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Topic: A Challenge or two (Read 5141 times) |
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Hermit
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Re:A Challenge or two
« Reply #31 on: 2002-02-09 00:48:36 » |
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6) Well done on the ISO Format.
Not sure of what you mean by the "today mod"?
2) Well, as an example, I was able to modify the monster reply to Joe, but having spent a lot of time changing it, when I clicked "save", it proceeded to return "Your message is too long. Please go back and shorten it, then resubmit." and of course, when I got back, all my changes were gone :-( I also have redone the "Formatting FAQ", and am working on a group of related FAQ sized posts, "Virian Ethics", "Virian Politics" and "Virian Encyclopedia" (all of which should ideally link to a Web Site (Zope?)) and have been trying to work on formatting them. Again, I am getting the dreaded "Your message is too long." message when pasting them here:-(
3) I realized the link was in place (which is why I have refrained from posting here :-) ), but I think that a "Don't publish yet" radio button would be very easy to add and implement. In other words, until the "Don't publish yet" is unchecked, the message would not be sent to the list (and possibly the entry wouldn't show up on the BBS except to the author).
4) I don't think it would, and if the author saw that it did, then they could "Reset Form" out of it. I see it as providing a one click optional "fix format" facility.
I wrote on this once before.
Quote:Perhaps the addition of a few "macro-buttons" on the tag bar would make sense.
1) Fix Mail: To remove ">" at the start of lines, and remove spurious line feeds added by lame clients and mail wrapping when text is pasted into the window. Ideally, this would prefix all the paragraphs of a post not already so prefixed with the [Sender ID + n]. This would not be difficult, as the sender mail address could be used to fetch the sender name, and if the sender name is already present in a [Sender ID] block at the start of a line, one would simply find the greatest number, add one to it and use that.
2) URL Lookup: A way to open a browser, point to a URL/Picture/FTP site and return with the correctly formatted hyperlink for insertion into a new post.
3) Member Lookup: A way to open the member-list in a second window and insert a properly marked-up member name into a new post.
4) Post Lookup: A way to open a search box (which must search at least for all the text, all on a subject, all by a member and all by a date) and return a properly marked up message cross-reference.
5) My Name: Inserts [Editor Id + n] at the start of the current paragraph. Perhaps this should combine the Editor Id (known) with a text box which defaults to the highest n already used in the message, but allows it to be overridden.
These all produce simple text insertions which may be edited.
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5) While looking at troubles, "/me" at the start of a line seems to do strange things to the formatting - and does not get turned off by any complement I could find.
Another thing would be a nice way of "escaping" instructions using a non-printing character, so, e.g. If I had ("c" replaced by "x" below to avoid the problem):
[-xode]
Some example
[-/xode]
It would recognize that the intention was to render the command as a literal value and would hide the " - " escape character - including when mailing the post to the list. So in mail it would appear as:
[xode]
Some example
[/xode]
Useful for explaining the use of the formating language in ASCII email and for display on the BBS, which is otherwise decidedly a non-trivial problem with which I have been wrestling. Use of the escape character twice would then display it once, but still trigger the "handle literally" behavior. i.e. a source of:
[--xode]
Some example
[--/xode]
Would be shown as:
[-xode]
Some example
[-/xode]
in both the BBS and in email.
I would see this as being complementary to the 'code' behavior. A second "escape" triggering the opposite behavior on the BBS (i.e. performing a formatting command within a code block), but simply omiting it from an email would also be useful. e.g. ("c" replaced by "x" below to avoid the problem):
[xode]
Some code [+b]example[+/b] with a piece of embedded bold text.
[/xode]
This would appear in ASCII email as:
[xode]
Some code example with a piece of embedded bold text.
[/xode]
I also see that there is a birthday module for yabb as well as a diary module (Refer http://boardmod.yabbforum.com/mods.php?cat=0&searchfor=&sortby=&start=40&ver=&modsperpage=20). It would be nice to trigger messages based on the calendar, for e.g. "Saints Days" e.g. Feb. 12 Darwin Day (Ref http://www.darwinday.org/) and February 16, Bruno's Burning (http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/john_kessler/giordano_bruno.html)
And Perhaps for CoV events.
