The use of links
 

When people ask questions where the answer is easy to find in line and
is well explained then I for one will put a link to it.
I be blowed if I am going to type out a couple of hundred words when
the answer is easily accesible.
I know I could cut and paste, but why should I. It's not fair on those
with slow internet conections.
If there are a lot of people out there who don't bother to open the
links,(and they should be safe when put there by regular merbers of
URG) then why should I and others bother answering questions.
David
At the wet end of Swansea Bay.

The use of links
 

On Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:30:46 -0800 (PST), Dave Hill
wrote:

When people ask questions where the answer is easy to find in line and
is well explained then I for one will put a link to it.
I be blowed if I am going to type out a couple of hundred words when
the answer is easily accesible.
I know I could cut and paste, but why should I. It's not fair on those
with slow internet conections.
If there are a lot of people out there who don't bother to open the
links,(and they should be safe when put there by regular merbers of
URG) then why should I and others bother answering questions.
David
At the wet end of Swansea Bay.

Maybe there are two issues:

1) It's surprising how many people are starting to mistrust the
internet. Even that trusted fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia, may get
things wrong. (Pardon sarcasm please.)

2) With so many questions coming from people who surface via
GardenBanter and then, question answered, submerge never to be seen
again, the "regular members of URG" may well be an unknown quantity.

I'm beginning to realise how many answers are repeats - I've answered
the same lawn question about 5 times on different occasions and am now
starting to save my answers so I can simply paste them in the next
time. I would like to save others' answers as well but that's breach
of copyright in my book.

OTOH, I'm surprised at the number of people who seem incapable of
typing a simple question into their browser search box. I occasionally
do that to check an answer I've given and sometimes just delete my
answer and suggest typing the question into the search box.

"Google helps those who help themselves" comes to mind. I prefer Bing.

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling (after the great storm) from
the usually dryer (east) end of Swansea Bay.

The use of links
 

On 15/12/2011 17:30, Dave Hill wrote:
When people ask questions where the answer is easy to find in line and
is well explained then I for one will put a link to it.
I be blowed if I am going to type out a couple of hundred words when
the answer is easily accesible.
I know I could cut and paste, but why should I. It's not fair on those
with slow internet conections.
If there are a lot of people out there who don't bother to open the
links,(and they should be safe when put there by regular merbers of
URG) then why should I and others bother answering questions.
David
At the wet end of Swansea Bay.

Wrong way round, Dave.

A few paragraphs of text copied and pasted from a webpage to a Usenet
message will be much quicker for someone using dialup to download and
read. A link to a webpage which has the same text, but which also has
umpteen graphics, will take ages to download.

Why the difficulty copying and pasting? Highlight the text you want to
copy, press Control and c, change to the Usenet message, put the cursor
where you want the copied text to appear, and press Control and v.

Simples!

--

Jeff

The use of links
 

On Thu, 15 Dec 2011 20:10:28 +0000, Jeff Layman
wrote:



A few paragraphs of text copied and pasted from a webpage to a Usenet
message will be much quicker for someone using dialup to download and
read. A link to a webpage which has the same text, but which also has
umpteen graphics, will take ages to download.

Why the difficulty copying and pasting? Highlight the text you want to
copy, press Control and c, change to the Usenet message, put the cursor
where you want the copied text to appear, and press Control and v.

Simples!

Threads here fall (I think) into 2 main groups, the discussions which
are usually the regular URGlers and the questions which seem to come
mainly through GardenBanter. If anyone is trying to access GB via
dialup then they won't get as far as asking their question.

As to copy/paste, I've noticed that Chrome (for example) has a lot of
"iffies" and I've often had to copy the URL from Chrome and paste it
into the address bar of IE, reload the page and then copy/paste from
IE.

OTOH, whilst I have to complete my tax return using IE, I then have to
use Chrome to download a copy of that return as a PDF. I then have to
use IE to pay the tax as my bank, for some reason, won't accept the
instruction via Chrome.

The point (eventually) being that copy/paste approach doesn't always
work for everyone in the same way.

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling (after the great storm) from
the usually dryer (east) end of Swansea Bay.

The use of links
 

Why the difficulty copying and pasting? *Highlight the text you want to
copy, press Control and c, change to the Usenet message, put the cursor
where you want the copied text to appear, and press Control and v.

Simples!

--

Jeff

Yes Jeff I do know how to cut and paste, but if someone is just to
bloody idle to look up a simple thing on Google (or Chrome or what
ever) then why the hell should I bother to do the work for them.
David

The use of links
 

On 15/12/2011 21:07, Dave Hill wrote:

Why the difficulty copying and pasting? Highlight the text you want to
copy, press Control and c, change to the Usenet message, put the cursor
where you want the copied text to appear, and press Control and v.

Simples!

--

Jeff

Yes Jeff I do know how to cut and paste, but if someone is just to
bloody idle to look up a simple thing on Google (or Chrome or what
ever) then why the hell should I bother to do the work for them.
David



I go along with much of what you say, David, but idleness isn't
necessarily the reason for a failed internet search, whoever the OP's
browser.
I remember responding to a special seed search question and suggested
the then OP google on 'heritage seeds', which I knew would throw up
oodles of links. The OP was glad to take this advice. His real problem
was not idleness, but the lack of a suitable search word/phrase. He
searched for 'seeds', but 'heritage' was the extra tag he needed to
properly address his search. I was glad to help, as most urglers are;
indeed as are you. We all have moments of mental dullness when we need
a little help.

