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Old 15-10-2006, 09:33   #1
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Exclamation All Your Posts Are Belonging To Us

I noticed today (10/15/06) that certain words posted by members have been turned into green roll-over links that point to advertisements obstensibly related to the linked words in the post. So far, words such as boat, marketing, Mediterranean, Portugal and travels have been so altered. The results (the linked commercial sites) are sometimes not sailing-related per se. It appears that a word list may be being used.

I don't mind anyone trying to turn a buck, but I object to anyone opening up my post and monkeying around with the actual text. I'm grateful for the ability to insert a link myself for clarification or illustration, or to point to someone's blog or website that has information related to my post. And if I post something that is outside the liberal bounds of decency and/or civility of this site, something obscene, for example, the moderator has every right to expunge my post, er, post haste, as it were. I'm glad there are standards here.

But editing my post is something else all together, and I'm very uncomfortable with it. My post gets changed from what I want to say into what someone else wants to say using what I'm saying. Someone getting into my post and making changes to the actual characters I've typed, including HTML, is, well, Orwellian (that link's mine).

What's next, the moderator's spelling corrections? (Lord, that would keep someone busy around here!)

It hasn't happened to me yet, but I already feel used.

What does everyone else think about having his posts altered to be used as springboards to advertisements?
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Old 15-10-2006, 10:05   #2
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Jeff - I'll buck this one upstairs, but it isn't an editing function by us humans. I believe that it is an automatic thing. But, since I'm not sure, I'll point the ADMIN types in this direction.
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Old 15-10-2006, 11:33   #3
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It's a mod for vbulletin (the forum software), no one is editing your posts by hand. They gotta pay the bills somehow and if having a couple words in your posts point to adwords keeps this place up and running who are we to complain?

PS Why do i find topics with an "All your base are belong to us" theme impossible to ignore?
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Old 15-10-2006, 11:39   #4
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Cpt Jeff, I hunted through posts this morning and I couldn't find anything as you described. Can you point me to a thread you have found with this issue. Maybe it is something you can turn off or on, not sure. But I for one am against that sort of feature and nothing to say it was going to be introduced was discussed with the "team", so I don't know at the moment as to what this is.
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Old 15-10-2006, 11:47   #5
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You have to be logged out to see it, if you are logged in you won't see the ads. There's also a big box at the top of each post that says "Click Here To Register"
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Old 15-10-2006, 12:01   #6
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ah hah! I get it ::: putting on shades because of the blinding light of enlightenment::: For those that aren't registered, THEY have those links. The price they pay for not becoming members (or for not logging in).
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Old 15-10-2006, 15:52   #7
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I have noticed on several posts and it never seems to be the same way twice? at least not that pay attention other than when it irritates the fire out of me as it will open a temporary pop up window when you roll over one. For instance, I got the word 'running' in lattitude 9.5's first post on this page that was search ask.com for things on 'running'. It was underlined twice and the work was in green.

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Old 15-10-2006, 17:21   #8
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I've tried it with three browsers, Opera, Mozilla and IE. I see exactly what you do when NOT logged in and I see no underlines when logged in.
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Old 15-10-2006, 19:43   #9
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Thanks, Scott,

I usually am logged in automatically, but I guess I came in through a different door or something. I came back this evening after a nice day sail (thankyouverymuch), and came on the site. When I logged out, I saw green. Logged in, all threads are scrubbed.

Well, I for one am glad I don't have to navigate through a minefield of pop-up ads, and I'm grateful for the admin. for sparing us. Thanks, Scott, for looking into it. I'm happy now.

Oh, and to clarify: put ads anywhere you want on the site, I don't even have a say, but don't modify the characters I type (and changing a word into a link is a modification). It's just not right.

Off to do my laundry…

P.S.— Yeah, "All your bases are belong…" is a great tag, isn't it?

P.P.S.— You get that pedestal put back together okay with the Edson part?
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Old 15-10-2006, 20:11   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainJeff
P.S.— Yeah, "All your bases are belong…" is a great tag, isn't it?
LOL, it's like kids and candy, i just can't resist.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainJeff
P.P.S.— You get that pedestal put back together okay with the Edson part?
Still waiting on the part, apparently a special order According to the dims it should fit up, but we all know how often "shoulds" work out! U on the C30 list?
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Old 15-10-2006, 20:21   #11
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Huh?

RE: C30 list

I'm registered over at the Yahoo group Catalina 30 Owners. You must be refering to Yahoo, right? I do remember a recent post about jury-rigging a throttle cable just as I found on your blog just a few minutes ago (my first visit).
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Old 15-10-2006, 20:24   #12
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Naw I was talkin about the yahoo one. I ended up emailing pics of several c30's i found with the same riser to catalina direct, they called catalina who said they had no clue where it came from.
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Old 15-10-2006, 20:46   #13
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I'm glad you are sorted Cpt Jeff, I wish all issues were this easily resolved.
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Old 15-10-2006, 22:30   #14
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http://cruisersforum.com/forums/show...7926#post47926
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Old 19-10-2006, 12:51   #15
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The ads support the site by paying for software, software upgrades, new servers (moving to a new one tonight), server colocation, server admin fees, and our own Google Adwords and Yahoo Publisher ads.

The logic is to show the least amount of ads to our active participants and to try and generate the revenue off of the guests. This does two things; 1. rewards our active members by seeing less posts 2. encourages guests to become members and see less ads.

As for the text links, those are served by one of two companies and they do not edit your text. The way they work is by "attaching" to words in your text (we don't tell them which words, they just try and figure it out). So please don't be worried that your posts are being edit, they are not...
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