So tthis forum is about ?

[B1Bob 20]

As a fist time visitor it appears to be. Cut and paste some voluminous news story without comment then cut and paste other lengthy new stories in rebuttal ??

[웃 910]

Internet forum

An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages.^[1] They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived. Also, depending on the access level of a user or the forum set-up, a posted message might need to be approved by a moderator before it becomes visible.

Forums have a specific set of jargon associated with them; e.g. a single conversation is called a "thread".

A discussion forum is hierarchical or tree-like in structure: a forum can contain a number of subforums, each of which may have several topics. Within a forum's topic, each new discussion started is called a thread, and can be replied to by as many people as so wish.

Depending on the forum's settings, users can be anonymous or have to register with the forum and then subsequently log in in order to post messages. On most forums, users do not have to log in to read existing messages.

History

The modern forum originated from bulletin boards, and are a technological evolution of the dialup bulletin board system.^[2][3] From a technological standpoint, forums or boards are web applications managing user-generated content.^[3][4]

Early Internet forums could be described as a web version of an electronic mailing list or newsgroup (such as exist on Usenet); allowing people to post messages and comment on other messages. Later developments emulated the different newsgroups or individual lists, providing more than one forum, dedicated to a particular topic.^[2]

Internet forums are prevalent in several developed countries. Japan posts the most with over two million per day on their largest forum, 2channel. China also has many millions of posts on forums such as Tianya Club.

Forums perform a function similar to that of dial-up bulletin board systems and Usenet networks that were first created starting in the late 1970s.^[2] Early web-based forums date back as far as 1994, with the WIT^[5] project from W3 Consortium and starting from this time, many alternatives were created.^[6] A sense of virtual community often develops around forums that have regular users. Technology, video games, sports, music, fashion, religion, and politics are popular areas for forum themes, but there are forums for a huge number of topics. Internet slang and image macros popular across the Internet are abundant and widely used in Internet forums.

Forum software packages are widely available on the Internet and are written in a variety of programming languages, such as PHP, Perl, Java and ASP. The configuration and records of posts can be stored in text files or in a database. Each package offers different features, from the most basic, providing text-only postings, to more advanced packages, offering multimedia support and formatting code (usually known as BBCode). Many packages can be integrated easily into an existing website to allow visitors to post comments on articles.

Several other web applications, such as weblog software, also incorporate forum features. Wordpress comments at the bottom of a blog post allow for a single-threaded discussion of any given blog post. Slashcode, on the other hand, is far more complicated, allowing fully threaded discussions and incorporating a robust moderation and meta-moderation system as well as many of the profile features available to forum users.

Some stand alone threads on forums have reached fame and notability such as the "I am lonely will anyone speak to me" thread on MovieCodec.com's forums, which was described as the "web's top hangout for lonely folk" by Wired Magazine.^[7]

Forum structure

A forum consists of a tree like directory structure. The top end is "Categories". A forum can be divided into categories for the relevant discussions. Under the categories are sub-forums and these sub-forums can further have more sub-forums. The topics (commonly called threads) come under the lowest level of sub-forums and these are the places under which members can start their discussions or posts. Logically forums are organized into a finite set of generic topics (usually with one main topic) driven and updated by a group known as members, and governed by a group known as moderators.^{[citation needed]} It can also have a graph structure.^[8] All message boards will use one of three possible display formats. Each of the three basic message board display formats: Non-Threaded/Semi-Threaded/Fully Threaded, has its own advantages and disadvantages. If messages are not related to one another at all a Non-Threaded format is best. If you have a message topic and multiple replies to that message topic a semi-threaded format is best. If you have a message topic and replies to that message topic, and replies to replies, then a fully threaded format is best.^[9]

User groups

Internally, Western-style forums organize visitors and logged in members into user groups. Privileges and rights are given based on these groups. A user of the forum can automatically be promoted to a more privileged user group based on criteria set by the administrator.^[10] A person viewing a closed thread as a member will see a box saying he does not have the right to submit messages there, but a moderator will likely see the same box granting him access to more than just posting messages.^[11]

An unregistered user of the site is commonly known as a guest or visitor. Guests are typically granted access to all functions that do not require database alterations or breach privacy. A guest can usually view the contents of the forum or use such features as read marking, but occasionally an administrator will disallow visitors to read their forum as an incentive to become a registered member.^{[note 1]} A person who is a very frequent visitor of the forum, a section or even a thread is referred to as a lurker and the habit is referred to as lurking. Registered members often will refer to themselves as lurking in a particular location, which is to say they have no intention of participating in that section but enjoy reading the contributions to it.

