Those threads that mess up the screen.
 

So does this annoy others as much as it does me?
Having to scroll across the page just to read a post, and scroll even more to answer it?

There is an easy solution.

If everyone would just bookmark the site www.tinyurl.com

When you want to post a long link or web address, just go to tinyurl, paste the long url into the space and click "create a tiny url", then copy and paste that new tiny one into your post.

We could eliminate these too wide posts if we'd all consider that.

I'm not sure how people are to know about this, but I found out about quite by accident. Hopefully this post will make a few more people aware of it.

Of course a few others may scorn me and say "who made you boss?" as there are clearly some who don't like help and resent any efforts to make the site work better.

I respect your campaigning about this, even though it doesn't upset me, and I think you have poor propsects for getting much chance. Few "transgressors" are repeat offenders, and people who commit that "first offnse" don't see it coming and have no notivation nor incentive to tink ahead to a workaround.

tinyurl.com is only one way. A lot of people come up with others.

The whole point of trying to get people to do things a better way (your perception, and mine, on other matters) is that the higher the "frustration quotient", th greater the probabiliy a newbiew (or even a not-so-newbie) will throw up their hands and say "I give on this website and never come back".

And we need the maximum possible influx of newbies all the time.

Still not nearly bad as message headers like "HELP!!! or "NEED ADVICE"

In my opinion.

Best wishes,

Rex

I agree that your motives are good, Neopolitan. But, as I just said on the US board, that's not what's causing the problem today. People also need to be aware of not posting sentences with no spaces between words.

The no-spaces-between-words problem could be solved by a trivial change to the script that runs the board. It already breaks titles at spaces, so it would be dead simple to modify it to break them at periods, commas, slashes, dashes, or anything else people regularly use in titles. This is not rocket science, people - it's good board management.

The "long link" problem could be solved simply by automatically adding this string

<a href="

before every URL, and this

&quot;&gt;<u>this link</u>&lt;/a&gt;

after them.

It would also be dead simple to modify the search script to <i>only</i> search headers if the user requests it. But no one seems interested.

Wow. Rex, I can't imagine that having to scroll back and forth across 50 messages to read them, or having to scroll back and forth to type a response DOESN'T bother you, when it is something that is totally impossible to avoid. Yet you are upset about someone typing a title that says &quot;help&quot; when if it does bother you all you have to do is ignore it. This problem can't be ignored. Your other one can.

Well, I guess we all haven't different things that bother us.

Meanwhile I'd disagree that this problem is caused by new posters or simply other problems. I will readily admit that I caused the problem myself by pasting url's that were too long, when I didn't know any way to avoid them. That's why I offer this to those who might not know about it. I think a lot of people aren't aware there is a way to avoid it, or even aware why suddenly the entire left column is all messed up.

Neopolitan, And here I thought you were a &quot;the glass is 1/2 full&quot; kind of guy -LOL!

Just kidding because it drives me nuts too.

BTW congratulations on your anniversary and upcoming birthdays!

There is absolutely no reason to expect the users of an internet chat board to format their posts in such a way that the mechanics of the board aren't compromised.

<b><i>It is the responsibility of the board's software to prevent user mistakes from screwing things up.</i></b>

I learned user interface design from the Buildings &amp; Grounds Maintenance crew at the University of Kansas. Let me explain:

When a new building was erected on campus, they would lay sod all around it - and no sidewalks - and leave it that way for an academic year. The following summer, they would lay concrete <i>where the students wore down the grass</i>. Installing sidewalks in some arbitrary directions would have been folly, because if the users didn't want to go that way, they wouldn't. The result of this is that KU's campus is the most pristine you are ever likely to see - and not a single Keep Off The Grass sign in sight. The users wouldn't dream of walking on the grass, because their natural routes are covered in concrete.

In the computer domain, this philosophy was encapsulated by the the first person to describe hypertext links, the great Theodore H. Nelson, when he said &quot;If the button isn't shaped like the thought, the thought will be shaped like the button.&quot;

It's a shame the editors spent so much time and energy making URLs into hot links without asking anyone if they thought it should be done that way.

ok I am kind if a newbie and I really hate having to scroll across to read the post.

But I have tried to follow your instructions Neopolitan and can not seem to get anywhere with tinyurl.

Thanks for being patient with us dummy newbies - I really want to fix this!
Barbara

I can appreciate what you are trying to accomplish, but this is the 3rd time you have posted this &quot;tip&quot;. If you click on your underlined name you will see all your posts, including the other 2 posted on April 2 on both the US and the Europe boards. There are some responses there you might want to check out.

I no longer will follow a tinyurl link because you have no idea where it is taking you. At least with a conventional url, you can see where you are going, in case you don't want to go there.

Its fairly common on usenet that some coarse lots will respond to a posting by posting a tinyurl that will take you to a disgusting site; they think its amusing.

If you respond to such barbarians' efforts by modifying your surfing behavior, they have accomplished their purpose.

Your best defense is to shrug and say, <i>tant pix pour eux</i>.

Am I missing something? When a user posts a weblink that's very long (and yes, I have done this myself too), I don't have to scroll anywhere to read the post because the long clickable link just wraps round onto 2 or more lines.

