Philosophy Discussion Forums

Hi

I'm afraid I don't know how to allow myself to receive personal messages? Someone has apparently tried to send me one and tried to tell me how to reset this in the user control panel, but I cant do it. They said to go in to messages and click 'yes' but I cant see it.

Also, I would like to know how to post a you tube link in a post. I have read the post about this but I still don't understand. It says CODE: SELECT which means nothing to me. I know how to highlight what is in the bar at the top of the internet page but I'm not sure how to transfer that in to my post here.

Thanks

Lucylu wrote:Hi

I'm afraid I don't know how to allow myself to receive personal messages? Someone has apparently tried to send me one and tried to tell me how to reset this in the user control panel, but I cant do it. They said to go in to messages and click 'yes' but I cant see it.

Thanks

Hi LucyLu, It was corrected, Click User Control Panel, then click Board Preferences, then click yes to users for your pm mail. Misty

Thank you Misty. I found it! I think I have done it now.

Can you enlighten me please. On Aug. 15th I generated a post on the topic "Why do I have to be good and nice?" It has not appeared yet and I suspect there are restrictions for new users. Is there anything else I must do to be able to join these discussions?

Roodigger wrote:Can you enlighten me please. On Aug. 15th I generated a post on the topic "Why do I have to be good and nice?" It has not appeared yet and I suspect there are restrictions for new users. Is there anything else I must do to be able to join these discussions?

The first post in this topic which contains the forum rules has the answer to that question.

Can you tell us why you locked "what is atheism"? Everyone was on topic there.

-- Updated November 1st, 2014, 8:51 pm to add the following --

Ignore the above post. I figured that one out myself.

Good Morning Scott,

About rule G.2, reading all posts on a thread before posting. Some threads are hundreds of posts, many are extremely long and very boring, and usually two or three get into a conversation among themselves. It is inevitable. I, personally think it is redundant to have to read so much before answering the OP, after all that is who poses the questions. Please rethink this rule. Besides how in the world can that be monitored? It is kind of like saying one has to answer the last post in a thread to participate. I do not want to waste my time reading what seems redundant and boring to me.

Misty

Misty wrote:Good Morning Scott,

About rule G.2, reading all posts on a thread before posting. Some threads are hundreds of posts, many are extremely long and very boring, and usually two or three get into a conversation among themselves. It is inevitable. I, personally think it is redundant to have to read so much before answering the OP, after all that is who poses the questions. Please rethink this rule. Besides how in the world can that be monitored? It is kind of like saying one has to answer the last post in a thread to participate. I do not want to waste my time reading what seems redundant and boring to me.

Misty

Misty, I think that with this rule a topic of 1 or 2 pages is ment, of course you are not going to read 100 posts before you post a reply, but what I can recommend is to read the OP, 1 or 2 of the first replies and maybe the last replies before you post, so that you get a general sense of the topic.

Where are recent posts?

Misty wrote:Good Morning Scott,

About rule G.2, reading all posts on a thread before posting. Some threads are hundreds of posts, many are extremely long and very boring, and usually two or three get into a conversation among themselves. It is inevitable. I, personally think it is redundant to have to read so much before answering the OP, after all that is who poses the questions. Please rethink this rule. Besides how in the world can that be monitored? It is kind of like saying one has to answer the last post in a thread to participate. I do not want to waste my time reading what seems redundant and boring to me.

Misty

I think if the OP follows the forum rules and the topic is correctly moderated, it would not get to be hundreds of pages long--at least not without some very valuable writings on the specific subject with which one would need to read to continue the long in-depth discussion of a specific philosophical question.

Scott wrote:

Misty wrote:Good Morning Scott,

About rule G.2, reading all posts on a thread before posting. Some threads are hundreds of posts, many are extremely long and very boring, and usually two or three get into a conversation among themselves. It is inevitable. I, personally think it is redundant to have to read so much before answering the OP, after all that is who poses the questions. Please rethink this rule. Besides how in the world can that be monitored? It is kind of like saying one has to answer the last post in a thread to participate. I do not want to waste my time reading what seems redundant and boring to me.

Misty

I think if the OP follows the forum rules and the topic is correctly moderated, it would not get to be hundreds of pages long--at least not without some very valuable writings on the specific subject with which one would need to read to continue the long in-depth discussion of a specific philosophical question.

I have to say that if a topic is 5 pages and I want to give a simple reply to the OP without having read the topic, I usually don't spend valuable time reading 5 pages for just one reply, however, if a topic has 1, 2 or 3 pages, I tend to first read all the posts before I reply, but in the case of more pages I simply read the OP very well. I think that it would be better to let this rule apply to topics with maybe 1 or 2 pages.

There are over 7 billion people in the world. The point of the forums is not to have up to 7 billion different answers to a question from people who have not been listening to the rest of the discussion. What's even the point of responding then--if we aren't reading what each other writes? Rather, the goal is to have productive philosophical discussions. When the previous posts are not read it is going to lead to the kind of 'going-in-circles' type of pseudo-discussion that causes topics to bloat to ten or pages of stuff that really isn't worth being read. No progress can be made in the discussion if people just keep repeating what has already been said, rebutted, re-rebutted, etc.

What I would suggest is if you see a topic with so many replies, consider creating a new related topic with a better written OP that more clearly states the topic to be discussed.

Scott wrote:There are over 7 billion people in the world. The point of the forums is not to have up to 7 billion different answers to a question from people who have not been listening to the rest of the discussion. What's even the point of responding then--if we aren't reading what each other writes? Rather, the goal is to have productive philosophical discussions. When the previous posts are not read it is going to lead to the kind of 'going-in-circles' type of pseudo-discussion that causes topics to bloat to ten or pages of stuff that really isn't worth being read. No progress can be made in the discussion if people just keep repeating what has already been said, rebutted, re-rebutted, etc.

What I would suggest is if you see a topic with so many replies, consider creating a new related topic with a better written OP that more clearly states the topic to be discussed.

I fully agree with you that people more easily give similar answers when they haven't read all other replies, however, when I find a topic with too many pages, I sometimes reply to one of the last posts which doesn't make it repetitive and can give a good productive post in a topic.

Can anyone me how to edit my posts? I read in FAQ that there is an edit button somewhere but I don't see it.

La gaya Scienza

Lagayscienza wrote:Can anyone me how to edit my posts? I read in FAQ that there is an edit button somewhere but I don't see it.La gaya Scienza

There was an edit button but a few months ago it was taken away- presumably because it caused too much confusion, with people always going back and repeatedly changing what they'd said. However I would like to see the edit button restored in part, at least for a 5-10 minute window after the initial posting, just in case there are any obvious mistakes that need to be changed. Sometimes the 'preview' button doesn't cover all things and a post can appear quite differently than we think, especially if someone else adds a post while we are writing ours. Otherwise I think its a good idea.

I actually wanted to post here today because I still don't know how to post videos, like Youtube clips? I looked it up in the FAQs and found the bit about posting pictures in posts but it doesn't really make sense to me.

Thanks