I'll need to reload Services on one of my systems to look at your IRC services problem. I'll let you know when I'm ready to try a connect. Maybe on the week-end. Meanwhile a private note from you with the IP address and IRCd configuration would be a good idea. i.e. don't publish that information here!
Kind Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Reputation: 8.94
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FAQ: Hermitish Mark-up v. 2.1
« Reply #32 on: 2002-03-02 19:20:51 » |
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FAQ: Hermitish Mark-up v. 2.1
Authors: Hermit
Revision: 2.1B (Full BBS mark-up)
Author’s notes for revision: 2.1B
It has come to my attention that I gave some bad advice in the first proposal for this FAQ in the making. The formatting I suggested, conflicts with the embedding of virus messages in some web mail systems. So without further ado, here is revision II of the FAQ in the making, which also extends and enhances the format based on the suggestions and contributions of others, allows the material to be posted directly and safely to embedded pages, and permits the easy translation to HTML in environments which support this.
In addition, the message numbering system has now been simplified, to allow easier tracking of complex threads, and a message index added to the head of a thread for the same reason.
If you received this FAQ via ASCII email, please ignore the values in square brackets (“[ ]”) until they are explained in the text under Mark-up below.
In case any one wondered, comments, criticisms and suggestions are requested and welcomed.
This post is available on-line, in formatted version at:
" target=_blank>Some URL
It should be noted that the “B” suffixed version of this FAQ (i.e. formatted for BBS display) is authoritative, and that the “A” suffixed version is derived from the “B” suffixed version for the purposes of ASCII email.
Status
The use of this system is recommended but not mandated for postings on the CoV. Using it will make it more likely that others will read your submissions and will help to prevent the CoV from becoming a "write only zone." The use of HTML in posting to the CoV is depreciated and should be avoided under any circumstances.
Abbreviated Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Church of Virus, 2002. All rights reserved. Unlimited distribution permitted in accordance with the terms of the Full copyright notice below.
Abstract
This FAQ addresses the issues of mail-markup (formatting), citation, titling and snipping.
A preferred approach to dialog mark-up, permitting easy use with ASCII email, as well as providing “safe” markup for display within systems displaying mail-list comments for access by web-browsers is introduced. In addition, the recommended format permits readers and author’s to follow “threaded-discussions” without difficulty.
Table of Contents
Title
Authors
Revision
Author’s notes for revision
Status
Abbreviated Copyright Notice
Abstract
Table of Contents
Introduction
Preferred Implementation
Responsibilities
Elision (or "snipping")
Subject Line
Message Index
Attribution
Sequence
Reference
Later "back quoting"
Citation
Dating
Other Mark-up
Horizontal line
Italic text
Underlined text
Strikethrough text
Color text
Quote text
Indented list
Quote code
Capitalization Hint
Line Wrapping
Full copyright notice
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
References
Authors’ addresses
Introduction
This FAQ is intended to improve the formatting, and referencing of work produced by the members of the Church of Virus, in order to simplify the task of making such works more accessible to the public and other members. In addition, it introduces and documents “Hermitish” threading, a new form of ASCII email threading to allow the easy use of this mark-up system via simple ASCII mail.
Hermitic threading is a simplified mail-markup system designed to allow those other than the authors to more easily follow discussions held in ASCII mail forums, and to ensure the readability of messages by preventing the following kind of thing – especially when it runs to 500 lines:
Actual example from the CoV mail list:
> > > > > > > >I TOLD you that this mystical buddhist memebot would advance
> > > > > > > >from a denial of the self to a denial of the world!
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Please explain how that statement constitutes a denial
> > of the world.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > Our "subjective" reality is never purely subjective, for it
> > > > contains (as
> > > > > > content) information, stimuli, information, perceptions,
> > etc. from the
> > > > > > surrounding world. To deny such lived experience its
> > reality is to
> > > > > > deny the reality of the environong world from which its
> > content flows.
