Hi all,

I am a newbie to BAUT but have previously used VBulletin at Physics Forums.
I actually have two questions.

The easy one is this: am I correct in understading that BAUT has only very limited support for mathematical formulas? If so, that is regretable since for example in threads on cosmological models in order to fix ideas it would be useful to be able to write out a line element and state intended range of coordinates, to avoid misunderstanding. If not, can someone provide a link to a tutorial on including math? And while we are at it, what about uploading small figures (e.g. diagrams to illustrate a geometric scenario)?

The thornier one is this:

My BAUT debut got off to a rocky start: I reconsidered and deleted my initial post shortly after posting it, basically because I decided on further reflection that my speaking up would probably not help much. I agree it is much better to not post than to post and then delete, but that's not the point here.
The point is that JimJast, one of the participants in that thread (see Einstein's universe), who is himself a BAUT newbie (or so I understand), apparently signed up for email notification of replies to his own posts, and consequently he apparently received by email my entire post. By the time he came back to BAUT the next day, due to a misunderstanding someone else had already reposted my deleted post and Jim (the moderator, not to be confused with JimJast) had deleted the repost. But then JimJast apparently used his "email notification" to repost my entire self-deleted post a -second- time! (And he seems to be claiming he is entitled to do so.) When I came back myself I therefore several posts quoting snippets from my self-deleted post, which placed me in an awkward position.

(I chose to post a second time to try to restore the missing context and then withdrew from the thread, which was my attempt to make the most of a bad situation. Alas, things have gotten even -more- confusing since then--- arghgh!--- but that's not the point here. BTW, I hope I have described events accurately but can't be sure since I'm so new here. And thanks again to Jim (the moderator) for trying to fix the mess, but unfortunately this seems to have proven impossible.)

So my question is: for future reference: am I correct in concluding that users who opt into email notification receive the entire text of all replies to their posts, so that the same situation could arise again? Is there any BAUT rule against user V reposting a post self-deleted by user U?

I hope it is clear that the problem here is that snippets quoted from a self-deleted ill-advised post can perhaps lead to even more confusion and/or vituperation than leaving up the original ill-advised post. As I said, clearly the original cause of this particular mess was that I posted in the first place, which I now regret even more than I did when I deleted the thing!

Yes, if your post is the next one made after a thread subscriber's last visit to the forum, (s)he'll get an e-mail containing the text of your original post. Subsequent edits and deletions won't be notified.
I've fallen foul of this myself, once: I posted, noticed I'd effectively duplicated someone else's post (which I should have read but hadn't) and so deleted within a few seconds of posting. Then another poster turned up, looking to reply to some specific wording I'd used, and couldn't find the post, so used the version they'd received in e-mail. They assumed the forum software had glitched, as seems to have happened on your thread. On that occasion there was no great harm done, other than my embarrassment at having to explain the deletion.
I've since been caught at the other end of the problem: receiving the e-mail and bouncing on to the forum to reply, only to discover that the poster has removed the post. Given my own experience, I then assume the removal was deliberate, and maintain a diplomatic silence. It seems to me that those who edit long replies off-line would be well-advised to at least connect to the forum to pick up the current version of the post they're replying to, since people often enough change a word or two or add an afterthought in the few minutes after the original post, even though outright deletions are rare.

I've since thought that what I should do on BAUT, if I ever really want to retract a post, is to edit out the original text but to write a formal retraction in its place.

Grant Hutchison

By the way, for mathematical formulae, you can have the Greek letters and mathematical symbols that appear in the common font repertoire under "symbols", as well as superscripts and subscripts. But that's about it. For diagrams, I've usually posted a link to an image in my own webspace, but I see that some folks around here successfully embed images or thumbnails in their posts.

Grant Hutchison

You should have seen mine In fact... I'm still on that rocky start...

The rest: I wouldn't worry about it much. Sometimes things don't go as smoothly as we like, but most folks around here are intelligent enough to figure out what happened.

You can't vouch for what other people do sometimes and Jim was on the ball too.

I don't think any part of it reflected back on you in any way.
Sometimes miscommunications and errors happen.

In the meantime, you seem to be quite knowledgeable and I'm looking forward to your future posts.

It helps to have the brains on BAUT to counter-act my bumbling.

This one at least is clear, if he got the quote from the email instead of from the board he's NOT entitled to quote it.

__________________
An emperor without enemies, a king without a kingdom, supported in life by the willing tribute of a free people.

Then it seems that someone in Mr Hillman's position could ask a moderator to delete the re-posting.

Hi all,

Grant: edit rather than delete, good idea, thanks. For future reference: would someone using the email feature receive a warning that I have edited my original post?

