casually banging their thoughts out onto the keyboard, they tend focus a little more on what they're doing, which improves their ability to communicate with the rest of us, which is to everyone's benefit.

HOW ARE THE POSTING GUIDELINES APPLIED

Reports by Regular Member are held for moderation, which amounts to my reviewing each report for adherence to the Posting Guidelines. Senior Members have already demonstrated their willingness to follow the Posting Guidelines, and thus I don't need to monitor their contributions. This is the intent behind the Regular Member / Senior Member System.

As a side note, I must also observe here that there are a number of Senior Members who were grandfathered into the status, but who still insist on making contributions that don't follow these Posting Guidelines, mostly by writing in chat room style with no capital letters or punctuation. Of course, these Senior Members make it doubly difficult for me to maintain the minimum requirements of the Posting Guidelines among the Regular Members, many of whom will naturally mimic the writing style they see utilized by the Senior Members under the assumption that this represents the acceptable practice. I'll have a discussion on this subject in the future, for now I'm going to focus on one issue at a time.

The moderation process is somewhat time consuming. On any given day, approximately 70% of the pending reports are fine as submitted, but there's the other 30% that need to be edited, either because they are written in chat room style, or written in ALL CAPS, or with weird punctuation (see description below), or because they constitute SPAM, etc.

Each day, I go through each of these reports and make the necessary edits, and then I paste an "Editor's Note" at the bottom of the edited report to advise the author what and why I was compelled to edit, hopefully to avoid repeats of the same situation. I also post the Editor's Note so I can keep track of whose reports I have had to edit, so if the author requests an upgrade to Senior Member, I can look back and see their history. Otherwise, as I am reviewing a prospective Senior Member's report history, every report would look perfect because I had fixed them.

I try to be somewhat moderate in deciding at which point I will paste an Editor's Note in a report. Generally, I don't even bother for just a few mistakes because everybody makes typo's, so it's only the pattern mistakes that warrant a notice. I'm also more liberal when it comes to correcting reports from members who are reporting on international locations when it appears that English is not their native language. In these cases I'm sensitive to my own limited foreign language capabilities, and I certainly don't want to discourage these contributions.

In the beginning of my stewardship of the Forum, I would send a email to the author of a problem report, either describing how I had to edit their report, or sometimes providing them with a copy of the entire report and a request that they modify it themselves and re-post it. However, that became too cumbersome because so many of these emails either wouldn't be received because it was a mail box that the member would rarely check, or would be returned undelivered because the email address that the member had used to register their membership was no longer valid. To this day I am amazed at the number of people who won't provide me with a useable email address, in spite of the fact that I've never distributed the membership email list or spammed the members. Maintaining a valid email address is a membership requirement, but I'll deal with this issue on another day.

Another problem that requires editing work on a daily basis is the misuse of the Forum's Quote function. Apparently there are a lot of people who simply don't comprehend the correct positioning of the [ quote ] and [ /quote ] tags, which results in several reports every day that look like one big quote, or that have been rendered completely unreadable. It's an aggravation to me because I then have to read the actual report content in an attempt to discern where the actual quote ends, and then move the improperly positioned tag to the correct location. I'm giving serious thought to removing the function entirely, but I'll make it a subject of a future discussion first.

Of course, I believe that these Posting Guidelines are reasonable, but it's entirely possible that others may believe they are to restrictive, that they may limit participation in the Forum, that they are unnecessary, or that they are simply unreasonable. That's why we're having this discussion, so I can get a general sense of what you, the members, feel is correct. So here are my questions to you:

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That's my plan, and here are my questions to the Membership:

1. Do we need Posting Guidelines?

2. Do you think that Posting Guidelines improve the readability of the Forum?

3. Are the Guidelines to restrictive?

4. Do you believe that the Posting Guidelines will deter potential contributions?

5. Should contributors be held to minimum writing requirements?

6. Do you believe that we should allow contributions in chat room style?

7. Do you think I should post an Editors Note at the bottom of edited reports?

8. Would you suggest another method of advising members that their reports had to be edited to comply with the Posting Guidelines?

