Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Formatting posts and comments at The bLOGOS

I thought it might be of interest for some LOGOSians (or should it be LOGOSers?) to post here on this.

Regarding new posts, formatting is straightforward, given the user-friendly semi-WYSIWYG environment. (Incidentally, this gives ‘quasi-technical’ support for the following rule, which I think can also be motivated on independent, purely e-philosophical grounds:

If something is a borderline case with respect to comment to an existing post or thread-creating new post, do post it!

You can always add a link back to the triggering thread. Similarly, if something is a borderline case with respect to borderline case with respect to comment and post. And similarly if it is borderline borderline… Ok, I shut up :-X.) (BTW, the indent effect can be obtained by pasting from a .doc file with altered margins.)

Regarding comments to existing posts, some mini-use of HTML tags is required. Hence, writing (with '<' and '>' instead of '[' and ']')

[i]italics[/i]

gives you

italics

and writing

[b]boldface[/b]

gives you

boldface

and writing

one [a href="http://www.ub.edu/grc_logos"]link[/a] to a website

gives you

one link to a website.

Formatting, and particularly linking to named people, papers, and so on may make things nicer for the average potential eventual reader. And, anyway, it is cool, don’t you think? (I was going to write instead: ‘And, anyway, I think it is cool.’ But Kit Fine is arguing that this would not have changed the content. And this is the only NYU seminar that I am attending… Ok, ok, this was way too much ;-{p}!)

I suggest that whoever wants to experiment with comments, comment to this post, which is hereby declared jUNk.

Update (17 Nov 2006): When posting new posts as opposed to commenting, one is more free to use further HTML tags. Hence, for instance,

[strike]strike[/strike]

gives you

strike

and so on. See discussion in the comments section below.

10 comments:

DJL said...

That's very helpful.
Must admit that after reading the first paragraph I had the impression you were a LaTeXer. Am I wrong?

Dan López de Sa said...

You're right, although just began a couple of years ago. you yourself as well?

DJL said...

Trying to get into it. Working on it.

Andi said...

Do you know if it's possible to cross out your old sentences when editing an old post? You know, just putting a straight line over them so everyone can see that you don't want to maintain that any more (preferrably you would put what you do want to say now behind it) but also that you once said it?

Dan López de Sa said...

I'm pretty sure it's possible. But it might rise sort of "e-ethical" considerations, don't you think? What if someone is already linking to the old post or commenting on it? Why not just add "UPDATE [Date]: This no longer represents my views, please see comments below" and add then a comment? I agree that, anyway, much better on that score leaving the old stuff crossed out than just deleting it ;-)!

Dan López de Sa said...

updated

Andi said...

Thanks for the update. Well, I guess it depends on the gravity of the edit, in terms of length and philosophical importance.
I would say that crossing out more than a sentence makes little sense, but for little edits it's nice to have this tool.

Dan López de Sa said...

This is to check how the new "recent comments" section works.

Andi said...

I like it!

Dan López de Sa said...

cool, and it gets you the new-to-old crhonological :-)!