I haven’t had a look at Da Roolz (the commenting rules) for a while, and, having a gander, made one modification in them, as well as a change in the instructions aboout “How to send me wildlife photos“. Both of these instructional posts are on the left sidebar of the site, and look like this. You can click on them to read them.
The main change in the Roolz affects #12, which now reads like this:
Be judicious about posting videos and very long comments. I like good discussion, but essays are not on, particularly if you have your own website where you can post it. Embedded videos are okay, but please think before posting: do they add to the discussion? If your comment is longer than, say, 400 words, it is probably too long. If you want to write stuff longer than that, please get your own website!
I’ve decided that 600 words was too long for any comments, and thus ask readers to limit them to 400 words. I’m not going to quibble if you go a few words over that, but I am asking for comments and not essays. I will enforce this limit.
I continue to urge readers not to overcomment, with the guideline being about 10% of the comments in a given post. If you’re writing more than that, please ratchet back. In the interests of, yes, comment diversity, I do not want to see a few people making most of the comments.
As for wildlife photos, they come in huge variety of formats, and it sometimes takes me a long time to get them into a properly formatted post. To make this easier, I’m asking readers to zip their photos if they can, number them, and then enclose a Word document describing the caption for each numbered photo. Be sure to give the common name plus the Latin binomial. What I’m trying to avoid is having to cut and paste words from a document into WordPress, which sometimes is wonky. And if you really want to please me, use the Times or Times New Roman typeface.
If you are a new reader and haven’t read Da Roolz, please do so before you post again. And if you want to send me photos, the link for that should give you all the information you need, including the address where you should send them.
Finally, if you have any questions, you are welcome reach PCC(E) at the email address you all know (it’s also at the “wildlife photos” link).
Thanks!
Thanks Jerry!
At this web site, you can slam your text into a box that will tell you how many words, sentences, and characters your text has. It’s free, it’s fun!
https://www.grammarly.com/word-counter?msockid=1e090f92b82d6c5a2a901d6fb9346d30
The text above the link has 29 words in two sentences and will take 0 min 7 sec to read (according to the tool).
Thanks. I just copy and paste into a Word document for word count but Grammarly is a lot more convenient.
Happy New Year Dr. Coyne. Thank you for hosting and leading such interesting conversations. You and your posters make me think more deeply about some of the messy and complex issues facing science and our country. And I appreciate the opportunity to share my own evolving thoughts on some of them.
Libre Office Writer is an alternative to forking out for Microsoft Word. I don’t know if it is the only alternative.
For the 10% posting amount, how about specifying a minimum number of posts, either total or by an individual, as i am breaking this rool by contributing 20% of all comments here. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, …” RWE
I’m not sure what you mean, but of course there is no minimum. Although I like readers to comment if they have something to say, I don’t pressure anyone to comment, and there are many who don’t.
If I make the first comment, for example, I wait till there are enough comments from others before making the next one.
If there are already many comments, say 50, then I feel free to make a few comments right away while keeping my contribution to less than 10%.
“…and, having a gander…”
Shouldn’t you have a drake instead?
Sorry. I’ll show myself out.