Miscellaneous Technical Questions
FAQ 10: Miscellaneous Info
version 1.01

New: See the end of this FAQ for new additions.

How to repost at a generic message Board

There are two general ways to repost at typical message board. The first way is to post by copying and pasting. I strongly recommend this for those of you that are not familiar with html.

I repost using html, which is very fast and easy. If everything is alright, it might only take me half a minute to prepare a repost.

Important: Unlike other FAQs, you may want to re-read this FAQ before you try anything. With other FAQs, you can make mistakes and just start over. With this one, it is not as easy. ;)

1) Remove or shorten unconstructive comments. Some examples include posts that are:

• off-topic
• derogatory (with no on-topic or constructive value)
• tests
• spam
• unreasonably long (as in several pages double spaced), etc...
• malicious (disturbs other posts or makes other posts harder to read)

2) You don't always have to repost everything.

• If it's your first few times, making a mistake will have much less negative effect with a smaller repost

3) After you get used to reposting, don't take too much time in reposting; it doesn't have to be perfect. I usually prepare a repost in a few seconds to a minute (using special software, some of which I'll mention later).

4) There are several possible goals for reposting.

• save visitors the trouble of skipping clutter and malicious posts
• push down damaged portions of the board
• preserve posts that have been pushed off
• reduce board size (by pushing off posts before reposting)

Note: Generally I only repost if there are malicious postings to the board or an unreasonably high number of test/spam posts (which rarely happens).

5) Zip brings up the important point that in reposting, you should be careful not to act as a judge of what is useful and what is not. I generally only remove posts that fit the description of section 1, in addition to doing the following:

• if I see a double or triple post, I reduce it to a single post
• however, if a post is posted an unreasonably large number of times (such as spam posted 20 times in a week), I will remove it entirely
• I remove tests because assuming it is really a test it's purpose has been already served and does not need to be reposted
• I remove derogatory and obscene posts because such discussions can be made elsewhere in private and are typically off-topic anyways

There is a limit to how much you can put into one post.

• It's hard to reach this limit (you might reach it if you tried reposting the enitre board or if the board was exceptionally large).
• Check to make sure that the very last line goes into the box (in my case, I make sure that the "*****End Repost*****" label is at the very bottom; if I notice that it's cut off, then I'll have to remove some posts

1) Copying and pasting has some advantages.

• It's much harder to make a mistake
• It's easier to learn; most people already know how to do this
• It's much faster
• Pictures will automatically be removed
• Java will automatically be removed

2) Copying and pasting has several disadvantages. (for J-style boards in particular)

• E-mail addresses will dissapear because in html the "<" and ">" symbols in html are interpreted to be commands; so, I suggest you either ignore it or if you know how, remove the "<" and ">"
• Posts won't be separated by a long flat divider line (created with the "hr" html command). So, it might be hard to tell where one post ends and another begins; King uses a long line of ---------- and pastes it inbetween each post
• Links can't be copied and pasted directly; just forget about them in this case, since it's usually better that posts be in text anyways
• If someone changes the font in a post above yours (or does some other formatting), it will affect all of your repost, since your repost in this case would be plain text.

As always, please try not to repost too much. If you repost everything, you'll end up doubling the size of the message board.

Alternatively, you may sometimes with to repost only 1-5 of your favorite posts. In this case I don't think anyone would have much of an objection.

1) This is difficult for some people, and it takes some practice. However once you are good at it it should take under a minute (and under certain conditions only seconds).

• I strongly suggest getting a free program called "Editpad", as I will be describing several techniques which use Editpad.
• Download the English version of EditPad

2) To start off, you must obtain the original html source for the message board.

• to do so for Netscape, click on the bottom frame (where the posts are). This will select the bottom frame. Then go to File -> Save frame as.
• to do so for Internet Explorer, just right click on the bottom half and choose to either view the source (and then save it) or save the frame.
• Make sure you've loaded the entire page or it might only save part of it (although if the page is really big maybe you really do just want part of it).
• Once you have obtained the html source, use Editpad to open the file up.

3) There are several things I recommend in general.

• compensate for the extra returns that Jade board throws in by removing all extra returns entirely (I'll describe how later)
• eliminate unnecessary html like h3 and /h3 (not because it saves space but because it decreases the chance you'll mess up)
• after you repost, use editpad to make a backup of what you posted (if you repost to bbs1, save it as filename "repost.htm" and if you repost to bbs2, save it as filename "repost2.htm"). That way if you need to repost again in the near future, you can use what you saved and add on what's new at the top to make your repost. Another advantage of saving your repost is that it gives you a copy of any headers you can reuse. Also, if the file you have open is already called repost.htm, then simply press CTRL+S and editpad will automatically save the page.

4) Headers are not necessary, so when you start out you don't need this.

What you just saw was html. This is how it actually appears once it's posted:

As you can see, nothing actually appears, because all the header does is tell the rest of the page what color, size, and style the text should be in.

I used to also put this at the beginning of my repost:
[Repost of messages. Some excessive shouting, spam, tests, obscenity, solicitations, and off-topic posts may be missing in this repost. Posts which have been repeated excessively have been removed entirely from this repost]

5) Now let me describe what each of the html commands in the first example were for as well as how they affect the output.

• The </a> command stops short any attempt at turning the entire page blue in case someone posts a <a href..> comand without ending the command.
• The </font> command stops any formatting commands that changes the font, size, or color of text.
• The <font size = +1> and <b> commands then adjusts all fonts so that they are the standard Jade Board size. Jade board uses the <h3> command instead, but that command is usually identical to the font size +1 command when used in combination with the b command (the b command means bold style font). The reason why I don't use just a <h3> command will be explained later when I get to the Editpad techniques.
• The </script> tag stops short any javascript comments that might otherwise blank out the rest of the posts. If such a comment appears, simply repost anything (if anything) that is commented out.
• If a blink or center tag is effective (despite the present header), then you can modify the header to include a /center or /blink tag.

