Re: the myth of the open range grazing system.

I have edited my post to be as inoffensive as I possibly make it. I had no idea it could be construed as argumentative. I hope that the edited version will be good enough.

I took a look at the thread.  After reading the first post I deleted it which removed the whole thread.  Some of the publishing standards we have are "Be nice", "Leave room for other's ideas" and "Don't state the truth".  Those were all violated in the first two paragraphs.  You're welcome to ask your question or pose your statements in a way that follows publishing standards.

Mike Jay Haasl wrote:I took a look at the thread.  After reading the first post I deleted it which removed the whole thread.  Some of the publishing standards we have are "Be nice", "Leave room for other's ideas" and "Don't state the truth".  Those were all violated in the first two paragraphs.  You're welcome to ask your question or pose your statements in a way that follows publishing standards.

I respectfully disagree with your decision, but so be it. That's a whole afternoon of my life I'll never get back. The subject is one that requires a real discussion,  which I was attempting to start. I'm sorry I didn't meet your rigorous standards. If no one ever states the truth, all you have left is falshoods and lies. Ah, but history is always written by somebody who thinks that they are the victor. May we always be plagued with the need to examine the truth.

Please have a look at some of the following links which will give you a better understanding of the kind of conversation we encourage here.

publishing standards
be nice
leaving room for other people's ideas
but but but but
hate in the name of love
you should do something
citation needed?
censorship
debate vs sharing
free speech


I had a look at your posts in question and they came across as bossy and demanding.  They did NOT meet the publishing standards.  You are not a moderator here, you do not have the privilege to tell others what they can or cannot say on these forums.

The content you were sharing about your topic was fine, the way you said it did not meet publishing standards.

For example:

If no one ever states the truth, all you have left is falshoods and lies.

does not meet publishing standards.  You are not leaving room for other people's opinions and you are insulting the staff that work so hard (unpaid) to keep this place nice.  It would be an excelent idea for you to read (or reread) the above links before posting here again.  

r ranson wrote:
...
I had a look at your posts in question and they came across as bossy and demanding.  They did NOT meet the publishing standards.  You are not a moderator here, you do not have the privilege to tell others what they can or cannot say on these forums.

The content you were sharing about your topic was fine, the way you said it did not meet publishing standards.

For example:

If no one ever states the truth, all you have left is falshoods and lies.

does not meet publishing standards.  You are not leaving room for other people's opinions and you are insulting the staff that work so hard (unpaid) to keep this place nice.  It would be an excelent idea for you to read (or reread) the above links before posting here again.  

I have reviewed the links you provided (edited from this reply to conserve space) and you are correct.

However, in the vein of "tinkering with the site", I wonder if there might be a way to allow the writer of a post to access the post before you delete it?

I know this may difficult to do on such a large and active site, but here's the reasoning: I spent a large amount of time to craft my posts. As you pointed out, much of the content was OK, but my manner was uneccessarily bossy and overbearing. What prompted my first reply to the moderator was the heartbreaking realization that suddenly all that work was GONE in a keystroke. Although necessary, it did not seem "nice" to me at the moment!  (A moderator's job is often a thankless one, for sure.)

May I suggest that authors of a post be given a chance of save a copy of their post before it is deleted?

Could the Purple Moosage include a reminder to save a copy of the work, in case the rewrite attempt does not meet muster? Alternatively, could the offending post be put into a "time-out room", inaccessible to the rest of the website, where writer of the the post could conform it to meet the publishing standards? It would be nice if to have a way to avoid seeing my hard work suddenly vanish without a trace!

As far as I have experienced, this is a unique site. The guidelines and the hard work of the moderators work so well to keep the conversations virtually "flame-free". In this case, I think the topic hit some nerves that I had not considered when I clicked on the "Submit" button. Meeting the guidelines requires a very different writing style than is found acceptable on most other sites. This is a GOOD thing. (BTW, those other sites delete threads without even a notice such as the Purple Moosage that was sent to me in this case.)

In my round-about way, what I am asking/suggesting is I wish that a procedure could be designed that would allow the writer of the offending post to save/sequester the work in hopes that it could then be rewritten and re-posted.

I will attempt to re-post on the subject. It is an important and sensitive topic for Permaculturalists to examine because the capabilities of Permaculture Design may be vital to saving the productivity and soil health of large swaths of the rangelands of the world.

My post had received two or three up-votes before it was taken down, so I know there is some interest in the topic. The first responder actually alerted me to the toes that I had stepped on. My process is to edit and rework everything and I rarely post without ending up making multiple edits.  I appreciate that I was given a Purple Moosage and allowed one re-write. In the future, I will be sure to make an offline copy of my post so that I won't be so devastated about seeing three hours of my work destroyed without a trace!