9. How do other forums handle this situation?

Please Click Here if you want to participate in the discussion on these proposed Posting Guidelines.

For those of you who aren't WSG Members but who would like to comment, please email me at Jackson@WSGforum.com.

This discussion will be finalized on December 31th, 2003.

[Raider]

Jackson one suggestion, a spell check feature on the program would do everybody some good .At least it would help getting rid of the silly typos we all make from time to time.

On Deck

[My Secret Life]

I think we can do without the quote function. Re-typing quotes makes you read the original and you cut out the unnecessary stuff if you use ellipsis. Some people seem to think this latter is some kind of sin, which is kind of counter-intuitive when you consider our subject matter.

Colours? I suppose I'm in favour of them, although if you REALLY want your post to stand out I think a better idea is to be, like, interesting.

I say it's inappropriate to mention Shakespeare because he wrote way before the first dictionary was published and there was something against which spelling could be checked. The Oxford English Dictionary lists the first recorded use of words, and a good few of them were given their first airing by Mr. S. You can't compare him to an incoherent poster who just isn't making an effort.

[DeeUncola]

As long as I can use Quote HTML codes I am happy.

[QUOTE]Is sufficient to open a quote and, of course, with the / to close the quote.

I suspect Jackson wants to keep the quote option available; but not make it too easy.

What would be nice is a green color option.

Too many have complained about red being annoying. So I have had to really minimize my use of it. Green would be perfect.

[Eric T]

Jackson,

Could you please enable the quote function for a post so that one can quote a previous post. It used to be an available button where the pm, etc buttons are now. This will save us from copy-pasting a previous post and adding the {quote}{/quote} tags. Thanks!

Eric

[Woody For Asians]

I've been reading this forum since Atta and I disagree with the proposed guidelines. Shakespeare wouldn't be allowed to post on WSG, since he couldn't spell consistently and he was pretty creative with his grammar also.

Complete sentences or sentence fragments; ellipses, dashes, commas, or semicolons - I don't care. Posters should be given room for individuality and style. IMO, The most entertaining and valuable contributors are less than perfect grammarians.

The proposed rules are too restrictive. English is a living language and I want to read what people have to say, in their vernacular. I don't need it in the King's (or Jackson's) English. If the posts are incomprehensible to me, I'll ignore them.

I must admit that I am entertained by Jackson's explanations (apppropriately in blue) about how many hours he toiled correcting someone's spelling and punctuation on a four-line post, and the resultant post still contains basic errors.

I read WSG because I want to know where the ho's are and I enjoy reading about others' experiences in their own words. This website probably is in no danger of being nominated for the Nobel prize in literature so Jackson will be spared that embarrassment.

I appreciate your efforts, Jackson. Just don't make so much work for yourself. Keep it Simple.

Hi,

I appreciate your comments. FYI, I don't check spelling because that would be an impossible task, and I'm not maniacal about fixing every mistake, which is why you will still find them even after I've edited a report.

Thanks,

Jackson

[Greeekman]

The proposed guidelines look good to me as written. I have been on the forum for a number of years now and appreciate the fact that people are expected to write in complete sentences. It is a good policy.

Thanks for all your work.

[Wooly]

I would like to propose the banning of the use of colors for all except the administrator.
The use of repetitive quotations and all other gymnastics should also be eliminated. They are simply ways of attracting attention and showing off.
If someone has something of significance he should state it in the Queen’s English, rather than attacking the eyes of the reader with pyrotechnics without substance.

[DeeUncola]

Originally by Stoly on 11-11-03

That should incite you (and me) to write long, juicy reports that I personally like to be centered on hot latinas with a twist of humor (the report and the latina, possibly).

From my experiences in Northeast strip bars, ¡Olé! to Dominicanas and Brazilianas.

Russian babes are not friendly and most hate the job. They are often pressed into the work by force and so do NOT make for good times.

I have found they do excel in giving good info, though. For a few bucks tip you tell them:

"Look, I know Russian girls are too good for stripping; and that you hate this, so I won't ask for extras; but could you do me the favor of pointing out the slutty Brazilians who will give me sex in the corner?"

