Posts by Nicholas King

Benjamin Wilson7 said:If everything seems fine on your end, then I honestly can't fathom why it’s acting up like this for me.

I still lean toward the idea that there's some sort of formatting glitch going on—both during data entry and constantly thereafter. Everything looks perfectly fine, black, and legible to my eyes.

I don't have Word 2007 handy right now to verify, so I can't check it myself. But maybe you could try exporting the file into the Excel 2003 format and then reopening it? That is, assuming you aren't relying on any specific features that Excel 2003 wouldn't support, of course.

Benjamin Wilson7 said:Unfortunately, not yet. I honestly can't wrap my head around what I actually did there or how it even happened.

I pulled the file over, loaded it up in Excel 2003, and everything looks perfectly fine. 😕

dustypuma5 said:That’s exactly the kind of stuff they usually issue warnings or bans for on their own subforums. It’s just classic trolling, really.

This functions as a formal grievance—though, I suppose, one could argue it lacks concrete evidence. You see similar things happening over at the FBI.

I know, I know—spare me the lectures about my attitude and all that nonsense.

Benjamin Wilson7 said:I suppose you can just order it online through the Amazon account —it’s about $65. Honestly, just type the name into Google and see what comes up.

Any actual progress regarding sickle cell anemia?

dustypuma5 said:Is this some kind of new development, or what?

The way I read that sentence was... "...and I forwarded our correspondence to the admins."

Benjamin Wilson7 said:It would probably be much better if we had dedicated, top-level categories for things like Microsoft Office, Excel, and so on—sections where people could actually start their own threads.

I don't know... I suspect we just don't have enough volume in those areas to justify separate sections yet.

Benjamin Wilson7 said:The cells are just colored, and whenever I type numbers into them, they show up in this faint, almost invisible shade instead of staying a standard, solid black.

Look, there’s definitely some kind of formatting at play here—it’s really up to you to figure out which specific setting is causing the headache. 🙂

What actually happens when you try to copy-paste that cell? I’d suggest trying a few different things in order: first, just paste everything normally; then, try pasting only the values; and finally, try pasting just the formatting. See if one of those methods changes the outcome.

Gerald Stewart34 said:So, I heard there’s this software that builds flowcharts—basically, you just feed it a problem and it spits out the solution... does anyone actually know anything about this, or if such a program even exists by name..?

I have to say, that sounds a bit like telling me, "I heard Santa Claus is real; you just write him a letter and he brings you... uh, candy and chocolate." 🙂

But, let's indulge the fantasy for a second: what would be the actual, practical benefit of using something like that? It’s almost like enrolling in a high-end culinary institute just so you can "help" yourself with a machine where you toss in some flour and water, hit a button, and suddenly a cake appears.

Mark Thompson73 said:Is there any way to get rid of all those comments my professor left on my term paper?

Back when we were using older versions—like back in the early 2000s—you’d just go to View > Normal, then View > Comments, and you could wipe them all out from there.

I'm pretty sure Excel 2007 has a similar workaround, though I don't have a computer handy right now to double-check the exact menu path.

One thing about these increasingly frequent demands for permanent bans that leaves me completely baffled is this one simple question: why isn't it enough for someone to just forget about Reddit and their account entirely and move on to some other corner of the internet? I mean, seriously—what is the point of all this dramatic theater involving requests for a permanent ban?

If getting a permanent ban is such a massive deal for whatever incomprehensible reason they have, wouldn't it be far more impactful to just go out in a blaze of glory and drop a few truly legendary, scorched-earth posts before leaving? 😕

Carol Johnson4 said:🤣

Yeah, fair point. I need some coffee if I'm going to pay attention.

See, now this would probably tank my reputation. 😁

Maybe you ought to have a drink or two before you start typing—not that I’m judging, per se—but honestly, it might actually be the key to making you a legend. 😁

Timothy Palmer4 said:It’s something like this:
I'd like to propose adding a reputation meter directly beneath every user's name, allowing members to vote on one another... it’s a system that works quite effectively over at sites like Reddit.
The idea is to give people asking questions a clear sense of how reliable their interlocutor actually is. If someone consistently remains polite, avoids unnecessary conflict, and offers genuinely helpful advice, they’ll earn a high reputation score, which naturally builds trust within the community. Implementing this would also help curb the massive amount of pointless bickering that tends to derail almost every thread after just a few posts, making the reading experience much more pleasant for everyone else.
Additionally, I think issuing bans should also factor into a user's overall reputation score.