1) It is important to note that in html, a "return" is completely different than the <br> tag.

• in html, a "return" is treated just like a space made by the spacebar
• for that reason, in html returns are usually completely ignored (you can put a hundred returns and your browser won't skip a single line).
• a <br>, on the other hand, is what actually tells your browser to go to the next line in html.

2) Why is #1 important? Well, if you look at the source html at Jade, you'll notice there are a ton of extra returns (which your browser will ignore). However, this is a problem in reposting because if you leave those extra returns in, Jade board will actually convert them to <br> tags (which your browser will no longer ignore).

• so, if you simply take the original html source and post it, it will have a lot of extra spaces in it (which is better than seeing pages of spam in some cases, but it's still better to fix it)
• remember that Jade board will actually insert a <br> tag before every line, including completely blank lines
• so, every return that you use in the original html will become a <h3> tag

3) As explained in #2, one of the things you should do is to eliminate all the extra returns.

• I strongly recommend Editpad
• Editpad is one of the few programs that has a system for recognizing returns (most other word processors don't)
• With editpad, "\n" is the equivalent of a return (Be careful not to use /n, as it will not work)
• So, when you use the Replace function with Editpad, typing in a \n will always mean a return.
• To eliminate all extra returns, I tell Editpad to replace all occurrances of "\n\n" with "\n"
• This means that any time Editpad sees two returns in a row, it combines them into one.

4) Note that the reason I don't replace every "\n" with a blank space (" ") is because that would get rid of all returns.

• Instead, we just want to eliminate extra returns.
• Eliminating all returns would literally place everything on a single line
• Using "\n\n" like described in #3 will ensure that you'll eliminate only extra returns (in other words, only when there are two returns in a row)
• Note that you may have to repeat this replace process a few times, because if there are four returns in a row, Editpad will combine them into two returns, so you'll have to run the replace function a second time to combine them into one return. However, in the summary section I'll explain a faster order to do this once you've learned the basics.

5) Although I just told you how to eliminate extra returns, there are a few things you might want to eliminate in addition. One thing is to do is to convert all those <br> commands into normal returns.

• This is not mandatory, but I do recommend it because the process of replacing "\n\n" won't work on <br> tags.

6) Another thing is to eliminate all <h3> and </h3> commands. This is because only one set of h3 tags is needed, and repeating these html commands in a single post is a little waste of space (especially since they have no effect when you're reposting).

• This is optional, since it's not really a big deal.
• However, notice that there are returns in front of each <h3> and < tag that will not be removed using the replace "\n\n" process.
• If you do this, use the replace function and replace all <h3> commands with a "\n" (return) and do the same with </h3> (note that it's a /h3 with a forward slash and \n with a backward slash)
• Why not just replace h3 and /h3 with a blank " "? You can certainly do it, but then you can't replace "\n\n" with "\n" (becuase there will be a space between the returns, becoming "\n \n")
• if you do replace h3 and /h3 each with a \n, be sure to eliminate extra returns again through \n\n

7) Next, skim the posts and look for posts to eliminate, including repeated posts, pictures, obscenity, spam, off-topic posts, and unwanted solicitations.

• If you've done steps 1-6, this should be very easy
• Repeated posts should stare out at you.
• To remove a single post, put the cursor at the start of the post (right before the <hr> tag) and then highlight down to just before the next &hr> tag. Then press the delete button on your keyboard.
• You can check for pictures by searching for "src" (you could also try "img" if you want, but I prefer "src"). This should find any image, because an image command in html would look like: <img src = filename.jpg>. So, once you find this command, cut out everything including the < and the >.
• Another way to skim for images is just to look at Jade board and see for yourself.

8) Also, if someone posts a link that doesn't end (<a href = http://www.url.com> without a </a> command), then you should probably remove the link altogether.

• In general you should eliminate starting tags that don't have an appropriate ending tag

9) As mentioned before, before you repost you might want to save your work, just in case something comes along and you need to repost the board again (so that you can just quickly use copy and paste to append the new posts to the top of your backup file).

Here is a pretty quick order you can use to prepare a repost. In the future I will release in private a program that will automatically do all of this.

To get started:

Replace the:


with:
\n
========================================

Step by Step Instructions for html reposting at type P boards.

========================================
1)  Copy the plain text only.  I strongly recommend against copying the html source, as you will end up throwing all of it away anyways.  This is because type P boards don't allow html.

Use your mouse and start copying from the title of the first post to the end of the message on the last post (don't copy anything afterwards, or you'll have to edit it out manually).
Don't worry about the extra spaces; you'll deal with that later.
Repeat this process with the following pages of the P board.
Keep in mind there is a limit to how much you can post with one repost.
2)  Now eliminate the extra spaces.

First, replace all "\n    " (4 spaces) with "\n" (no spaces).
This will make sure that you are eliminating the 4 extra spaces in front of each post you might get from copying and pasting.
Next, replace all "\n " (1 space) with "\n" (no spaces) to eliminate the single space that might appear in front of some lines.
3)  Now, eliminate extra lines.

Replace all \n\n with \n.  Repeat if necessary.
4)  If you want, replace POSTER > with Poster: .

This is just to make things look neater, and it's really optional.
You can also replace DATE > with Date: .
Everything else you can just forget about; it's not too big of a deal unless you have that much time.