posting coolness/noncoolness

Define "forum". This is not a forum it is newsgroup, part of usenet. Crossposting to multiple groups is allowed provided that you do it properly(*) and only to, at the very most, half a dozen *relevant* groups.

(*) All the target newsgroups listed in the Newsgroups: line in the header, decent news software will only show the reader one copy in the first group they find it.

I'd say it depends. If you go onto a website-based Bulletin Board such as mud-club.com, and then post the same message in each forum, as occasionally happens, people will get annoyed (even if they don't say so) because a lot of users will monitor all new messages across the whole board, regardless of the forum. These boards are also usually set up so the forums are fairly unambiguous, so if you post a "For Sale" notice in both "For Sale" and "Defender", it's rather pointless; that's what the "For Sale" forum is for.

If you post on Usenet, the chances are much less that you will have the same people watching several newsgroups, unless they are very close in subject matter. So if you were to post both here and rec.fuels.lpg I don't think you'd have many complaints. Even if you posted here and in that bizarre shed newsgroup :) that lots of people here use, people will usually find that OK.

The exception to this is that you shouldn't cross-post in contradictory newsgroups (such as cross-posting "Look at my lovely new V8" in alt.fan.gas-guzzlers and alt.environmentalists at the same time) as you'll start unintentional flame wars (sometimes people don't realise the message is cross-posted when they read or reply) that can go on for decades.

And I'd say it's perfectly acceptable to post a message both here and on mud-club.com because the audience overlap isn't typically that large.

As a rule of thumb - if you think the readers of 2 different forums are going to be the same people, don't multi-post. Otherwise you should be OK.

Does this help at all?

David

OK then,

fo·rum n. pl. fo·rums, also fo·ra 1. a. The public square or marketplace of an ancient Roman city that was the assembly place for judicial activity and public business. b. A public meeting place for open discussion. c. A medium of open discussion or voicing of ideas, such as a newspaper or a radio or television program.

Taking the pedantic view, this *is* a forum, (c), and arguably figuratively (b).

That's good, shoot the newbie user down in flames :) Ah, the wonder that is Usenet.

David

David> That's good, shoot the newbie user down in flames :) Ah, David> the wonder that is Usenet.

That's how they learn not to be newbies. :-)

Andy

The question was cool Steve, some of the answers might not be.

If you aren't sure about looking silly with what appear to be uncool questions, try running the question, or the main words of the question, through Google and view the results in the "Groups" option (one of the links above the dialogue box where you type in your query)

You can then see if it's been asked before, and what, if any, answers it got.

All the best

'course, now I read the question properly I see you are referring to crossposting.

Not always a good idea unless the subject being discussed is relevant to both newsgroups. For instance, crossposting a complaint about motorcycles to uk.rec.motorcyces and alt.fan.landrover although you are a braver man than I for trying it with that newsgroup :)

If you ask a question on one group, get an answer, go away and ask the same question some months later, your second answer might be blunter, it does happen :)

All the best

In news: snipped-for-privacy@cunningham.me.uk, AndyC the WB blithered:

At least not to admit to it!

I only look into 2 news groups. Here & uk.rec.caravans there are LOADS of the same people!!!

So Martin Edwards was, like

I stopped reading the caravan group months ago. Too full of trolls and flame wars. It makes afl look very civilised.