Hey folks...

We've determined that we need to address some things and institute some new posting guidelines for a few different reasons:

Part One

One reason is that PJ has inadvertently become sort of a mirror site for Orly's blog and other sites that espouse hate and intolerance, in that people quote entire posts from those sites. While we fully understand that the intentions are typically good and often for comedic value, that text is still easily found on THIS site. Newer members may not as easily discern the motivations behind the posts.

Frankly, we've allowed this site to become almost as prevalent a source for the type of vile speech that we ordinarily would NOT allow to be posted here by our own members, and not everyone WANTS to be exposed to such vileness. We have received feedback from some members on this point. It's a trend and a habit that we need to bring to an end. We are not discouraging the sharing of information... merely modifying the manner in which it's shared. Anyone who wishes to be exposed to a particular site or that type of material should be perfectly willing to follow a provided link to read it for themselves.

The "link" BBCode allows you to create a link that is a very brief summary of whatever it is you're sharing with the community. Please use it accordingly. Click here for a quick refresher on its use. If you link it and they want to read it... they will click on it. Those who do not will now have the option to move on to other posts or threads.

Next reason... We also don't want to take a chance that we might someday be accused of copyright violations. Please read this article about the Associated Press cracking down on long excerpts from its stories.

Therefore, in an abundance of caution and for the above mentioned reasons, we are asking you, going forward, not to copy and paste more than four paragraphs from any other source. This is a guideline found on other sites for similar reasons. We're going to hold people to this standard as strictly as is necessary, and we fully expect to be called on it if we slip ourselves.

Part Two

This one is more about readability and flow ... you really don't have to quote the entire post above yours, if your response is the next post in the thread.

We see long strings of posts that go like this:

One person puts up a lengthy post.

The next person quotes the entire post and adds a brief comment.

The next person quotes THAT entire post, and adds another brief comment.

The next person quotes THAT entire post ...

You've all seen this too, and so you know that when you're reading the thread, you don't read the entire long first post three or four or five times (at least we hope you don't). You just scroll down to see the new comment. Another example would be quoting a post with a YouTube or other video embed, which creates another unnecessary copy of the video.

Sometimes it's necessary to quote an earlier post in order to avoid confusion, but please don't do it reflexively. It's also possible to quote only one or two sentences, or even just phrases from an earlier post, for added clarity.

We're not trying to impose discipline, we're requesting self-discipline. (Or else.)


We realize that this is something of a big change in overall behavior that we're requiring. These changes are not being made out of anger or as punishment, but rather to continue improving the quality of what we offer here. We hope you understand why we feel it is necessary to take these steps for the sake of the site. A condensed version of these new guidelines will be added to the Forum Rules. As always, we are available for questions and feedback. Thank you.

Foggy