Post signatures, those little blocks of text and images attached to each post by a user as a form of expression, or mini-profile. Many forums prohibit such signatures outright, such as Straight Dope, and Stack Overflow. Others allow and even encourage them. Discourse believes rather strongly that signatures should be discouraged in any modern forum software, but certain communities may still disagree.
Their resasoning is they take too much space and the user information is all already right next to the post. So on the vanilla version of discourse we’re running it is not possible.
As someone who’s experienced with the clutter of old-timey forums (I’m making them sound way older than they are), I can’t help but agree. It makes pages look like the glittery blogs of Geocities and Angelfire.
I’m just tired of having to type out the disclaimer, “I’m not technical; take my words with a grain of salt”. Putting it in my profile is an alternative, but not visible enough. Maybe I’ll make a simple copy-pasta (i.e. manual signatures).
To be honest, I would not be able to tell that based on your posts. Why is there a need to state credentials (or lack thereof) - it’s a public forum and the content of your posts should speak for itself. If a topic is heading in a direction that may be too technical I would rather read that in a single post than to constantly see it over and over in every single post.
If you’re tired of having to type that out - why do you think you need to type it?
it’s a public forum and the content of your posts_should_ speak for
itself. If a topic is heading in a direction that may be too
technical I would rather read that in a single post than to
constantly see it over and over
Precisely why I feel the need to put a disclaimer in my posts.
I think you’ve misunderstood my motivation for doing so: I use infosec jargon and programming terms to keep my posts short and succinct, but I don’t want to give the false impression that I’m technically trained. I don’t want to misrepresent myself and be morally responsible when someone uses what I write to secure their system and end up putting themselves in harm’s way.
People should give my posts on technical matters less weight, yet I should still be able to comment and use jargon. The solution is to stick disclaimers into comments. I get that it’s repetitive for those who regularly read my posts (especially me), but it’s helpful for newcomers to Qubes and the forum, especially those who come to troubleshoot an issue and then leave.
Sticking the disclaimer at a fixed spot in my comments (i.e. the bottom) with a signature is best, since everyone who’ve seen it will just skip over it.
A malicious actor could easily create an account on this forum (or a hundred), use infosec jargon, and write convincingly to socially engineer unsuspecting Qubes users into compromising themselves. It’s admirable that you want to be responsible with your own posts, but that won’t stop others from being irresponsible with theirs. The best solution is for users to be skeptical of what strangers on the internet tell them to do.
That would imply that everyone else who responds is technically trained? Where is the requirement to be “technically trained” (whatever that really means)? I see no problem expressing an insightful comment and following with “but I’m not sure how exactly XYZ would be implemented at a low level.” My interpretation of “I’m not technical” after an insightful comment says “please disregard what I wrote” - something I doubt you’re trying to convey.
I see and understand your motivation for wanting to not mislead users because you may not have all the details, but @adw said it better than I could (whether or not a disclaimer is added to posts):
This is a valuable point. It doesn’t imply that what I’m doing isn’t worth doing (since the cost of adding a partition followed by a single line to the end of my comments is very low), but the point is worth emphasizing.
It’s more like one of those legal disclaimers, except it has nothing to do with any law. Think of it as a moral disclaimer. There might be a better way to phrase what I want to get across, but nothing as laconic.
I took inspiration from product disclaimers using what is literally ‘fine print’.
fiftyfourthparallel is not a doctor; follow his advice at your own risk. Please consult a psychiatrist before taking advice from fiftyfourthparallel. Side effects include, but are not limited to: Having your browsing history exposed to your closest contacts; speakers that play sound even with headphones plugged in, but just not loud enough for you to notice with headphones on; horse porn uploaded to your hard drive, unencrypted; a screen that dims one level at random times when the webcam detects you looking away; your real IP being ‘accidentally’ leaked to that guy you have a bitter rivalry with on the My Little Pony forums; a burning sensation when urinating (possibly related to the other side effects). By reading this comment, you have agreed to surrender the right to bring charges, legal or otherwise, against fiftyfourthparallel for any damages that may arise before, during, or after following his advice.
I had to look up how markdown is implemented on Discourse, but basically I made my disclaimer into a superscript of a superscript. Should work equally well with subscripts <sub>, so it’s a matter of personal taste (though the discerning will all pick superscript, of course).
If I join a collusion ring I might be able to get a paper published on this hi-tech method, maybe even present it at a conference–but then I’d qualify as technically-trained and would be saddled with responsiblities and accountability. Nuh-uh.
(I could also get it published by one of those predatory journals, since even this paper (PDF) managed it, but that’s nowhere as interesting)
I thought the “hack” was a way to make the same text automatically appear at the bottom of each of your posts, like an actual signature, not just to print small text.
