Conference 7.286::home_work

>> CSLALL::NASEAM::READIO 
>>      -< pick a topic, spend a few minutes and you'll clear up 30 notes >-

    I agree with Judy.  By your own estimate, Skip, you could have cleaned
    up the whole conference in the time it took you to post silly notes
    making your point.  In the time honored Digital tradition, "he who
    proposes, does!"  Congratulations, Mr. Moderator!!  I look forward to
    seeing this file completely and permanently cleaned up before the
    holidays!  That will save me a lot of time searching in the future
    (which wasn't something I would ever complain about, given that this
    conference is a luxury, not a business necessity).
    
    
    Susan

    Why does everyone look to the moderator to "please move my note to
    the proper location". WHY CAN'T YOU POST IT IN THE PROPER LOCATION
    TO BEGIN WITH!

    It's like dropping your dirty laundry where ever it's convient and
    expecting your mother to pick them up and put them in the proper
    location. 

    Your mother doesn't work here, do it your self! 

    Charly

There's also the "opps" [sic] notes where they used WRITE instead of REPLY.
Most users don't know that they can fix this themselves with SET NOTE/NOTE_ID.

				Steve

> There's also the "opps" [sic] notes where they used WRITE instead of REPLY.
> Most users don't know that they can fix this themselves with SET NOTE/NOTE_ID.

	.... and it always seems those same users are the ones who enter
	"ex" and "exit" when prompted to enter a [meaningful] title .... :-(

Author: 2155::michaud "Jeff Michaud - ObjectBroker"
        ^^^^

	And maybe our new moderator :-) can do something about getting the
	nodes database updated on the server (my node address changed
	over two months ago :-) .....

    	Actually, in the time I sent mail to get added as a mod to now,
    things have picked up a lot. I just haven't had the time. I was planning 
    on logging in tomorrow and going through this. 
    
    	I sent mail to the moderator of the FISHING notes file to get a
    routine that will build an up to date index note. It requires that
    the base note at least have a keyword applied. I have a list of the
    keywords and will make a pass through at least some of them tomorrow.
    
    	Please bear with me. It takes time and everyone is busy. Adding 
    these sorts of notes only makes it worse. Nothing personal Skip, but
    I'll be write locking this note and will eventually delete this note 
    and any other silly ones like it.
    
    	Your friendly new mod ;-)
    
    		Ray
    
    		

Re: .8

	See topics 3 & 6 ....

ps: your conference directory is obsolete :-)

This is an interesting side effect of all the notes moving that is going on (I
think the cleanup is needed - I'm just pointing out a side effect).

When I use NEXT UNSEEN and I go to a 'moved' note, I get this:

(pardon the 132 column mode but its needed):
 
Note 513.584                                            Exterior Paint/Stain                                              584 of 594
CSLALL::NASEAM::READIO "A Smith & Wesson beats four aces, Tow trucks beat Chapman Locks"                 17 lines   9-JAN-1996 16:51

                                                       <<< Note 513.583 by KALI::MORGAN "Low-End NaC" >>>
                                                           -< I just hate dealing with the mess... >-

Now if I do an EXTRACT of that note, I see a totally different note:

           <<< 12DOT2::NOTES$STUFF:[NOTES$LIBRARY]HOME_WORK.NOTE;1 >>>
                                 -< Home_work >-
================================================================================
Note 513.584                  Exterior Paint/Stain                    584 of 594
QUARK::LIONEL "Free advice is worth every cent"       4 lines  26-JAN-1993 09:22
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There's no reason to use an oil-based paint.  Latex semi-gloss works fine
over BIN and similar products.

                        Steve

Then I do something like PREVIOUS NOTE, PREVIOUS NOTE, I see the extracted 
version and the .-1 reply has become the first note I saw:

Note 513.583                  Exterior Paint/Stain                    583 of 594
KALI::MORGAN "Low-End NaC"                           13 lines  26-JAN-1993 06:52
                   -< I just hate dealing with the mess... >-


Brian J.

Those are all the corrupted notes.

Adding a reply fixes the record locking problem so that additional notes 
can be moved to that note.

> Those are all the corrupted notes.
> 
> Adding a reply fixes the record locking problem so that additional notes 
> can be moved to that note.

	it fixes it so additional replies, but the corruption still exists
	(two notes with the same note number, the 1st of which is only
	seen the 1st time and never to be see again [by the same noter]).

	btw, i've also noticed that you seem to be doing the extract's
	while in 132 column mode making the note the resultant note when
	you repost it unreadable for the masses (who are in 80 column mode :-)

    
    I am trying to be a good do-bee and search the notes for answers to my
    questions and replying with a question in the appropriate note. 
    However, it seem that notes entered as a WRITE (new topic), rather than
    REPLY (new note, old topic), are more likely to be responded to.  
    
    If 'new topic' entires are replied to over replies to old topics, that 
    may explain why so many new entries are logged.  So, to get responses, 
    is it o.k. to do a WRITE and ask moderator to move note to appropriate 
    place?  
    
    Eleanor
    
                                    
    
    Eleanor

Most people use NEXT UNSEEN to read a conference which brings up both replies
and new notes equally.  There's no advantage to a new note for this reason.

Also a new reply indicates that you have bothered to look a little for an
answer already so people are more likely to want to help you out.

> However, it seem that notes entered as a WRITE (new topic), rather than
> REPLY (new note, old topic), are more likely to be responded to.  

