On 12 Apr 04 - 03:47 PM a thread was begun to allow "miscellaneous items" that don't fit into existing threads and don't merit starting a whole new thread.

The beginning of all this was at: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper

That thread began to be a bit unwieldy, and was closed ca. 27 Jul 07 - 08:21 AM "due to a heavy barrage of SPAM," and was continued in BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .') .

(Although I was privileged to make the last post in the original thread, I don't believe that my undeserved(?) reputation as a "thread killer" was responsible for its termination; but won't argue the point.)

A difficulty observed both there and in this thread is that quite a few posts have justifiably attempted to provide "all that's necessary" to minimize the need for discussion, and in some cases rather long articles have been posted where it's likely that links to original sources will not be long lasting ones.

The result of the tendency toward inclusion of some longer "cut and paste" articles, is that the 50-post "break" in threads, which normally gives about 20 – 25 "screens" (in my browser), for some 50-post segments of these threads the segments are much longer – commonly over 50 screens and with a few pushing 75 – up to 3x normal.

(Note that unlike the "furshluginer" and "poterzebie," a "screen" is not a standard measure with a defined value, and the size of a "one screen" unit may vary depending on browser settings and the "window size" in use at the time. A thread length in "screens" is just the number of "Page Dn" clicks to get from one end to the other, and will likely be different for each observer.)

The purpose of the 50-post break was to speed up opening of threads to make individual downloads "digestible" and readable for those with slow connections and/or small viewing areas. The occasional long posts in these threads have somewhat "bent the notion."

A suggestion, for those willing to participate, would be that any post over "average" length should be followed by a blank "spacer" post (or two for very long posts?), to push the count up more quickly to the next break point.

Unlike the MOAB thread, where the apparent puerile goal is just to accumulate a large number of posts, I see no reason why insertion of a few "spacer" posts would be detrimental to the purposes of the news thread, and keeping the "character count" for long segments closer to "average" here might help with readability.

This should NOT BE interpreted as a permission to insert longer cut-n-paste garbage, and is intended only to help improve readability in the select few threads where slightly longer than usual posts are sometimes consistent with the purposes of the thread.

Other than the possible antisocial use of spacers to jump to the mythic "n hundredth post" which might be expected (and should be appropriately denigrated), I see no problems with artificially truncating excessively "long fifties" by a few dummy insertions; but discussion is welcome – which is the reason for making this a separate thread.

John