I realize that it is virtually impossible for the moderators to "babysit" multiple posts until the author finally wrangles the post into an acceptable form. On the other hand, I wish there were a way so that any author could retrieve the deleted content and not have to start over from scratch. I would hate to lose my access to this wonderful resource, simply because I have not yet mastered my writing style to conform to the publishing guidelines.

On a separate and totally geeky note, the online editor uses a much different font and size than what finally gets published. My computer (a MAC laptop) makes it very difficult to see errors. I'm wondering if there is a way to increase the size of the text that is displayed in the editor. I often overlook errors because the text is so hard to see. I'm not sure if that is a function of my laptop's OS, or if it's a function of the browser that I use.

Does anyone know how I can make things easier to see in the text editor windows?

When all is said and done, this is really only a minor thing. I really appreciate how complex this web site is, and how difficult it must be to keep it all up and running.

Keep up the good work, my friends! Thank you for all that you do!

However, I am wondering if there might be a way to allow the writer of a post to access the post before you delete it?

we have the almost-a-post system.  We use this for posts that are excellent except for one small thing that needs to go away.

Most of the time, when we use this feature, people complain and insult us.  They spend a lot of time time trying to make us do what they command.  The staff would rather be out there doing lovely, productive things that promote permaculture.  Basically, it's a case of policy based on the sins of those who came before.

Paul encourages us to remove anything that doesn't meet publishing standards.



Permies is a nice place because the tools we have work and the excellent moderators who volunteer their time to keep this place nice.  

The site is different than the rest of the internet.  For some people, this is good and creates the culture they want to participate in.  For others, it takes a bit of getting used to.

I find it excellent policy to write all long posts in a text editor first.

This serves 3 purposes.

1) Retention of work if there are technical issues posting, which happened to me relatively often.

2) Retention of work if it gets nuked.

3) I feel a lot less pressure to finish writing and click post; easy to click save and do a quick re-read the next morning for permie-suitability.


I hope you do revamp your post.. I had read a portion before it vanished, and it was interesting stuff that does indeed need discussing.. but I was not surprised when it went away!

I congratulate the staff for deleting the open range grazing thread so quickly. Last time it came up and was presented in a zealous manner, we allowed it to fester for a few days, and lost a good cattle-rancher member of the forum. That Nevada rancher had a lot of wisdom to share about protecting the environment, permaculture, water harvesting, and desert agriculture.

One of the things I like most about this site is that we are encouraged to not rage against evil people, but to build something better.  

Mark Kissinger wrote:
On a separate and totally geeky note, the online editor uses a much different font and size than what finally gets published. My computer (a MAC laptop) makes it very difficult to see errors. I'm wondering if there is a way to increase the size of the text that is displayed in the editor. I often overlook errors because the text is so hard to see. I'm not sure if that is a function of my laptop's OS, or if it's a function of the browser that I use.

Does anyone know how I can make things easier to see in the text editor windows?

I also write in a text editor program if I am writing something other than quick replies. Increasing the whole zoom of the window (Cntrl+ on my windows machine) helps a  bit, but makes it so I have to scroll back and forth, and miss typos. I tend to have to read it once posted, then go back and edit the typos I missed.  (Cntrl- to take it back to normal zoom.) I use an old version of Word, because it's lower tech than the current ones, and I can easily adjust my fonts and colors so I can see them, then copy and paste it into a reply window.

What I like to do is zoom in like Pearl mentioned. BUT, I also make the text box narrower. That way I don't have to scroll back and forth. I honestly didn't know this was an option on forums/facebook/text boxes-in-general, until my husband showed me a year back. It's a life saver!

In the bottom right corner of the text box is three diagonal lines. Click on these and you can change the size of the text box. You can make it longer and wider! You can also do this on the Quick Reply text box, too. And, I've encountered it elsewhere on the net.

So, if you zoom in like Pearl does, and then also fiddle with the text box size, you can make the font essentially larger.

I make my screen narrower--even if I haven't zoomed in--when I'm writing long messages or tutorials, because it allows me to scroll up and down a lot easier. I get really annoyed when I'm tyring to scroll down through what I wrote, and accidentally end up scrolling the whole page, and end up below my text box. Maddening!

WHOO! I thought I had checked for that here! Pie for Nicole, that will make my life MUCH easier! Thank you!!

You're welcome! It feels kind of silly to say this, but it's true: that little text-box-size-changer is a life changer! I just embedded all the PEX badges in this thread, and that meant having two seperate windows open so I could copy the image address fronm where I'd uploaded it, and then paste it in that thread. It would have take like 5 times as long if I hadn't been able to make the text box narrow, so I could easily see everything I'd pasted over.

That text box size changer doohicky is amazing!

Thank you all for your comments and advice.