Should canned posts be allowed?

Maybe only mods should be able to reply to welcome threads?

HitShane said:

Maybe only mods should be able to reply to welcome threads?

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Expanding on this a little bit... why not an automated response?

An automatic welcome to anyone who posts a thread in the welcome section.

Yes it would be canned, and yes it would point to things already on the forum (search & stickies) but it would be better than nothing.

It also wouldn't be shameless advertising.

awillis2589 said:

All posted in this tread from me pertain to this poll/thread.

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It's always fun to watch someone try to backtrack on a public statement
You do realize that all of the posts are open to the public, right?

You said this:

awillis2589 said:

because this is the static jerry used. even though we all know 90% of these people are no longer active members.

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To which "people" were you referring when you said "these people"?
You appeared to be responding to Jerry's use of the >18K members

So which is it? --
90% of the >18K members at large
or
90% of the 31 members who have voted in this poll?

If all you were referring to was the people in this thread, then by your own definition 100% of the people responding in this poll have been "active" since the first of the year

Peace,
dave

**EDIT** --

awillis2589 said:

It also wouldn't be shameless advertising.

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That is an interesting statement, coming from a member who has an ARGLPM banner in his signature
What do you consider "shameless advertising"?

InfinitusEquitas said:

Expanding on this a little bit... why not an automated response?

An automatic welcome to anyone who posts a thread in the welcome section.

Yes it would be canned, and yes it would point to things already on the forum (search & stickies) but it would be better than nothing.

Click to expand...

If I got an automated response to my welcome I would not feel very welcome. But, to keep everything fair, a welcome post should not be answered with a sales pitch. I think a mod's reply should be sufficient and personalized to the new member. Plus, the mod can copy/paste the sticky threads into the welcome thread reply...
-Shane

HitShane said:

If I got an automated response to my welcome I would not feel very welcome. But, to keep everything fair, a welcome post should not be answered with a sales pitch. I think a mod's reply should be sufficient and personalized to the new member. Plus, the mod can copy/paste the sticky threads into the welcome thread reply...
-Shane

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Isn't a canned response - identical from one to the next, basically also automated, without regard to whether it is done by a person or a script?

I'm suggesting an automatic reply post from the forum... similar to what LB was doing, but without the advertising.

While it would be great if mods could welcome each person individually, I think it would be kind of a large burden on them.

I've seen this "auto welcome" at plenty of forums, and in reply to registering to just about any website where I registered.

daguin said:

That is an interesting statement, coming from a member who has an ARGLPM banner in his signature
What do you consider "shameless advertising"?

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He is endorsing a product of his own free will, and afaik for no benefit to himself.

There are many members who share links, and banners to products they think people will like... myself included.

Shameless advertising would be plugging your own product, or link to your products, into every post that you make, in addition to those you have listed in signature.

Or using referral links without revealing that you do in fact benefit from them, thereby no longer being a neutral party.

We have plenty to do already

Peace,
dave

^^

^^^ Most of the above replies .. looks to me, IMO to be a no brainer.. posted links are nothing if they don 't get read..

Far too many fail to fill in their profile page which(as many know) is one of my pet peeves.
Their reason may often be that they just don't know(yet) why we need to know that or why just posting that they are from 'where ever' is not at all the same as having it in your profile and thus under the user name in EVERY post.

I am totally in favor of the members of this forum only posting THIS in any newcomers threads....
'We will be VERY happy to help and greet you BUT not until you please finish filling out your personal profile page-- PERIOD"

As being over or under 18 yrs old is SO VERY important , that too needs to be addressed.

Lastly is honesty.. New members need to know that if at ANY time they are not being completely honest they will be banned without exception. Any false info will be eventually discovered. When they do fill out the profile we have a chance to see then if they are indeed residing where they claim by looking at the IP.


I ask members wanting items from me,deemed to be dangerous to take a pic of themselves and of the photo ID- I tell them they may put tape over any info not needed-but I need to see their face ,age and city/country. I ask for a good phone number and the area code needs to match up. Of course there can be some reasons why the cities do not match with the IP as some may be students and not living at home year round. But that is no reason to give up from either end.

