Mongo

Uh Doc? She knows about it. The roster has been shared. It was shared long before we got married; and I am still married, with a kid now. The word of the day is 'unconditional', and it goes both ways.

Speedtoys

For those of us with bad eyes, I have no problems with Make Your Thread Tities Useful.

Mongo

Titles on the first page appear to be useful to me. I see no problems here.

A rather non-issue at the moment and a first world problem in the RL world.

dr bob

Users are always encouraged to invest in a full membership if they are gathering more than token value from the forums. For most new owners, particularly those who buy a car that's less than perfect, the investment in full membership is trivial compared with the value received from the site. Full membership has some perks. Besides browsing without all the op-up ads and a slew of other benefits, full membership gains you access to the 'Off Topic' forum, a den of folks who have a need to share subject matter not necessarily related to the cars. Politics, religion, and all those other subjects not always suitable for the holiday dinner table are open discussion subjects there. There are some limits placed on sbject and content, and users are warned in advance that there are subjects that fall under the "not suitable for work" category.

Imo000

Should the author of the info used by the paying members receive financial reimbursement for creating it in the first place?

Eyegore

Dr Bob,

I am guilty of not posting clear thread titles and will do better in the future. Thanks for the reminder!

Mike

Ed Scherer

I generally will fix my own old posts (broken hotlinks, broken photos, recommendation to see a newer post with updated or better information, etc.) when I find them, but due to an IMHO crappy policy (but not quite as bad as it was for a while), I can no longer do that for posts over a certain age: half a year, I think; I noted it when the damn policy was put back into effect sometime in November, 2012.

I fought the battle back in 2012 (see the thread New Policy - Can't Edit Posts After a Few Hours?), but the fact that this crappy policy is still in effect all but guarantees that Rennlist content will continue to decay over time.

Upon re-reading some of that thread, I can see that much of what I predicted continues: decay of content since we can't fix broken or out-of-date content we discover in our own old posts.


It's worth noting that I rarely provide any "substantial threads for future use" any more, as I know that they just can't be maintained properly. Past examples like
Powder coating intake/cam covers/etc. best practices (for the zillionth time!), Gauging interest in LED bulb shootout write-up, PWM dimmer for instrument backlighting after upgrading to LEDs, as well as individual posts like My recommendations for exterior LED bulbs on '90 S4 (should mostly apply to '87+) can no longer be maintained (at least by me ). And then there are the less important, but rather substantial threads like
Vacation 2008, photos and such (National Parks, etc.) that I sure hope will hold up over time, as I can no longer fix anything (particularly links to other websites) that might need attention.

I suppose it's technically possible for the forum software to examine posted content for links to photos (and maybe even videos) and move the content to a Rennlist server and modify the links accordingly. That would at least assure preservation of that content. Maintenance of plain old links to other sites, though, isn't so easy.

AO

I was making a point... and it was meant to be in jest. Thanks bob for translating "Andrew" for the masses!

MainePorsche

+1

dr bob

How's that for a title??

AO -- I was reinforcing the point you were making, and I took it as a well-timed good-natured poke in fun. I have pretty thick skin, as I'm sure you do too after all you've contributed and defended over the years. And didn't you at one time have a sig line tat had your name in it? Do I nee to only refer to you by your nom d'plume?


All-- Consider please that I was scrolling down through the list of thread titles that particular day, and happened to notice that a measurable percentage of them had titles that gave absolutely no clue to what was inside. So my target audience is that small but that day measurable percentage of thread-starters who forget to include their thread subject in the thread title.

Note also that I very seldom initiate threads on things here on RL. Maybe I'm really just one of those 'two-flute thread chasers' that somebody was asking about. I do sometimes need help cleaning up my threads. Internally.

-----

From foggy memory, the limit on editing long-ago posts started when a disgruntled user went back through and deleted everything he'd ever posted here. I don't remember if it was about ownership of the information or what, but it got folks' attention at the time. The dust has settled, and everybody here has careully read and understands the terms and conditions of participation, with the knowledge that everything you post her immediately becomes the shared property of IB. Not so they can sell it, but because they need to back up their servers regularly to maintain the fabulous availability we all enjoy. Perhaps there's some relief available for editing and maintaining links and content in old threads, but it won't probably happen while it's possible to replace everything in an old post with dashes or spaces. (I am not an attorney or a moderator or involved with IB as anything but a grateful user, etc)

Ed Scherer

But if you did, the appropriate title would obviously be "Things", which might very well be in violation of the spirit of your original post in this thread.

Imo000

Disgruntled user?!?!? It was STERLING that caused this from throwing a huge hissy fit and deleting a crap load of old lost and pictures. However, it shows you that RL actually values the free content that all of us give to RL.

Jadz928

This thread is useless without titles.

Wisconsin Joe

Ya mean like "This cannot be right !"? Actual thread title, right now down a couple places.

When I'm bored, those can be kind of fun. As in "guess what this one's about."

MainePorsche

Does make a quiet Search on an issue a little more cumbersome though.