	This is a common mis-conception for newbie's to make.  As .-1 said,
	in a conference such as this you're more likely to piss off the
	people who would most likely be able to help (especially when
	it's a question/topic they've answered 1 too many times already :-)

...and when you do it that way, the first 4 or 5 replies are various 
incarnations of the directory pointing you to the topic you should have 
replied to in the first place and the rest of the replies are confirmations 
of the directory listing replies.

BTW, see what kind of response you've generated here????and you didn't 
WRITE here, did you?

    re:13
    
    	There is no scenerio I can think of where doing a WRITE will
    generate more response than a REPLY to an existing note. As was
    implied, you may get less response because it gives the impression
    that you don't want to take the time to find whether an answer already
    exists, and that you want someone else to do your leg work for you.
    
    	Besides, the object is not to generate more responses. The object
    is to get an answer to your question. You are also implying that it is
    acceptable to let the moderators do the leg work to find and move a
    note to the appropriate reply. Moderation of a non-work related notes
    file is strictly a voluntary, as time permits, sort of thing. There are
    enough things to straighten out in here already without adding more
    work to the heap.
    
    	I currently have barely enough time right now to simply read the
    new notes, nevermind search for and move them to appropriate topics.
    
    	Ray

> Moderation of a non-work related notes
> file is strictly a voluntary, as time permits, sort of thing.

	Same goes for most work related notesfiles ....

    Why are so many of the moved topics/replies getting (Skip's?) header?
    It looks like we're doing an extract and reply file.ext. Why not use
    set note/note_id=n to move the notes so that the original headers can
    be preserved?

re .19:

It's a symptom of the corruption discussed in note 8.  It causes some
moved notes to be phantoms - next unseen finds them but going to them
with an explicit note.reply doesn't.  Skip has apparently learned the
pattern well enough so he adds a redundant note and _his_ note becomes
the phantom.

    
    Will the problem of 132 col mode .vs. 80 column mode (see .12) be
    addressed? 
    
    								- Mac 

With the sheer volume of notes that have/had to be moved, switching back to 
80 column mode was impractical.  Since it only affected phantom 
notes anyways the decision was made to not exit notes, set to 80 column 
mode, re-open notes, handle the specific phantom note, exit notes, switch 
to 132 column mode, re-open notes and resume moving notes.

FWIW, this reply is being typed in 132 column mode and it's transparent to 
you, isn't it?

    
    Perhaps I'm just not understanding the concept of "phantom notes". It
    seems lately that I keep doing a Next Unseen and running into moved 
    notes whose bodies display properly but the included title seems to 
    be centered on a 132 column page. 
    
    								- Mac

>    notes whose bodies display properly but the included title seems to 
>    be centered on a 132 column page. 

That's because I operate in 132 character mode so I can view stuff that 
gets truncated in 80 column mode.  If I double-click on something that's 
been truncated, I get an error.  When I reply to "record not locked" 
strings to bring out the missing note, it gets "written" w/o left 
justification.  If I don't reply, we can't move any more notes into that 
string.  Also, if I don't reply, the next person to reply will reveal the 
phantom note while theirs gets lost.

If I have the time to switch, I do.  If not, the phantom gets written in 
132 column mode so that we can get on with the business at hand. 

Why don't you just reply with an empty note or one that just says "phantom"
or something?  The note you copy seems to be the preceding one which is
not lost, no reason to reenter it again.

-Mike

    	Skip's editor works a bit different than mine, by the sound of it.
    In some cases, you may have come across notes that did say "phantom" or
    just a single character. Those were my notes. When I get record not
    locked errors and have to reply to the note, I get nothing in my
    buffer, so I enter "phantom" and write that. When Skip does the same 
    thing, he gets the phantom note itself in his buffer, so he simple 
    rewrites it.
    
    	Again, the amount of topics have shrunk by a factor of 10. This
    means over 5000 notes were moved or, in some cases deleted. Skip has
    done the vast majority of this. In addition to this, he also moderates
    a number of other conferences. I know what your asking sounds like such
    a little thing, but you need to be aware of the larger picture.
    
    	Ray

>    	Again, the amount of topics have shrunk by a factor of 10. This
>    means over 5000 notes were moved or, in some cases deleted. Skip has

that's 5000 notes PLUS all of their replies.

>>    	Again, the amount of topics have shrunk by a factor of 10. This
>>    means over 5000 notes were moved or, in some cases deleted. Skip has
> that's 5000 notes PLUS all of their replies.

	I hope you kids didn't move *each* individual note by hand!?
	PAN allows you do use "ranges" and hence I believe can move
	a whole topic onto the end of another with one command.

	In hindsight (which is always 20/20 :-) it may of been easier to
	use PAN first to rid the conference of corruption and then also
	use PAN to combine topics.

>	I hope you kids didn't move *each* individual note by hand!?
>	PAN allows you do use "ranges" and hence I believe can move
>	a whole topic onto the end of another with one command.


  So does VAXNOTES.  We moved 'em by ranges.

Actually, what you do is make a list of the topics you want to move then 
use the up-arrow once you get under way and simply change the source note 
number for each topic-move.  50 fairly long topics can be moved in 3 or 
4 minutes once you have your list written up.  Short topics move almost 
instantly, longer topics take up to a minute to move the whole topic with 
replies.  It's when you run across one of those corrupted replies that you 
have to interrupt your pattern and go fix things.

FWIW, yesterday I was able to free up another window and leave that one set 
for 80 columns (why, I don't know :-)  ) to "fix" the phantoms.