aysiu
July 27th, 2007, 07:39 PM
Sometimes I see people posting the same exact post in several different subforums.
Although this isn't explicitly stated in the forum rules, I think it's basic forum etiquette to not crosspost, so I'm just going to say it here. I'm speaking as a member of the staff, but I am not speaking on behalf of all staff.
Basically, I'm against cross-posting for the following reasons:
1. It's a form of parasitism. In other words, if we have a decent standard of behavior, everyone should be able to do the action in question without it having a negative impact on the forums. If a handful of people do it, they can get away with it at the expense of the community (Pay attention to my problems! My problems are saturating all the subforums! Pay attention to me!) But if everyone cross-posted three or four times, the volume of threads on the forums would increase three-fold, the forums would be extra cluttered, and anyone clicking on Find New Posts would just find what looks a lot like spam.
2. It dilutes or makes redundant the help given. Oftentimes, the people helping the OP have no idea what has already been proposed as a solution in the other thread for the same problem, so advice gets repeated. The handful of people who are kind-hearted enough to offer help to the OP are spreading their forces thin instead of combining their efforts in one place to solve the one problem.
3. The OP loses focus. If the OP starts three or four threads on the same topic in various forums, she may never get a sense of what the problem really is--only that one exists. If, however, she posts one thread in the wrong place and it gets moved to the right place (say, from Desktop Environments to Networking & Wireless), she'll know the new location is most relevant to her problem ("Oh, I guess it's a networking problem").
4. More extraneous posts. Apart from the "Please help me in this other thread!" annoying posts, if the thread ever does get solved, someone would have to mark all three or four threads as resolved, instead of just one thread. Or if some future Google searcher stumbles upon the wrong duplicate thread, she won't find the solution there (even though it was solved for that OP... just in a different thread).
So if I delete your extraneous cross-posting, this is why I do it. This is a forum for the whole community, not just for you. And I believe, ultimately, not cross-posting will be to your benefit as well, as an OP. If you have a particular problem, pick one subforum and post in that subforum. If you're in the wrong subforum, someone will report the post, and it will be moved to the appropriate place. If no one answers after 24 hours, you can bump the thread to get more attention.
Although this isn't explicitly stated in the forum rules, I think it's basic forum etiquette to not crosspost, so I'm just going to say it here. I'm speaking as a member of the staff, but I am not speaking on behalf of all staff.
Basically, I'm against cross-posting for the following reasons:
1. It's a form of parasitism. In other words, if we have a decent standard of behavior, everyone should be able to do the action in question without it having a negative impact on the forums. If a handful of people do it, they can get away with it at the expense of the community (Pay attention to my problems! My problems are saturating all the subforums! Pay attention to me!) But if everyone cross-posted three or four times, the volume of threads on the forums would increase three-fold, the forums would be extra cluttered, and anyone clicking on Find New Posts would just find what looks a lot like spam.
2. It dilutes or makes redundant the help given. Oftentimes, the people helping the OP have no idea what has already been proposed as a solution in the other thread for the same problem, so advice gets repeated. The handful of people who are kind-hearted enough to offer help to the OP are spreading their forces thin instead of combining their efforts in one place to solve the one problem.
3. The OP loses focus. If the OP starts three or four threads on the same topic in various forums, she may never get a sense of what the problem really is--only that one exists. If, however, she posts one thread in the wrong place and it gets moved to the right place (say, from Desktop Environments to Networking & Wireless), she'll know the new location is most relevant to her problem ("Oh, I guess it's a networking problem").
4. More extraneous posts. Apart from the "Please help me in this other thread!" annoying posts, if the thread ever does get solved, someone would have to mark all three or four threads as resolved, instead of just one thread. Or if some future Google searcher stumbles upon the wrong duplicate thread, she won't find the solution there (even though it was solved for that OP... just in a different thread).
So if I delete your extraneous cross-posting, this is why I do it. This is a forum for the whole community, not just for you. And I believe, ultimately, not cross-posting will be to your benefit as well, as an OP. If you have a particular problem, pick one subforum and post in that subforum. If you're in the wrong subforum, someone will report the post, and it will be moved to the appropriate place. If no one answers after 24 hours, you can bump the thread to get more attention.