Moderators

The moderators (short singular form: "mod") are users (or employees) of the forum who are granted access to the posts and threads of all members for the purpose of moderating discussion (similar to arbitration) and also keeping the forum clean (neutralizing spam and spambots etc.).^[12] Because they have access to all posts and threads in their area of responsibility, it is common for a friend of the site owner to be promoted to moderator for such a task. Moderators also answer users' concerns about the forum, general questions, as well as respond to specific complaints. They also can do anything to lend a helping hand to a user in need.^[13] Moderators themselves may have ranks: some may be given mod privileges over only a particular topic or section (called "local"), while others (called "global" or "super") may be allowed access anywhere. Common privileges of moderators include: deleting, merging, moving, and splitting of posts and threads, locking, renaming, stickying of threads, banning, suspending, unsuspending, unbanning, warning the members, or adding, editing, removing the polls of threads.^[14] "Junior Modding", "Backseat Modding", or "Forum copping" can refer negatively to the behavior of ordinary users who take a moderator-like tone in criticizing other members.

Essentially, it is the duty of the moderator to manage the day-to-day affairs of a forum or board as it applies to the stream of user contributions and interactions. The relative effectiveness of this user management directly impacts the quality of a forum in general, its appeal, and its usefulness as a community of interrelated users.

Moderators also have categories e.g. "Global Moderators" and just "Moderators". Global moderators have the rights to moderate the complete forum while moderators can be assigned only to the sub-forum.^[15]

Administrator

The administrators (short form: "admin") manage the technical details required for running the site. As such, they may promote (and demote) members to/from moderators, manage the rules, create sections and sub-sections, as well as perform any database operations (database backup etc.). Administrators often also act as moderators. Administrators may also make forum-wide announcements, or change the appearance (known as the skin) of a forum. There are also many forums where administrators share their knowledge like AdminForum. ^[14]

Post

A post is a user-submitted message enclosed into a block containing the user's details and the date and time it was submitted. Members are usually allowed to edit or delete their own posts. Posts are contained in threads, where they appear as boxes one after another. The first post starts the thread; this may be called the TS (thread starter) or OP (original post). Posts that follow in the thread are meant to continue discussion about that post, or respond to other replies; it is not uncommon for discussions to be derailed.

On Western forums, the classic way to show a member's own details (such as name and avatar) has been on the left side of the post, in a narrow column of fixed width, with the post controls located on the right, at the bottom of the main body, above the signature block. In more recent forum software implementations the Asian style of displaying the members' details above the post has been copied.

Posts have an internal limit usually measured in characters. Often one is required to have a message of minimum length of 10 characters. There is always an upper limit but it is rarely reached – most boards have it at either 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, or 50,000 characters.

Most forums keep track of a user's postcount. The postcount is a measurement of how many posts a certain user has made.^[16] Users with higher postcounts are often considered more reputable than users with lower postcounts. Some forums have disabled postcounts in the hopes that doing so will reduce the emphasis on quantity over quality of information.

Thread

See also: conversation threadingA thread (sometimes called a topic) is a collection of posts, usually displayed from oldest to latest, although this is typically configurable: Options for newest to oldest and for a threaded view (a tree-like view applying logical reply structure before chronological order) can be available. A thread is defined by a title, an additional description that may summarize the intended discussion, and an opening or original post (common abbreviation OP, which can also mean original poster), which opens whatever dialogue or makes whatever announcement the poster wished. A thread can contain any number of posts, including multiple posts from the same members, even if they are one after the other.

A thread is contained in a forum, and may have an associated date that is taken as the date of the last post (options to order threads by other criteria are generally available). When a member posts in a thread it will jump to the top since it is the latest updated thread. Similarly, other threads will jump in front of it when they receive posts. When a member posts in a thread for no reason but to have it go to the top, it is referred to as a bump or bumping. Threads that are important but rarely receive posts are stickyed (or, in some software, "pinned"). A sticky thread will always appear in front of normal threads, often in its own section. A "threaded discussion group" is simply any group of individuals who use a forum for threaded, or asynchronous, discussion purposes. The group may or may not be the only users of the forum.