I also feel that if any member finds that they have been given false info, that this need to be brought to the attention of the Mods and admin. All info put into a profile needs to be saved , as once false info has been discovered we need to verify all the rest placed into the profile before it can be corrected/deleted. if it was a simple typo error there should be no more than one typo. If the new member is not being honest with us after an error is found --we do not need them here.

Some may see my ideas as a things than will more more work for our mods..

I do not agree-
in the long run knowing a member is being up-front can save a lot of work later down the road, not to mention the other bad ramifications that may follow. Remember..
if you are part of a laser becoming the property of a minor and somebody gets harmed by that laser you will NOT be dealing with the minor child but with his/her PARENT(s) and a lawsuit-minded lawyer and the lawyer of the injured party.

hakzaw1 said:

When they do fill out the profile we have a chance to see then if they are indeed residing where they claim by looking at the IP.

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This part is not entirely true although many people think it's the case. DNS names sometimes have a city, state, or country name listed as part of the name but many times do not. In those cases a WHOIS search will return a physical address of a billing or technical contact for the company that owns the DNS name.

These addresses could by many states or even counties away from the end user that may be connected to the internet on one of the IP addresses.

All in all IP addresses can be a useful tool but don't always tell the entire story.

As IE said the banner I'm posting on my own free will and I have nothing to gain from it, and maybe if you hit the link you will notice it takes you to the openLPM project and not a store front or anything like that. As you may not know but I designed this banner also just did one for Mohgasm.com and am planning on possible offering it as a service to other members.

awillis2589 said:

As IE said the banner I'm posting on my own free will and I have nothing to gain from it, and maybe if you hit the link you will notice it takes you to the openLPM project and not a store front or anything like that. As you may not know but I designed this banner also just did one for Mohgasm.com and am planning on possible offering it as a service to other members.

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I know all about the history and the website

The banner still constitutes advertising
Advertising for a charitable organization, no matter how much good work they do, is still advertising
The ONLY reason you have not been called on it, is because it links to an "open source," tutorial type site

My question was, what do you consider "shameless" advertising?

Do you feel any shame from having the banner in your sig?

I doubt that Jerry feels any shame over his either

My main problem with how you express yourself is that you appear to just say stuff, that you think "sounds good", without thinking about what it means
Then, you don't appear to be "listening" to what you say

Peace,
dave

This thread exploded again, and I'll reply to more of it when I proper internet access and the time to properly reply.

@Jerry
In statistics votes are based on those who participated, not the entire possible sample group. In the past LPF has implemented new rules/sections/design features with only a few people voting in the poll. If we expected everyone to vote nothing would ever happen round here. At any rate, this is ultimately just a suggestion and idea for Cold where he can see the popular opinion.

@TJ
I am not trolling anyone, I can see that this thread may appear as trolling, but all those past LPM threads with "conflict" were because of calibration problems (still yet to be fully resolved, pending having my Ophir head checked again and 3rd party HLPM data) and me voicing my opinions in the Pergerine / Third party software threads.
To me it is annoying to see newcomers boosting their post count by posting canned messages and by the popular vote others do not like it either.

@Hak
That is a good point and I do agree that it helps us to get to know the member better.

Awillis made that banner for me, and I may use it on the project website. I did not ask him to make it for me or to put it in his signature, it is of no benefit to him.
The project has always been more about an Open Source power meter instead of a product for me to sell.
If someone feels the project has helped them a lot it makes sense that they might add a link to it for others in their sig. If I were in his shoes and others learned something from linking to it I wouldn't feel any shame in the advertising.

No I don't feel any shame in having my banner in my sig as the open lpm project is good for the community and doesn't benefit me directly at all. Where as jerry's banner only benefits him and it 's shameless when he only posts anymore to welcome people and to chime in on lpm treads which he doesn't even really do anymore since that whole laserbee thread that called him out.

But I'm done talking about this as it has no relevance to the poll/tread!

With regards to the original subject of this thread, and the very clear poll results....