We’ve redone the working Forum rules and suggestions as per a commitment made at our recent Flu Wiki summit. You’ll find them here, and in the Discussion Forum sidebar to the left.
They are designed to promote the free flow of information and explain how things work. To that end an FAQ about topics like sidescroll and profiles will be added to the page in the next few days.
Forum rules and suggestions:
1. The forum is for friendly discussion and argument or thoughtful analysis. Be friendly. Follow the same standard of courtesy you would when talking to your neighbours, friends or co-workers.
2. This is a nonpartisan site. Political arguments should be restricted to how it affects flu policy.
3. We have a significant - and growing - number of international participants. Please try to be inclusive in your discussions.
4. Be nice to newbies. Questions that are answered somewhere else are best addressed by referring them to the appropriate pages - politely.
5. Not every poster can figure out wiki text markup (it’s not the usual HTML blog posting). Help each other out.
6. Please add news stories (with links) to the news threads. Rumors and speculations should be put elsewhere and labeled as such.
7. Links are best displayed using either the [[ put url here | put link description here ]] markup or the tinyurl www.tinyurl.com service. Long links cause the page to expand (‘side scroll’) and the mods will have to waste time fixing them, so pay attention when posting links.
8. News stories should not be reproduced in full. It is a violation of copyright and fair use rules, particularly when not accompanied by analysis. Post just a portion, and provide a link. No link, no credibility.
9. Observe and follow Fair Use doctrine.
10. Personal attacks are unwelcome and will be addressed by the moderators when appropriate.
11. Participants may be banned on rare occasion for rules violation and general disruptiveness. Warnings may or may not be given prior to banning. Moderators have final say, and reasons for banning may be revealed from time to time if it is in the interest of the forum to do so. This decision is part of the role of the mods and is not subject to community vote.
12. We strongly discourage extensive discussions of Religion, Guns, or Politics. They tend to be divisive and are usually not sufficiently related to the main objective, constructive discussion about influenza and its consequences. If you have a strong need to discuss these issues, please avail yourself of the vast choices available on many other blogs.
Note that this principle is not limited to the above. It applies to any topic that proves divisive to the community. See Meta-topics for discussion threads on ‘free speech’, ‘the role of the mods’ and related points.
13. Flu Wiki is non-commercial and does not support commercial sites. Links are welcome only when they convey news, and are subject to moderators’ judgement.
Also included are some points about the mods:
About the moderators:
1. Moderators are volunteers. They have day jobs and they are human. Be nice to them.
2. Moderators help the forum run smoothly. They also help everyone stay on topic.
3. Mods close threads for many reasons, including (but not restricted to) threads that are old, too long, have exhausted their discussion value, or where inappropriate behaviours are not corrected.
4. If you ask a question and a mod provides a link, it means he/she is trying to help you by suggesting related reading. We don’t always have time to write a long explanation. It usually is not meant to imply ‘you should have looked’.
5. Mods may also contribute to discussions. Each moderator is only responsible for his/her point of view. There is no collective editorial policy or viewpoint, and there are no hierarchies. That is, no one’s opinion is worth more or less than anyone else’s.
Questions seem to come from time to time about all of the above. Hopefully, this will help explain what we are about. In the end, the Forum works as well as the Forum posters will let it. This isn’t about the mods, it’s about you. Thanks for making us what we are… the premiere Forum on the internet about H5N1, bird flu, and pandemic flu and its potential consequences.
I read, signed, and filed. Well written.
bump
Sounds good to me, I’m a lover not a fighter.
Can we add one more Melanie… Please keep the chit chat to a minimum on the Daily News Threads. Make your post relevant.
Lurker,
Please re-read the rules.
Lurker,
well, there’s always a trade-off between efficiency and spontaneity. Sometimes if it is just one or two remarks, then it’s messier to start a thread just for that.
That said, I agree generally. Just don’t think we need to make it into a hard rule. People can exercise some common sense.
:-)
It is a good idea, when possible, to try and stay on topic.
All of us try.
None of us succeed. ;-)
Re rule number 7: tinyurls are not a good thing in my opinion, because you must click on the thing to see where the page is (is it an official source, a tabloid, something else?), and also because it makes fluwikie dependant on an external service (how do we reach places if tinyurl doesn’t work?). Also, tinyurls are more work than [[url|text]] markup.