I can't post on the one above about your favorite place yet others could?

I couldn't either.

The threads with the long URLs that make the screen wider don't bother me to read that much. I don't like the tiny URL thing, actually, I'd rather see the name of the real URL so I know what it is. Also, if you ever want to save a thread or print it, you can see what the URL is rather than some cryptic tiny URL. That company may go out of business and it would all be gone, also, but even if you aren't afraid of that, I'd still just rather see the real thing so I know what it is.

It doesn't happen that often, and even when it does, it isn't that big a deal to move the arrow back and forth on a post here and there.

I agree that this is the board's problem, other boards don't do this. So, I think you might consider that other people have different opinions than you, and what you personally think is making the board better, is not desirable or seen that way by some. In other words, it's just your opinion, not a fact, that everybody posting pseudonymous tinyurls would be a board improvement.

If you want to preserve a URL, you go to the site by whatever means (such as a tinyurl) and click Ctrl-D. This will bookmark it.

Permitting long URLs to force horizontal scrolling is a design deficiency that should be corrected.

This may be a case where the cure is worse than the illness. Like clevelandbrown, I've gotten so I very seldon will click on a tinyurl. I like seeingthe actual url before I go there . . . .

Robespierre, I completely agree that it is a design flaw that should be fixed, but I thought it might be nice if more people did what many others do to make it work for us in the meantime. As a techn dummie myself (as I think you are aware from helping me in other posts) I was totally unaware of this quick fix myself until very recently, but have used it quite a few times since and have therefore avoided quite a few of those too long posts.

Grantop, I assume that thing about checking my April 2 posts wasn't addressed to me. If you looked at the one from the Europe board, then you noticed I had posted the last response to it summing things up there. And the only couple of replies to the one from the US board were to thank me for the help. Or did you just want to make sure I saw the thank yous?

Meanwhile it is interesting that when I post this simple suggestion on the US board I tend to get thanks, but when I post it on the Europe board it draws lots of comments about why it is waste of time to suggest it, why it shouldn't be done, and various other concerns, as well as thanks. The difference between those two boards' responses must mean something -- I'm just not sure what it is.

it's not Neopolitan, look how long it took to find where to post on that old thre that someone brought up, where in europe is your favorite place, Not sure why it's so wide, whe St cirq's url was not in the title, or am I mistaken that it can be in the body?

Hi Neo, yes the idea of checking the April 2nd posts was addressed to you; I wasn't sure why you had posted the topic a third time and wondered if maybe you couldn't find the first ones that you posted? I wasn't sure if you knew how to find them and didn't want to you think they had disappeared!

Okay - how about this:

Fodor's fixes the script so that the part that's visible includes the domain name, but the rest of it is invisible? Like

<font color="BLUE"><u>http://www.someserver.com/thisorthat/whatever/somestuff</u></font>

is rendered as

<font color="BLUE"><u>http://www.someserver.com</u></font>

and the rest isn't shown? You can't tell from the document name what the content is going to look like anyway.

No. I posted them again, since the additional comments on the originals weren't really necessary to a new post, and the problem had been rearing up its &quot;ugly head&quot; a lot again in the past two days.

I also reworded the new posting to hopefully make it a little easier for other &quot;techno dummies&quot; like me to understand how to use tinyurl. Unfortunately according to Barbara's post, it still isn't clear enough.

Actually Neopolitan I think you have made it clear. I just did not understand but I think I am getting it. It has to be done by the first poster - right?

For example the way this thread appears and even the reply box is much easier to use than other threads I have seen. What is the difference? You can see I am a newbie!

From other comments I don't think I like tinyurl either.

My question would be is there any way to view a thread that is already too wide in a narrower format? Does that question even make sense?
Thanks
Barbara

Once someone has posted a url that is too long or a long phrase with no spaces, then I don't think anyone else (except some helpful editor (hint) can change it.
One that it too long in the title will mess up all the postings in the left hand column listing.

But when you come to an individual thread, like this one, if it didn't contain a url that was too long, it will still be fine.

Now about your last question, sorry, but no it doesn't make sense to me. I'm just not sure what you're asking there.

Thanks I am beginning to understand and find the topic very interesting.

Just trying something to see if it works...

&lt;a href=&quot;http://fodors.com/forums/?lid=Forums...nav&quot;&gt;I Want Fodor's!&lt;/a&gt;

http://fodors.com/forums/?lid=Forums&amp;lpos=top_nav

Two URLs for the same place. I'm going to post to see what I have. No one needs to pay any attention!

Nope... didn't work. Sorry for taking up the space!

I don't understand any of this, but I really like the U of Kansas story.

Is there a better site than &quot;tinyurl&quot; that does the same thing? I tired tinyurl, but found it unrealiable. There were quite a few times when the link wouldn't open for hours.

tried
unreliable
(Bad typist, but I really can spell.)

makeashorterlink.com has a similar function to tinyurl.

Does anyone want to help me lobby Fodor's to modify their script to collapse all URLs into the domain name only? And fix the long title problem while they're at it?

confusing thread?