The Russians love to look down on latinas and will happily oblige on any information which makes the other women look inferior. Just add,

"Here, you don't even have to flash, just bring the easy latinas to me. Here is few bucks, cause I respect you."

This has led to hand jobs at the bar at strip clubs for me. A Russian gal found a latina who put out for me.

The Russians hate to put out anything. They feel they are superior. A pity since many are blonde, blue-eyed beauties. You can use this to get them to point out the bar sluts. This can save you cash as you won't have to tip lots of girls to get the one who puts out in strip bars. When aiming for strip club sex, try this scientific approach.

A win-win situation for you and the Russian. She gets a few bucks for doing nothing. You get a friend who will be eager when you see her the next time to point out Latina sluts for you. And you get a Latina who puts out without spending too much cash on uptight women before you find the right one.

American strippers who put out are usually drug addicts. I met a 24 year old American beauty in a bar in Paterson in August. She was a perfect 10 in looks. But the glazed look in her glorious hazel eyes bespoke of an OxyContin High. Still she was friendly and offered me a lot for $80. But her bosses intervened before the event went off.

Many Latinas work out of desperation. So they will put out.

But American girls are often driven by hard core addiction and may therefore be more of a hazard.

As always, go in covered!

[DeeUncola]

Ooops! submitted the previous post of mine too early. Pressed the Submit Message button when the Preview Message button was what I wanted to press. I just got a new computer and this is the second time in three days I have made this mistake. Different sized screen, so my aim on the pointer was off.

This should work now.

Originally by My Sectet Life on 11-15-03

I don't recall ever seeing one of Deeuncola's emissions,

Note: This is a perfect time for the ellipsis but until Jackson makes a ruling on ellipsis, I will stick with commas.

And you won't see emissions pics from me! A picture of spunk is too gross to contemplate.

Originally by My Sectet Life on 11-15-03

Note: Another ellipsis moment, but until Jackson renders a final ruling on the use of ellipsis, I will not use them

but a regular member with 206 posts reminds me of that advert:

"I never read the Economist."

- Management Trainee, age 47

Stoly asked the same question earlier. I was going to give an answer to Stoly with my version of events concerning flame wars with some members who I felt were provocative.

So, I wrote an answer to Stoly.

However, since I love HTML codes - the codes which produce quotes, bolds, italics, reds, and size changes - my posts are a horror to edit. About three days ago, I accidentally pressed the Submit Message button, when I meant to use the Preview Message. The result was I probably fired off a mass of incomprehensible coding.

Since Jackson has enough problems dealing with caps and minor errors, I ASKED him to scotch the post of three days ago. Either mail it back to me and I will edit it; or Jackson can scotch it altogether. It was his choice. He obliged and sent me an initial email telling me he would make a decision.

I have yet to get or read Jackson's final reply on whether I should edit; or scotch the previous letter of three days ago.

In the meantime, today, what do I do?!

I screw up and accidentally press Submit Message again, when I meant to press Preview Message.

However, I will not bother Jackson again. This is a far smaller post and I can merely correct it and apologize for the previous error, which you can ignore, if it is even legible, or if it even posted. Jackson may have scotched it, too.

I am usually good with HTML coding, when I am not pressing the Submit Button by mistake.

I you want to see one of my better posts, may I recommend the post of 10-06-03 in the New Jersey -Paterson - North Jersey section. It was an itemized list of Paterson strip clubs listing costs, looks of girls, ethnicity, availability of extra services like sex or BJs, and I used a sleaze scale. Some liked the scale. Others detest it. But on that post, I used HTML coding to achieve a style and ease of read.

Apparently, Paterson and Newark, New Jersey; and Bridgeport, Connecticut strip bars are quasi-brothels, where some girls will give lap dances sans bikini bottoms and riding the post if you get my drift. Therefore, it is appropros to list strip club reports in a Sex Guide here for these cities. These are not your usual strip clubs.

You can also decide on the quality of my reports for yourself; whether you like them or detest them.

Enough like them that I continue to post. The past month has been a dry spell alas. No cash. Though I was at Twins in South Hackensack NJ Jersey in October and posted that See the 10-13-03 post of mine.