A thread's popularity is measured on forums in reply (total posts minus one, the opening post, in most default forum settings) counts. Some forums also track page views. Threads meeting a set number of posts or a set number of views may receive a designation such as "hot thread" and be displayed with a different icon compared to other threads. This icon may stand out more to emphasize the thread. If the forum's users have lost interest in a particular thread, it becomes a dead thread.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forum

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Recent post from the lead moderator follows. Any questions about use of site should be directed toward her, or to the site administration.

In most cases, yes. For copyright reasons it is best not to copy a full article from any sort of non-publicly owned news or media source but to post enough of it to get a gist of the contents and to include the link to the original so people can go and finish reading it there. At the absolute least a link to the original source needs to be included and the source referenced in the article.

News items from publicly owned or government resources can be copied intact but a link to the original source should be included so anyone looking for more details can check out the original source. Plus, it lends validity to the posted item. So, news or media releases, reports or other such documents from USCIS (for example) can be posted intact, while a news story from the New York Times (for example) should not be posted intact but the first few paragraphs can be posted, then the link for the rest of the item included. The source should be listed in the forum as well. We have approved full articles copied from elsewhere, however, so we too need to be better at reminding posters to follow the criteria when posting such items.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/370990-is-this-still-true-si-man/page__view__findpost__p__5415413

[B1Bob 20]

Internet forum

An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages.^[1] They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived. Also, depending on the access level of a user or the forum set-up, a posted message might need to be approved by a moderator before it becomes visible.

Forums have a specific set of jargon associated with them; e.g. a single conversation is called a "thread".

A discussion forum is hierarchical or tree-like in structure: a forum can contain a number of subforums, each of which may have several topics. Within a forum's topic, each new discussion started is called a thread, and can be replied to by as many people as so wish.

Depending on the forum's settings, users can be anonymous or have to register with the forum and then subsequently log in in order to post messages. On most forums, users do not have to log in to read existing messages.

History

The modern forum originated from bulletin boards, and are a technological evolution of the dialup bulletin board system.^[2][3] From a technological standpoint, forums or boards are web applications managing user-generated content.^[3][4]

Early Internet forums could be described as a web version of an electronic mailing list or newsgroup (such as exist on Usenet); allowing people to post messages and comment on other messages. Later developments emulated the different newsgroups or individual lists, providing more than one forum, dedicated to a particular topic.^[2]

Internet forums are prevalent in several developed countries. Japan posts the most with over two million per day on their largest forum, 2channel. China also has many millions of posts on forums such as Tianya Club.

Forums perform a function similar to that of dial-up bulletin board systems and Usenet networks that were first created starting in the late 1970s.^[2] Early web-based forums date back as far as 1994, with the WIT^[5] project from W3 Consortium and starting from this time, many alternatives were created.^[6] A sense of virtual community often develops around forums that have regular users. Technology, video games, sports, music, fashion, religion, and politics are popular areas for forum themes, but there are forums for a huge number of topics. Internet slang and image macros popular across the Internet are abundant and widely used in Internet forums.

Forum software packages are widely available on the Internet and are written in a variety of programming languages, such as PHP, Perl, Java and ASP. The configuration and records of posts can be stored in text files or in a database. Each package offers different features, from the most basic, providing text-only postings, to more advanced packages, offering multimedia support and formatting code (usually known as BBCode). Many packages can be integrated easily into an existing website to allow visitors to post comments on articles.

Several other web applications, such as weblog software, also incorporate forum features. Wordpress comments at the bottom of a blog post allow for a single-threaded discussion of any given blog post. Slashcode, on the other hand, is far more complicated, allowing fully threaded discussions and incorporating a robust moderation and meta-moderation system as well as many of the profile features available to forum users.