Carol Johnson4 said:Interesting.

So if you have a good reputation, you get more leeway than those who don't?

Some are more equal than others, I guess. 🤷

Ovo tvoje je komentar na rečenicu "Furthermore—and I really think this bears repeating—one’s reputation can play a massive role when it comes to how bans are handed out. It isn't always a purely objective process, I guess; there's often an underlying bias based on how a user is perceived by the mods.".

Which, I suppose, hasn't actually been written yet.

Well, whatever—it’ll turn up eventually, I suppose. 🙂

Timothy Palmer4 said:It’s something like this:
I'd like to propose adding a reputation meter directly beneath every user's name, allowing members to vote on one another... it’s a system that works quite effectively over at sites like Reddit.
The idea is to give people asking questions a clear sense of how reliable their interlocutor actually is. If someone consistently remains polite, avoids unnecessary conflict, and offers genuinely helpful advice, they’ll earn a high reputation score, which naturally builds trust within the community. Implementing this would also help curb the massive amount of pointless bickering that tends to derail almost every thread after just a few posts, making the reading experience much more pleasant for everyone else.
Additionally, I think issuing bans should also factor into a user's overall reputation score.

...regardless of whether it's explicitly written under their username or not. 🙂

There are plenty of reasons to be against this, and almost none in favor.

First off, if we started labeling people as "guru, Gandhi, secretary of the Young Communist League," it would basically imply that everyone else on the forum is just "bottom-tier noise"—people who haven't been noticed simply because they haven't posted enough yet or for whatever other random reason. I don't think that's particularly fair.

The potential for fraud is also massive—I mean, I could easily set up ten different clone accounts, pretend to be a guru, a Gandhi, and a secretary of the Young Communist League all at once, and then use those fake personas to absolutely crush anyone who dared to disagree with me yesterday.

Finally, aside from purely technical troubleshooting, credibility is a highly subjective thing. Just look at any major political debate or even something like a heated discussion on a news network; you'll see people who are equally credible and equally intelligent giving completely contradictory advice.

So, if you actually want to figure out who is (in your opinion) trustworthy, you should probably just get to work and do your own reading.

In such a way, the huge amount of pointless arguing that starts on almost every single thread after the first few posts could be reduced.

How, oh, how exactly? 😕

How exactly would introducing a "credibility label" reduce unnecessary arguments?

Taylor Bailey said:Free of charge. Is there actually a solution to this? I mean, I've been staring at this problem for what feels like an eternity now—and I don't say that lightly—but I'm starting to wonder if we're just spinning our wheels here. It seems like every time we think we've found a workaround, some other variable throws itself into the mix and ruins everything. I guess it’s possible there is a fix somewhere in the weeds, but honestly, without more specifics, it feels like we're just grasping at straws. Does anyone actually have a definitive answer, or are we all just collectively guessing at this point?

wanderingfox42 said:Maybe you should give Adobe a shot?

🤦

It’s neither free nor does it actually strip away any protection—honestly, it's just as useless as Adobe Acrobat Pro is when you're dealing with those XXX files.

Benjamin King2 said:It’s possible—I use it every now and then myself—but I haven't run into any particularly stubborn files yet... though, to be fair, there are a ton of those decryption tools out there, so I suppose you just have to keep testing different ones until something sticks.

And honestly, it’s just like everything else in this industry—it’s a constant game of cat and mouse. You know how it goes; they beef up the security protocols, and then someone else develops a way to bypass them.

I actually learned that the hard way recently when I was trying to show off "how it's done" using some version of a tool I had lying around—and yeah, I completely blew it. 🙈

😁

Benjamin King2 said:Maybe try running it through a PDF Password Remover or some similar utility designed to strip the protection right off the file.

If I recall correctly—and I might be wrong here—that doesn't always work against the most recent security updates.

What if you tried running it through an OCR engine instead? 😕

feraltrucker5 said:Hey there. 🙂

Look, I really shouldn’t be sticking my nose into the whole mess regarding moving the American chats around because the mods and admins have already laid out their reasoning, and honestly, that should pretty much wrap up the debate. But seriously, people acting like this was some sudden, impulsive whim? Give me a break. Back when I was serving as a moderator for the US section—which was about six months ago, if memory serves—and even before then, we were all hyper-aware of how messy the chat situation had become. We were actually trying to design a space that functioned like a genuine community hub for Americans. The whole goal was to create a spot that would finally replace those endless, repetitive threads where everyone just vents about their own personal drama, and instead, actually get people talking to one another and building some real connections.