Jackson has never complained about my HTML coding, except once to say I should not overuse the size change command; and I should avoid the blue altogether. I immediately stopped the blue; and this is the first time in months I have used the size change command, but here it was appropriate.

That being said, I came to this to check up on the ellipsis rule and coding rules. As you see, I like precision coding and I'm usually passable on it , when I am not pressing the Submit Message button by mistake.

However, Jackson, recently reformatted the whole system here.

The Quote button is gone. It was initially disabled by accident; but since Jackson never restored it, I guess I need a ruling from Jackson on whether he wants HTML quoting to continue. Some of us know how to use the HTML codes and get the quotes option by coding; but Jackson may not prefer it, now, as it is now gone altogether on the button list.

And Jackson may want to rule on the reds, bolds, and italics coding, too. Personally I would like a green option added.

Since the recent crash, I noticed he added a PM option for private emailing. Which is a great idea.

Jackson seems to be aiming for a "more options, but coding free" board, which is understandable as he often had to edit the bad grammar of others, and may be inclined to avoid coding errors.

Though in my case, he could merely send it back to me since when it occurs, it usually an error of pressing the wrong button.

I would re-edit it myself.

However, I am starting to wonder if he is aiming for more of a simple text style to avoid the problem altogether; in which case he can rule on the continued use of HTML code here.

I would be disappointed but lets see what he says.

Personally, I think it is a reading aid. And when done right it really makes a report sing.

Just let me know the final decision on the posting rules concerning these.

Again, sorry for the previous post(s). But once in a while I make typos. The best of us do and I am not the best.

[DeeUncola]

Originally byMy Secret Lifeon11-15-03

I don't recall ever seeing one of Deeuncola's emissions,
[red] [small] ellipsis would be perfect here but until Jackson gives a final ruling, I will use commas.

I got involved in some flame wars. Which I, of course, maintain I was in the right. However, I am very good at HTML codes - the codes which produce quotes, reds. and [/b]bolds[/b].

[Hobo Bob]

I like the guidelines as they are, but think that they need better enforcement. For instance I would like useless posts to be removed. I think Jacksons taste in that regard is king.

I have seen even senior members post pictures of dogs fucking, therer predicitons for baseball games, the size of their cock etc. etc... (note That I too like the [...] style of punctuation. Commas dont work all the time to make the same point.)

I love this site. I'll be just as happy if it never changes!

Hobo Bob

[My Secret Life]

I don't recall ever seeing one of Deeuncola's emissions, but a regular member with 206 posts reminds me of that advert:

"I never read the Economist."

- Management Trainee, age 47

[Joe Zop]

You know, I love ellipsis as well, and have used them on this forum on a number of occasions, and have never had a problem or comment from Jackson on it (possibly because I'm a wordy so-and-so, so leaving something out is a welcome thing. )

But I have seen a lot of folks both here and elsewhere who just use them to use them, as opposed to using them with purpose. Personally, I find that as annoying as excessive caps or chatroom style or e.e. cummings imitations. I believe that's what Jackson is appropriately after -- a posting style that generally conforms to standard accepted standards. It's nothing to be anal over (and I don't see that Jackson's been so) but certainly a reasonable goal.

Jackson, I note your response to Country John below about how email failed to solve the rewriting problem. How about setting up a "quarantine" area, kind of like the Hate Mail or testing area, where unacceptable postings are placed for reworking? If a post doesn't show up, people can look there to see if it's been flagged for a problem, and redo it accordingly.

[Marcos]

Deeuncola, If you love ellipsis like me and few others (among us, people that actually built his own writing style on them), you're better forget about'em as just today I noticed Jackson delayed a post for that only, as he says millions of people are happy with commas and so should we. But i'm sure you can still use them to omit portions of quotes. If not so, I will chain myself on Jackson's gate and let the whole Recoleta know about that.
BTW, there's no limit that I know of, for reports. That should incite you (and me) to write long, juicy reports that I personally like to be centered on hot latinas with a twist of humor (the report and the latina, possibly). I mean, nothing like this senseless stuff on punctuation.

[EDIT] Ok, I see now that you have 205 reports but not senior member status. Should I sense a problem here?