posted
Hi! I've really been enjoying myself lurking around here the past few weeks, but I have few questions that were not answered in the generic FAQ link. If these are adressed elsewhere, please point me in the right direction.
Is there a spell-checker?
Is there a way to jump directly to the place in a thread where I was last reading, or do I always have to scroll down?
What does "mayfly" mean?
Dobie: I gather this is the term for a thread whose title spoofs another thread's title. The thread itself may or may not be a spoof. Is this an accurate summation? Where did the term come from?
-yes and no. if your word processor has one then yes. There are a couple of online option thingies, but I'm not up to par on that stuff.
Is there a way to jump directly to the place in a thread where I was last reading, or do I always have to scroll down?
-Refresh. I usually open topics in a different window if I am going to be going through them often enough. If you refresh it'll put you right where you were at before.
What does "mayfly" mean?
-It might not be there for long. However, some stay quite a length of time.
Dobie: I gather this is the term for a thread whose title spoofs another thread's title. The thread itself may or may not be a spoof. Is this an accurate summation? Where did the term come from?
-It's a screen name of someone who is not part of this board anymore who used to do this a lot. Your summation of what it is is accurate enough. The titles just can't be that far off. Elsewise it wouldn't be a true Dobie.
Posts: 2208 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:-yes and no. if your word processor has one then yes.
LOL!
Thanks. I could probably add mayfly to this thread? Although I am planning on resurecting it every time I think of more questions . . . :-)
Posts: 364 | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
Additionally, if you open "My profile" and click "my recent posts" you can go directly to your previous comments to catch any responses.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
You might try www.iespell to download a spellchecker onto your tool bar, or download the google toolbar.
If you have cookies enabled, the threads that have new comments should be yellow. Open one and near the top left of the page, right above where it says Hello, Amilia is the jump to new posts. After you've finished reading everything new, either close all your windows, or click on "my profile" and click on "Update New Post Indicators." I have to do that twice for it to actually work. (Does anyone else have a better way to do it?)
And it's not noob. It's n00b. Sheesh people, let's get it right.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote: Additionally, if you open "My profile" and click "my recent posts" you can go directly to your previous comments to catch any responses.
You don't even have to make it that difficult.
If you click on the word "posts" at the bottom of anyone's post (like Kayla's above says "Posts: 9669" - then it will take you to their most recent posts.
posted
Here's a stupide question that I'd like answered as well: why the * after so? As in "So*, I want to do this?"
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Thanks for the welcome and all the great advice, everybody. It looks like I am going to have to start posting more in order to mark my place. :-)
Posts: 364 | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:I could probably add mayfly to this thread? Although I am planning on resurecting it every time I think of more questions . . . :-)
Not really. Ostensibly, a mayfly is a thread that the person who started it intends to delete soon. It's not that they intend for the thread to be active for a short time; rather, they intend for the thread to only exist for a short time. Even if this thread slips off the first page today and nobody posts in it again for a month, it's still not a mayfly; it still exists, and is still available for more posts.
In practice, of course, many threads that get labeled "mayfly" never get deleted. A thread that does not get deleted is not a true mayfly, but that doesn't stop people from labelling their threads as such.
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote: Here's a stupide question that I'd like answered as well: why the * after so? As in "So*, I want to do this?"
Because it was incredibly common for a while for people to start threads like "So I've been thinking..." or "So what is it about..." or "So, how about them Dodgers?" And people noticed, and (in a nutshell) started including an asterisk basically to indicate that they were aware of their participation in this "tradition." (The first asterisk, IIRC, actually linked to a footnote that said something like "so what's with all the posts with "so" in them, anyway?" But it didn't take long before people started leaving off the footnotes altogether.)
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I think mayfly has more to do with intent than what actually happens. You create a mayfly, intending for it only to be around maybe an hour, and then it sticks around, because it becomes useful or fun or something. Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
The thing about the dobie: that's interesting. I never realized it was something that's original to Hatrack. I wonder if it's spread to any other unrelated forums?
Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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(The first asterisk, IIRC, actually linked to a footnote that said something like "so what's with all the posts with "so" in them, anyway?" But it didn't take long before people started leaving off the footnotes altogether.)