--
Spider
from high ground in SE London
gardening on clay

That's very noble! I just don't answer once I'm bored with giving the same answer - especially when there's a currently active thread on the same topic!

We used to put a lot of work into FAQs, with the idea that people could be directed to those. And then there were people who complained that being directed to the FAQs was unfriendly to newcomers....

I've no problem with clicking on urls, but I don't bother if there's no indication what it's about. Usually someone says "lots of good advice on .... he", but occasionally someone posts something like "interesting article he" -- interesting article on *what*? Once sentence saying what it's about would tell me whether I wanted to click on it.

And I'm very conscious that although I have good broadband, many people that I know have much slower broadband - clicking on a link takes time, so it is helpful for them to know beforehand whetehr it's likely to be useful/interesting to them or not.

The use of links
 

On 15/12/2011 21:07, Dave Hill wrote:

Why the difficulty copying and pasting? Highlight the text you want to
copy, press Control and c, change to the Usenet message, put the cursor
where you want the copied text to appear, and press Control and v.

Simples!

--

Jeff

Yes Jeff I do know how to cut and paste, but if someone is just to
bloody idle to look up a simple thing on Google (or Chrome or what
ever) then why the hell should I bother to do the work for them.
David

As Spider has pointed out, it's often unclear how to limit a search to
return a sensible number of hits.

And therein lies a real problem for dialuppers. They may have to wait
ages for graphics-rich pages to download before finding that their 12th
hit is the one which has the answer. I suppose they could try to limit
their browsing to text-only, but I just had a look and can't see that as
an option in Firefox or IE9.

It doesn't bother me to copy and paste something into a Usenet message.
I have more of a beef with those who post a link to a photo they've
taken, and the bloody thing is the native umpteen Mb file size that
their camera saved it as. But I suppose they are not aware that screen
resolution is limited, and a 100k *.jpg is more than adequate to view
something that you don't need to print. Heaven help a dialupper who
clicks on /that/ link.

--

Jeff

The use of links
 

Spider wrote in :

On 15/12/2011 21:07, Dave Hill wrote:

Why the difficulty copying and pasting? Highlight the text you want to
copy, press Control and c, change to the Usenet message, put the cursor
where you want the copied text to appear, and press Control and v.

Simples!

--

Jeff

Yes Jeff I do know how to cut and paste, but if someone is just to
bloody idle to look up a simple thing on Google (or Chrome or what
ever) then why the hell should I bother to do the work for them.
David



I go along with much of what you say, David, but idleness isn't
necessarily the reason for a failed internet search, whoever the OP's
browser.
I remember responding to a special seed search question and suggested
the then OP google on 'heritage seeds', which I knew would throw up
oodles of links. The OP was glad to take this advice. His real problem
was not idleness, but the lack of a suitable search word/phrase. He
searched for 'seeds', but 'heritage' was the extra tag he needed to
properly address his search. I was glad to help, as most urglers are;
indeed as are you. We all have moments of mental dullness when we need
a little help.


Also, some of us like to see the views other, more experienced gardeners
and their practical experiences in a particular topic.
Google/www.any is full of absolute rubbish IMO.

It is people like Dave Hill (and loads of others) where we get useful info
within this group. I mean practical and tried and tested from people who we
know and trust.

In my experience it is always better to ask in this group. My success as a
fairly new gardener can be down to asking questions in this group from, as
I say experienced gardeners.

Baz

The use of links
 

On 16/12/2011 11:17, Jeff Layman wrote:
On 15/12/2011 21:07, Dave Hill wrote:

Why the difficulty copying and pasting? Highlight the text you want to
copy, press Control and c, change to the Usenet message, put the cursor
where you want the copied text to appear, and press Control and v.

Simples!

--

Jeff

Yes Jeff I do know how to cut and paste, but if someone is just to
bloody idle to look up a simple thing on Google (or Chrome or what
ever) then why the hell should I bother to do the work for them.
David

As Spider has pointed out, it's often unclear how to limit a search to
return a sensible number of hits.

And therein lies a real problem for dialuppers. They may have to wait
ages for graphics-rich pages to download before finding that their 12th
hit is the one which has the answer. I suppose they could try to limit
their browsing to text-only, but I just had a look and can't see that as
an option in Firefox or IE9.

It doesn't bother me to copy and paste something into a Usenet message.
I have more of a beef with those who post a link to a photo they've
taken, and the bloody thing is the native umpteen Mb file size that
their camera saved it as. But I suppose they are not aware that screen
resolution is limited, and a 100k *.jpg is more than adequate to view
something that you don't need to print. Heaven help a dialupper who
clicks on /that/ link.


As someone who is actually stuck with crappy dial-up I do tend to ask
questions on here rather than look them up on Google. This newsgroup is
simply faster. As mentioned lots of web pages are so stuffed full of
graphics that they take ages to load and I often give up waiting and go
to a different site.

I'm always wary of links from unknown people, especially if they are
hidden with a tinyurl or similar. There are so many sites now designed
to hijack your browser and install malware. I only trust my browser and
security so far, a degree of caution is prudent.

I do use Google for research but it is something of a mixed blessing.

Besides this group is full of fun and interesting people! ;-)

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

The use of links
 

On Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:20:25 +0000, Jake Nospam@invalid wrote:



Maybe there are two issues:

1) It's surprising how many people are starting to mistrust the
internet. Even that trusted fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia, may get
things wrong. (Pardon sarcasm please.)



It's only the same as asking people in real life.
People have different opinions and some are sometimes wrong.
--
http://www.voucherfreebies.co.uk