Some stand alone threads on forums have reached fame and notability such as the "I am lonely will anyone speak to me" thread on MovieCodec.com's forums, which was described as the "web's top hangout for lonely folk" by Wired Magazine.^[7]

Forum structure

A forum consists of a tree like directory structure. The top end is "Categories". A forum can be divided into categories for the relevant discussions. Under the categories are sub-forums and these sub-forums can further have more sub-forums. The topics (commonly called threads) come under the lowest level of sub-forums and these are the places under which members can start their discussions or posts. Logically forums are organized into a finite set of generic topics (usually with one main topic) driven and updated by a group known as members, and governed by a group known as moderators.^{[citation needed]} It can also have a graph structure.^[8] All message boards will use one of three possible display formats. Each of the three basic message board display formats: Non-Threaded/Semi-Threaded/Fully Threaded, has its own advantages and disadvantages. If messages are not related to one another at all a Non-Threaded format is best. If you have a message topic and multiple replies to that message topic a semi-threaded format is best. If you have a message topic and replies to that message topic, and replies to replies, then a fully threaded format is best.^[9]

User groups

Internally, Western-style forums organize visitors and logged in members into user groups. Privileges and rights are given based on these groups. A user of the forum can automatically be promoted to a more privileged user group based on criteria set by the administrator.^[10] A person viewing a closed thread as a member will see a box saying he does not have the right to submit messages there, but a moderator will likely see the same box granting him access to more than just posting messages.^[11]

An unregistered user of the site is commonly known as a guest or visitor. Guests are typically granted access to all functions that do not require database alterations or breach privacy. A guest can usually view the contents of the forum or use such features as read marking, but occasionally an administrator will disallow visitors to read their forum as an incentive to become a registered member.^{[note 1]} A person who is a very frequent visitor of the forum, a section or even a thread is referred to as a lurker and the habit is referred to as lurking. Registered members often will refer to themselves as lurking in a particular location, which is to say they have no intention of participating in that section but enjoy reading the contributions to it.

Moderators

The moderators (short singular form: "mod") are users (or employees) of the forum who are granted access to the posts and threads of all members for the purpose of moderating discussion (similar to arbitration) and also keeping the forum clean (neutralizing spam and spambots etc.).^[12] Because they have access to all posts and threads in their area of responsibility, it is common for a friend of the site owner to be promoted to moderator for such a task. Moderators also answer users' concerns about the forum, general questions, as well as respond to specific complaints. They also can do anything to lend a helping hand to a user in need.^[13] Moderators themselves may have ranks: some may be given mod privileges over only a particular topic or section (called "local"), while others (called "global" or "super") may be allowed access anywhere. Common privileges of moderators include: deleting, merging, moving, and splitting of posts and threads, locking, renaming, stickying of threads, banning, suspending, unsuspending, unbanning, warning the members, or adding, editing, removing the polls of threads.^[14] "Junior Modding", "Backseat Modding", or "Forum copping" can refer negatively to the behavior of ordinary users who take a moderator-like tone in criticizing other members.

Essentially, it is the duty of the moderator to manage the day-to-day affairs of a forum or board as it applies to the stream of user contributions and interactions. The relative effectiveness of this user management directly impacts the quality of a forum in general, its appeal, and its usefulness as a community of interrelated users.

Moderators also have categories e.g. "Global Moderators" and just "Moderators". Global moderators have the rights to moderate the complete forum while moderators can be assigned only to the sub-forum.^[15]

Administrator

The administrators (short form: "admin") manage the technical details required for running the site. As such, they may promote (and demote) members to/from moderators, manage the rules, create sections and sub-sections, as well as perform any database operations (database backup etc.). Administrators often also act as moderators. Administrators may also make forum-wide announcements, or change the appearance (known as the skin) of a forum. There are also many forums where administrators share their knowledge like AdminForum. ^[14]

Post

A post is a user-submitted message enclosed into a block containing the user's details and the date and time it was submitted. Members are usually allowed to edit or delete their own posts. Posts are contained in threads, where they appear as boxes one after another. The first post starts the thread; this may be called the TS (thread starter) or OP (original post). Posts that follow in the thread are meant to continue discussion about that post, or respond to other replies; it is not uncommon for discussions to be derailed.

On Western forums, the classic way to show a member's own details (such as name and avatar) has been on the left side of the post, in a narrow column of fixed width, with the post controls located on the right, at the bottom of the main body, above the signature block. In more recent forum software implementations the Asian style of displaying the members' details above the post has been copied.

Posts have an internal limit usually measured in characters. Often one is required to have a message of minimum length of 10 characters. There is always an upper limit but it is rarely reached – most boards have it at either 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, or 50,000 characters.