Look, I thought we were actually going to have a themed discussion here, but clearly, I was getting ahead of myself.

We haven't managed to pull anything off in that timeframe, and honestly, looking around, it’s pretty clear nothing has changed. But then again, how could it? This whole chat topic has just been overrun by people who couldn't write a single constructive post on a major US forum if their lives depended on it. It’s devolved into nothing more than just another generic, mindless chat room where actual substance goes to die.

Look, I know I’m basically just rambling about things that have absolutely nothing to do with my own life, but honestly, I couldn't help myself—I had to jump in here and give Nicholas King a response to this:

The moderator really needs to start citing their sources. I don't even know where to start with this whole mess, honestly. It’s just one thing after another, isn't it? You think you've finally got a handle on things, maybe even a little breathing room, and then—boom—everything just falls apart like a cheap card tower in a windstorm. It's almost funny if you stop to think about how predictable the chaos is. One minute you're cruising along, thinking everything is fine, and the next, you're staring at a complete disaster, wondering how you even got here in the first place. It's like that old saying about how life doesn't give you much of a heads-up before it decides to throw a wrench in your gears. Just constant, relentless movement toward more confusion. Have you seen what’s actually going on in his subforum lately? It’s like watching a slow-motion train wreck—you can see exactly where this is headed, right? The chat threads are absolutely exploding, honestly, we’re talking hundreds of posts rolling in every single day. And then there’s me, stuck playing digital janitor, having to comb through every single one of those endless walls of text just to make sure nobody’s being abusive, dropping sketchy links, or leaking private info. It’s just one thing after another, a constant mountain of nonsense to sift through.

Look, let's be real for a second—a moderator isn't supposed to be some kind of glorified janitor sweeping up trash all day; honestly, they shouldn't even be touching that stuff. That’s just not the job description. A real moderator should be out there actually steering the conversation, keeping the discussions on track, and putting in the actual legwork to make the subforum better—you know, like curating the topic lists, spinning up new threads when things get stale, merging redundant ones, and all that good stuff. They should be architects of the community, not just the cleaning crew.

Honestly, after you’ve slogged through five hundred consecutive messages in the general chat—just people rambling about what they had for lunch, what show they’re binge-watching on Netflix, or how many times they’ve had to take a bathroom break today—you find yourself completely drained. You’ve got zero mental bandwidth left to actually engage with the rest of the subforum the way you ought to. It’s exhausting. And let’s be real, that constant stream of chatter adds absolutely nothing to the actual quality of this community; that's what the constructive, deep-dive threads are for. You end up burning through all your time and energy on someone’s incoherent nonsense that, once it hits ten thousand posts, is just going to end up in the digital trash bin anyway. It’s a total waste of breath, don't you think?

Honestly, I don't see why it would be an issue. We've got moderators who handle the heavy lifting—reading through posts and keeping the chats in check (and let's be real, they’re usually active in them anyway)—and then there are those who prefer to stay behind the scenes, but that’s hardly a crisis because we have dedicated spaces like the Lounge or the Off-Topic boards specifically for the chatterboxes. There’s absolutely no reason for anyone to feel left out or sidelined; we've made sure there's a spot for everyone to hang out. 🙂

Some wise guy on the first page of the chat already predicted that this wouldn't actually happen. 🥳 😁

A few side notes regarding the rest of this—and let's call them what they are: no matter how much sense your arguments might make, you can always find a counter-argument that makes just as much sense. 🙂

A moderator is required to read everything posted within their subforum.

If moderators must read every single little post, then what is the actual purpose of the moderation tools? 😕 Furthermore, do you honestly believe anything catastrophic would occur if moderating the chat threads were reduced strictly to "acting on reports"? Wouldn't it actually be in the interest of the chatters themselves to maintain the "cleanliness" of the topics?

A moderator should be guiding discussions within the threads and actively working to improve the subforum (organizing topic lists, opening new ones, merging old ones, etc., etc.).

I second that. And I'll be waiting for that blessed day. 🙂

There are some moderators who are willing to read and moderate chats (often because they participate in them themselves), and then there are others who simply aren't interested.

Isn't it then hypocritical to claim that this somehow "improves the quality of the PDF"? Why is it such an issue to just say, "Look, we don't feel like dealing with this, and that's that"—which, frankly, I have no complaints about; it’s a perfectly valid stance for someone performing a volunteer role that I certainly don't consider easy or particularly pleasant?