Preferred Implementation
Responsibilities
An initial post in a sequence need not be fully marked up (although it may be in order to appear more attractive and in order to relieve respondents of part of the task). The respondent to any post has the responsibility of marking up the original message and their response.
Subsequent replies and comments on a message already so marked up, have the responsibility of marking up their reply appropriately and adding their post to the message index.
Each person sending a message has the responsibility of removing superfluous line breaks caused by wrapping in lame mail clients and possibly removing “>” indentation from their messages.
Elision (or "snipping")
When material is omitted from a follow-up post, the omitted material should be denoted by:
Example:
It is worth remembering that not everyone has a fast connection, most people have insufficient reading speed, and few want to read a long post for the second time to see where the replies are located. So use your judgment to keep the volume tolerable. This is important for everyone to remember... snipping is at least as important as list content... because lots of people equate tenacious truncation with netiquette, and they simply won't read posts on a list that is uniformly rude.
When <snipping> is desirable
<snipping> is appropriate when you do not disagree on a point, or
where you state that a point is not worth arguing. It is also worthwhile when
replying with a short (or even a long) comment to the gist of a previous post, but where you are discussing the totality not the independent points of the post.
When <snipping> is not desirable
Don't <snip> something that you take issue with, or some lamer will attack you for removing their arguments and assert that you did this invalidly because you couldn't argue your case effectively rather than just putting back the excised material.
<Snipping> is not appropriate when your opponent has made a valid point and you do not acknowledge it.
This last is also a strong hint to avoid being seen as a lamer. If somebody snips something of yours and you choose to reply, simply put it back in place, and observe on why you think your text should not have been <snipped>. If you feel very strongly about this, you might choose to denote the restored material with <snip restored by NAME>.
Subject Lines
To maintain the accessibility and readability of the archives, it is important that you reply on subject. If you change the subject in a post, denote this by changing the subject line to something more appropriate.
When posting a reply to a specific person, it is suggested that you append "Ping name" at the end of the subject line. When replying to such a message you should revert to the original subject or alter the name appropriately.
Message Index
To indicate who has replied on a particular thread, and in what order, it is suggested that a “Message Index” be used. This is a simple list at the top of a message, showing who spoke and in what order.
Example:
[Hermit 0]
[Joe Dees 1]
[Hermit 2]
[Joe Dees 3]
[Richard Rich 4]
[Joe Dees 5]
[Hermit 6]
The message number is incremented each time a new respondent replies.
Attribution
Each paragraph is identified by the name of the speaker.
Example:
Sequence
When a sequence of communications occur, this is indicated by a suffixed number.
Example:
[Hermit 0] A implies B.
[Somebody 1] So is B True?
[Hermit 2] Only if A is True.
Reference
In order to refer to a particular statement a decimal may be suffixed to the number.
Example:
[Hermit 1] Yada, Yada, Yada...
[Hermit 2.5] I refer to "some useful reference" which says X.
[Hermit 2] Yada, Yada, Yada...
[Somebody 3] I don't think that "some useful reference" is really useful.
[Hermit 4] But in [Hermit 2.5] I have already provided a reference you can check for yourself.
[Somebody 5] Yada, Yada, Yada
It is not necessary to number each paragraph, simply add reference numbers when and where needed – to your own, or anyone else’s posts. When reference numbers are added to a post, they should be done so in sequence. It is always possible to insert a new reference when required by adding another level of decimal.
Example:
[Hermit 1.1] existing
[Hermit 1.15] <--- inserted reference.
[Hermit 1.2] existing
Later "back quoting"
When you need to quote from a previous letter, you may use negative numbers to indicate it precedes the current series.
Example:
[Hermit 0] It is clear that...
[Somebody 1] I don't see that it is clear at all...
[Hermit 2] Well if we look at [some cross reference] you will see that you said:
[Somebody -1] From a previous post, possibly on a different thread: Yada, Yada, Yada...
[Hermit 3] From this is follows...
