PLEASE clean up your messages

[Peter van Es]

Dear all,

yet another boring request from your system administrator, related to the move of forum software.

Frequently people leave messages with misshapen quote or image tags... you know, one of these words in square brackets (called BB-code, see http://www.sl113.org/forums/faq.asp#format), where the other one is missing or misshapen. That leads to quotes that aren't, images that do not work, or downloads that are not there.

I'm sorry, but I can't insert an example in here. However, if you see square brackets [ and ], it's likely to be incorrect.


In order to convert our database of messages to the new forum, I've produced a software program that reads the entire message database, and translates the messages to the new layout.

The problem is that these missing tags really mess up that conversion process. I have been spending a bit of time cleaning up after people's posts. However, if you re-read what you've posted, you can clean it up yourself. If you can see any tag in square brackets then something is wrong which you need to fix. Please try and fix it using the edit button above your own post (the message with the pencil). Balance the tags, or fix the wrong one, or remove the offending one.

So please can you make a habit of checking and cleaning-up your messages?

Moderators, could I ask you to fix problems like this that you see on the board?

Thanks for your cooperation.

Peter

1970 280SL. Also known as admin@sl113.org and organiser of the Technical Manual.

[rwmastel]

Peter,
On the home page of the Forums, it says, "804 of 1199 Members have made 40,991 posts in 13 forums."  I don't think we'll get through them all.

[Peter van Es]

I know. It's just for messages as you happen to see them when reading new posts on the forum. Every message that gets fixed is not one of the 60,000 messages (including archived ones) that I need to fix afterwards...

Peter

[psmith]

I hope will use the "Reply to Topic" instead of "Reply with Quote" when they don't really need a quote.  It will keep the topics smaller (particularly when there are embedded images)