In any case, I am still waiting, quite good-naturedly, for an answer to the question: how moving a chat thread actually increases the quality of the PDF.? I have my reasons to believe it actually decreases it—to the extent that, however small the group may be, the "high-quality chatters" (whatever that implies) now have absolutely no reason to glance at the other threads and perhaps contribute something intelligent or interesting.

Hannah White2 said:Just one question here—I was looking at the Scarleticin ban issued to Scarlet regarding that topic you shut down so aggressively.
Sometimes I browse this section of the forum and most of the reasoning seems pretty solid, so this one actually caught me off guard. 🙄

What I’m really wondering is if posting here might eventually trigger some kind of delayed ban down the road? 🤷
And look, I'm not trying to troll you (your choice of words).

I'm just asking because I occasionally want to pose a question. Like right now.
I wanted to ask generally about the chats, since I just realized today that they're actually against the forum policy.

Is it going to be the case that most of these chats will eventually end up being moved to OT sooner or later?

(this has nothing to do with the finger thing—it is what it is, what can you do... things are hard to change around here anyway)

I don't think these are minor or insignificant issues, especially when they are happening for the first time.

I am trying—in good faith and without using "one mellowraven22 phrase"—to 😁 come up with any logical reason why treating chat threads on a sub-forum like "Weaving Goblen" would be any different from how they treat chat threads on a sub-forum like "Counting Angels on a Needle" — and, I have to admit, I’m failing.

On one hand, a chat is just a chat, isn't it? It's just a specific group of people who get used to showing up at a certain spot—that "where everybody knows your name" kind of vibe—to talk; sometimes it's meaningful, sometimes it's nonsense—which, honestly, doesn't really matter. Some of these people leave "footprints" in other threads, while others don't—but, I would truly love to hear how moving these chats will improve the quality of the sub-forum?! 😕 What is going to specifically happen when a chat gets moved, other than one, two, or three top threads disappearing, thereby (neither more nor less) "improving the quality of the sub-forum"? 😕 I am genuinely, and in good faith, curious about this answer.

On the other hand, one could argue the point that chatters don't really care where they gather.

On a third note, to me, this looks like taking a regular crowd from one local diner and moving them to another for no clear reason simply because "it's all the same anyway."

The whole saga of moving chat topics has been seen before: the relocation, the rebellion, and the arguments. During the last major reshuffle I followed (with the IRS), the moderators eventually brought the chat threads back—which I consider to have been a very wise move on their part.

Just like in many other life situations, you can approach this with a restrictive "Why should they exist?" (meaning, why should chat threads exist on topical sub-forums), or with a permissive "Why shouldn't they?". Personally, I find the latter approach much closer to my own philosophy in life.

Therefore, I believe this is something that should be established as a standard forum rule, rather than leaving it to the discretion of individual moderators to do whatever they want with the chats. BTW, if the chats are considered "trash" (which consequently qualifies the participants as well), I think it would be more consistent to just abolish them entirely (with all the potential consequences) rather than periodically posting sentences that, perhaps unintentionally, essentially mean "what you're writing is garbage, be happy we even tolerate you."

I wouldn't use the word "serving" or anything similar to describe anyone's forum duties—but, wouldn't it be nice if everyone, in their respective forum roles, tried to make sure the people on the forum feel welcome?

I don't know if I should mention: to put it mildly, I very, very, very rarely post in the chat threads. 🙂

Matthew Phillips5 said:I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to go about deactivating or just completely deleting my account from this forum... thanks in advance.

Well, once you've made your move, there’s no turning back. 😁

Olivia Mendoza35 said:Well, if we're going there—personally, I'm just not a fan of this kind of behavior where someone manages to spark a heated debate while simultaneously handing out bans to users.

On the CIA forum, there are only two moderators (😢). Honestly, trying to prevent a moderator from moderating a discussion they are actually participating in is practically impossible—that would imply they spend their entire time just watching others, and I guess you won't find many people willing to do that.

Olivia Mendoza35 said:because now I'd probably have to copy and paste everything just to defend myself and prove that isn't true, especially since I personally received a penalty via PM.

I assume what you received was an (automated) notification about the penalty—which is standard procedure, so I don't really see the issue there. Or are you suggesting you were issued a ban because of a PM (though even then, I fail to see the problem)?