Henrik: I thought as much. Even though I have let this particular incident go, could you drop an "official PM" to JimJast to tell him what you just told me? Because he explicitly stated that he was responding to the email notification many hours after my post and been self-deleted, reposted by someone who assumed the forum had eaten it, and properly re-deleted by Jim (the moderator), and in responding to public chiding he did state that he believes he was within his rights to ignore the self-deletion. Thanks!

Neverfly: thanks for the encouragement!

I've never seen such a thing, unless it's an option embedded in the user options somewhere. I get notification of new traffic on the thread, in the form of a single copy of the original version of the first new post since my last visit.

Grant Hutchison

Why not? How can you tell whether a quote comes from an e-mail notification, or simply from the poster's memory? Maybe he saw the post in the forum before it was deleted.

__________________
"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

As I already noted, in this particular incident, the reposter specifically stated that he had reposted material -from the email notification-.

Alright, but what's wrong with that? There's nothing in the e-mail notification that wasn't already publicly displayed in the forum (at least for a while). Besides, I don't recall any BAUT rules forbidding us from posting material from e-mail notifications. It's distateful, I agree, but as far as I know it's not forbidden.

Please realise that I am not commenting on the specific case that happened to you, Chris. I did not see the thread. I'm just concerned that this event may create a precedent of punishing forum users for doing something which is not expressly against the rules.

__________________
"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

5. Privacy Issues

Do not post private email you have received without the express permission of the sender. There are legal and copyright reasons for this, not to mention that doing so is very impolite. The same caveat applies to private messages, whether they're from this forum or anywhere else. If you receive rude or abusive private messages on this forum, please contact the administrators/moderators for assistance. Posting private information about forum users that is not available otherwise publicly will not be tolerated.

Perhaps a bit of a gray area...

If you receive a PM that contains a post, the fact that the post is public would seem to meet the "permission to quote" requirement; besides, you're really quoting the post. However, if the post has been deleted, that would indicate that the poster did not want it public, which indicates you do not have permission to quote it.

__________________
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Rule #5 talks about private e-mails and messages. I don't see how an e-mail notification can be regarded as private, when anybody can ask for it, and everything it contains is available in the public section of the forum.

__________________
"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

By deleting the post and expressing a wish that the posted should not be quoted the copyright holder has expressed removed permission to quote him.

This means the relevant rules of the board are Rule 4. Copyright and Rule 14. Disruptive Behavior.

As I see it, it's not a privacy issue, it's a copyright and bad behavior issue.

__________________
An emperor without enemies, a king without a kingdom, supported in life by the willing tribute of a free people.

The support for maths is very limited, and while it would be nice to be able to eg. write:
and see:
it isn't implemented at the moment.

That formula in incidentally done with mimeTex, I think there may be a way to make vBulletin show the math tags I made using that, but that may require more server configuration that Fraser has time for at the moment.

I do agree that it would be really nice to be able to include in an explanation, but that's currently not easy. (Says he while doing it)

Uploading small images you've made (note the YOU here, copyright issues are relevant), is done by the Go Advanced button, and uploading it as an attachment.

__________________
An emperor without enemies, a king without a kingdom, supported in life by the willing tribute of a free people.

I agree with Disinfo. What happened appears to be within the rules, however inappropriate. If all are agreed that the behaivior should not be allowed, the solution is to amend the rules.

It was within the rules. The quoting poster was later informed about the 'misunderstanding.'
Rather than correct it- he chose to argue it. Personally, I think he has that right (prerogative)- whether many folks agree with him doing it or not.

From my own experience, I would say "give folks enough rope to hang themselves."
The quoting poster created an impression of himself, regardless as to whether or not he was in the rules. That can, at times, be more damaging than a rule infraction.

As I mentioned to Chris Hillman earlier, sometimes things don't as smoothly as we would like. That's unpredictability... these things happen.

But it's over and done with- impressions are made- and so far, Chris Hillman doesn't seem to have made any negative impressions at all. I'd suggest leaving it lie to fade into the background as more posts are made.
So far Chris Hillman's contributions have been well informed and interesting.
Sure, occasionally, any of us can get roughed up at times. Other times, someone reacts too quickly, misunderstands or takes exception... Well, these things happen in discussions. I know they happen with me a lot too.
So you blow the dust off your keyboard and have another go at it.


I was not aware of that email notification feature actually- I will have to watch out for that when I start thinking about deleting my awful, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad posts...

Not sure why you quoted me to make that statement - I didn't say it was outside the rules. Quite the opposite.

I do agree that it is usually best to let things lie. But if we've discovered a loophole in the rules, we should close it to make clear what is expected for the next occurrence. Ambiguity is not helpful.

I quoted you