We could have a “helping newcomers” thread. All sorts of questions here: how to use markup, how to add to the wikiproper, etc. Well, not “all sorts of questions”: they would be site(s) related. Maybe call the thread(s): “helping fluwiki users”, with a big sign on top saying “ask for help to move around, find things, add postings, add to wiki pages”. In time, also a “fluwikie users’ frequently asked questions”. Maybe.
There will be an FAQ page. Plus there is the How To section on the side bar with the Wiki Sandbox.
But you are right about tinyurl. We just want to give people a few more options if they run into difficulties.
In an ideal world, all posters would know PmWiki markup :-)
The markup is like the tiny url, isn’t it? You only know where it’s from if the poster tells you.
Jane,
A link made in the PmWiki markup means that you can mouseover the link and your browser will display the source in bottom frame of your browser without having to click on it.
Jane, try this.
Thanks, Melanie and Dem, that’s so cool!
I’m going to dare to add my 2 cents……..I know that none of you have said that we HAVE to do this or that as far as using the tools on the site, but one thing you might want to keep in mind is that most ‘newcomers’ are not interested in learning how to do ‘markup’.
I’ve been here a few weeks and could still care less about it. The less homework this site makes me do the better…I’m trying to read, read, read, ask questions, read, read. The point being I’m doing a LOT more reading than posting so if I do a post that you would think requires markup to be correct, it is only a very minute part of my total posts, and still much smaller than all the reading I’m doing, to learn what I AM interested in here, and therefore it’s at the bottom of the list of things to do before or during a post.
By necessity I had to figure out the tinurl thing and I like it — pretty neat. I can understand that it means being dependent on someone else to provide the service and we’re all about being INdependent, but it’s still cool and more importantly — EASY.
The richness of the conversations here have a lot to do with the fact that we don’t feel like we have to have a class on sandbox or markup in order to participate. Most of us new guys start out being intimidated by the rest of you anyway, and timid about posting at first, and when someone hits us with a “don’t do this” or “go here to figure out how to do this right”, no matter how appropriate for you to do, it is a put-off….makes me want to give up and go elsewhere.
It’s just the nature of the beast for some of us….the more hurdles we face in reaching our goal, the less likely we are to stay. It may be simple to learn something that would help you with saving bandwidth or whatever you’re wanting to do, but if it’s not what I’m interested in, and I don’t HAVE to learn it, I’ll be inclined to skip it, because it really holds no value to me like it does to you since you know all the inner workings of this site and I don’t.
I know, I can hear you now, ‘but if you’d just try it, it’s so easy…’ and I’m sure that’s true, but I feel more like I’ve got other things to do, and so I visit here to read what I want, say a few things and leave again. If I’m bored one day, on an impulse, I might learn markup. But my mentality here as a newbie is to have the flexibility to read, question, search and find (which is still hard for me sometimes) and do it as quickly as I can. If I have to go learn something before I can do my reading, posting and printing, I’m less likely to do any of it. I don’t understand most of what you guys do to make this beast of a site run, but you’re very good at it and seem to always be on top of every aspect of it and for that I’m very, very grateful…….Maybe my comments will help a little in looking at things from a ‘new’ point of view, for what it’s worth.
I’m-workin’-on-it – at 22:05
Most appreciated, and you’re right… you don’t have to do any of it. But when you’re ready, just whistle. ;−0
I’m-workin’
One of the great things about the wiki is that you don’t have to do anything alone! Just ask and help comes flooding in.
hahahaha
you people are great!
Just tried tinyurl. Neat. Very odd. Never expires?
No but if their site is down, the links are dead ends. And as lugon explains, you can’t quick-glance to see where it leads.
Thanks Dem.
For those who want to look before you leap I found this.
Just cut and paste the tinyurl and it will tell you the actual url. Then you can decide if you want to go there.
I tried it and it seemed to work.
Duh.
Just read the fine print on my link and it informs that tinyurl now has it’s own look-up service that works automatically if you eat their cookies.
It’s here
Bump - so that ‘Closed BroncoBill’ won’t own the ‘Last 50′ list
bump
bump
bump for visibility
BTTT
Closed to maintain Forum speed.