Most forums keep track of a user's postcount. The postcount is a measurement of how many posts a certain user has made.^[16] Users with higher postcounts are often considered more reputable than users with lower postcounts. Some forums have disabled postcounts in the hopes that doing so will reduce the emphasis on quantity over quality of information.

Thread

See also: conversation threadingA thread (sometimes called a topic) is a collection of posts, usually displayed from oldest to latest, although this is typically configurable: Options for newest to oldest and for a threaded view (a tree-like view applying logical reply structure before chronological order) can be available. A thread is defined by a title, an additional description that may summarize the intended discussion, and an opening or original post (common abbreviation OP, which can also mean original poster), which opens whatever dialogue or makes whatever announcement the poster wished. A thread can contain any number of posts, including multiple posts from the same members, even if they are one after the other.

A thread is contained in a forum, and may have an associated date that is taken as the date of the last post (options to order threads by other criteria are generally available). When a member posts in a thread it will jump to the top since it is the latest updated thread. Similarly, other threads will jump in front of it when they receive posts. When a member posts in a thread for no reason but to have it go to the top, it is referred to as a bump or bumping. Threads that are important but rarely receive posts are stickyed (or, in some software, "pinned"). A sticky thread will always appear in front of normal threads, often in its own section. A "threaded discussion group" is simply any group of individuals who use a forum for threaded, or asynchronous, discussion purposes. The group may or may not be the only users of the forum.

A thread's popularity is measured on forums in reply (total posts minus one, the opening post, in most default forum settings) counts. Some forums also track page views. Threads meeting a set number of posts or a set number of views may receive a designation such as "hot thread" and be displayed with a different icon compared to other threads. This icon may stand out more to emphasize the thread. If the forum's users have lost interest in a particular thread, it becomes a dead thread.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forum

Well that pretty much sums it up. Thank you for using google for me. I am in awe of your cut and paste ability.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Can I copy articles from Wikipedia?

Yes, but with certain restrictions. All of Wikipedia's text, except clearly marked quotations used under the non-free content policy, is available under a special license called the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0. Much of the text is also available under the GNU Free Documentation License; images may be available under different conditions. See our reuse information page for more details.

Important note: since the Wikimedia Foundation does not own the copyright to the articles on Wikipedia, it is useless to email any of our contact addresses for permission to reproduce articles or photographs. Emails to those addresses about this issue will be returned with a generic message to see relevant licensing conditions. Due to the complexity of copyright licenses, and the variety of copyright legislations across the world, we cannot answer inquiries about how to apply a certain license in specific circumstances; if you need legal advice, we advise you to seek it from a lawyer.

We are aware that some school students have been told to email and request permission before using content from a site in their projects, but we simply cannot give you this permission by email. You already have permission.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Top_questions

Edited June 12, 2012 by ☼

[웃 910]

Well that pretty much sums it up. Thank you for using google for me. I am in awe of your cut and paste ability.

No problem. If you really want to be blown away check this thread out: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/267830-whos-next/page__view__findpost__p__4102788

[Karee 4,191]

No problem. If you really want to be blown away check this thread out: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/267830-whos-next/page__view__findpost__p__4102788

####### is that all about?

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Could this be a sock puppet??

[slim 1,533]

This forum is about being a supporter of liberty and freedom....

... or being a socialist.

You decide!

[spookyturtle 9,466]

No problem. If you really want to be blown away check this thread out: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/267830-whos-next/page__view__findpost__p__4102788

And this is a stupid one. Who started it? Imagine a counting game!! : http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/290650-new-game-countdown-to-1-from-10000/page__p__4404021#entry4404021

Edited June 12, 2012 by spookyturtle

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Another good example of what the forum is all about.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/371965-matthew-chapter-13-what-kind-of-drugs-was-the-author-on-that-wrote-this/

[웃 910]

Don't feed the troll!

[Darnell 8,479]

raise yer hand if'n yer cooking mutton this weekend, to sell at the State Convention (r/D) of yer choice

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Are you the same B1Bob who lost your congressional seat to a Messikan and demanded a recount?

[B1Bob 20]

Are you the same B1Bob who lost your congressional seat to a Messikan and demanded a recount?

No I am the B1Bob of wwf fame