Gabriel,

I found your recommendation written in a contradictory manner. First you say don't do it. Then you say copy the stuff. Let's NOT fill the formum up with lots of quotations. Small extracts, yes; big quotations of lots of copied text, no.

I also don't think there "is" any published single standard describing how to decide if one is or is not "abiding" by what one "knows" and "practices" as general semantics.

The general semantics community is "politically" divided over the suggestion that we "should" only write in "E-prime". Moreover, people at different levels of experience have different views; we have no general semantics "thought police".


I agreee that a quote, when given, should include an identification of its source - including if the source is from a linked internet page. We know internet pages change, and often the content disappears from the internet. If the quote is from a more permanent source, such as a book or publication, that information should be included too. This is simply good time binding - not to mention proper academic citation. This also applies when one is simply summarizing or abstracting from a source. Don't present something reworded from a source without crediting the source.

When links are broken, and you have a direct quote, many times you can search for the quoted content and find its new location or another copy.

I recommend moving the prior two posts to the "Need Help? Have a Suggestion?" topic as a more appropriate place for them, (and deleting this post as no longer needed.)

What does this line of discussion have to do with "in the news"? It's clearly a suggestion as to how to do things. It's not news, and it's not about vitamin C.

Ah ha! The "map" (forum and topic title) does not cover the territory (the content of the threads).

I thought moderating this board was a joint effort, but the response was in the first person singular. Are we down to only one moderator now?

It would appear that the moderator(s?) have exercised very little effort (discipline) in moderating the discussion list ... resulting in the content of discussions often deviating to areas completely unrelated to the expressed topic.

I realize that making (an effort to keep) the content of threads in line with the thread introductory topic sentence, (and thus allowing readers to find content of interest more easily) represents at least some "enforcement" of "intensional" activity in the sense that it is modifying (the organization of) the territory (thread content placement) in order to keep it having an expanded structure "similar to" (can be abstracted to) the original thread topic title. And Who knows that (some) general semanticists eschew intensional activity on the grounds that it implies an intensional orientation. Never mind that conscious time-binding - in the form of teaching the young - is majorly intensional (just look at the school system) with only a modicum of hands-on extensional activity).

A "moral" of the story is that if we choose to read or not read a thread based on its title topic sentence we may be filtering based on information often unrelated to the major content of the thread. Unlike fiction novels, we expect chapter and paragraph headings to have some indicitive value with respect to the content of the corresponding sections. I've seen many a moderated discussion list in which on-topic is ennforced. This allows readers to more quiclky find information of interest.

Hi Ben,
Thanks for your response.
The reason I suggested moving this thread within a thread is that it started off without any direct reference to anything prior in the thread. Evidently Gabriel underwent an abstraction process from reading this or other prior posts that resulted in the idea he posted, but it showed no direct connection to anything in the thread prior, and it began with "I have a suggestion ..." (about posting ettiquite) in general.

I'll post my new suggestion in the appropriate place.