Mail Citation
To refer to a previous post, cite it as:
Cite a post:
["Subject Line", Author, Sent Time]
If you have a web link to an archive, cite it as follows:
Cite a post with a text description:
[ur1=http://site.com/pointer to archive item]"Subject Line", Author, Sent Time[/ur1]
This allows a post to be found in a large number of ways and prevents the confusion of which post in a sequence sharing a subject line and with multiple participants is actually meant.
Example:
or just Cite a post by URL if the post is identified elsewhere in the message:
[ur1]http://forum.javien.com/XMLmessage.php?id=id::XERAICIg-AhZq-AGI4-DSAO-LyUrYEBwG1Zu[/ur1]
Example:
Web URL Citation
When you cite a web page, affix a date so that others may see when it was last accessed.
Cite a URL with a text description:
[ur1=http://virus.lucifer.com]some hyperlinked text accessed 2002-02-01[/ur1]
Example:
Or, citing a URL without a text description:
[ur1]http://virus.lucifer.com[/ur1] accessed 2002-02-01
Example:
To include a reference to an image:
[ img]http://virus.lucifer.com/images/cov.gif[/ img]
Example:
To include a reference to a flash image:
[f1ash=200,200]URL[/f1ash]
Example:
To include a reference to an email address:
Example:
Dating
We recommend the use of the ISO 601 date format which has the following structure: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM[:SS] [TIMEZONE]. (Refer Status for Date and Time Formats). This automatically sorts things so dated into an appropriate time sequence and allows easy date lookups. Seconds and the time zone may be omitted if unimportant. It is in any case recommended that Universal (i.e. Zulu) time always be used to avoid confusion.
Other Mark-up
It is recommended that XML/HTML style bracketing be avoided, to prevent confusing existing embedding of messages from the CoV into web pages, but that square brackets, i.e. "[" and "]" be used instead.
The following are appropriate codes:
Draw a horizontal line:
Use Bold Text:
Use Italic Text:
Use Underline Text:
Use Strikethrough Text:
Use Color text (e.g. Red):
Code:| [color=Red]Red text[/color] |
e.g. Red text
Quote text:
Code:| [quote]Quoted text[/quote] |
e.g.
Quote:
Form an indented list:
Code:
[list]some list
more list
last list[/list]
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e.g. some list
more list
last list
[b]Cite “Code”, i.e. show the value of tags rather than performing the function of the code.[b]
Code:| [ code]Some text [b]containing[/b] code[/ code] |
e.g.
Code:| Some text [b]containing[/b] code |
NB It is not appropriate to use this markup style in other ways, or to add additional tags to it, without first discussing it, as this may confuse implementations of programs designed to convert Hermitish mark-up to HTML.
Capitalization Hint
The use of CAPITALS to demote emphasis is often perceived as being equivalent to shouting and is depreciated.
Line Wrapping
It is strongly recommended that text not be line wrapped. This means that it will be readable when placed on web pages, transformed to PDF or viewed on WAP devices. If your mail reader cannot reflow text, obtain a better one, which can do so.
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Church of Virus (2002). All Rights Reserved.
http://www.churchofvirus.com
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the Abbreviated Copyright Notice [supra] and this paragraph are included as an inseparable component of all such copies and derivative works, and that the terms of this copyright statement shall be binding on derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Church of Virus, except as needed for the purpose of developing further Church of Virus documents or as required to translate it into languages other than English, in which case the procedures for copyrights defined by the Church of Virus from time to time must be followed.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Church of Virus or its successors or assigns.
This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and the Church of Virus disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including but not limited to any warranty that the use of the information herein will not infringe any rights or any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. You are specifically warned that study of documents produced by the Church of Virus may lead to a permanent change in your attitudes or behavior as a result of exposure to the memeplexii and component memes embedded in such documents.
Acknowledgements
http://www.yabbforum.com/ for the mark-up format. It is possible that additional formatting markup compliant with “yabb” will be included in later releases of this document.
Bibliography
References
http://www.yabbforum.com/YaBBHelp/posting.html
Authors’ addresses
lhermit@hotmail.com
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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