I have never been a great fan of obsessively correcting the way that everyone posts - I make huge numbers of mistakes, often due to to doing things quickly, I sometimes correct them when I see the post again. I hadn't even realised that we had to put the quoted part of the last post in another colour!

We have, from time to time, tried to put some helpful hints in Miscellany or Information & Announcements. These have not been intended to be applied dogmatically but have been intended to make things run a little more smoothly. Unfortunately, we are all inclined to wander off thesubject, especially if a particularly good pun or amusing aside distracts us!

Part of the problem is that some people read in flat mode, others in threaded. I tend to use a combination of the two, depending on the number of new posts. Once a thread breaks into several strands it can become very hard to follow, hence the advice to quote part of the post that you are replying to (I use > followed by the quote, as I do in e-mail). Here, I haven't done anything as all the replies are still in a straight line and (I hope) it is obvious that I am not really replying to any post in particular, just carrying along the thread.

Even if we start another thread in Info & Announcements with all the (useful) suggestions that people have made, it will get buried, like all the others, over time and we'll still have people having problems finding their way around.

It doesn't seem that Anu is inclined to add anything to the main FAQ, so I'll add another thread to Info & Announcements. Let's try to keep it clear from our usual diversions. If we use a consistent format for the way things are written, then people will be able to search for it easily.

Here's the link for anyone inclined to look: http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=announcements&Number=17018