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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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Not very long to go before submissions close, and we have one entry in so far.
I've spent a long time looking at the individual feedback questions, and we will have a new set for this challenge. I also think I'd like some sort of overall rating that does not pit author against author in a faux gladiatorial contest. I have something in mind for that. Whether it works or not we will discover soon enough.
For those authors who looked at the pictures and said "I know nothing about that sport!" I say "so what?" It's intended as a trigger. If you use it to generate a relevant tale about a boy flautist that is just fine!
[Updated on: Sun, 03 December 2017 12:32]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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The challenge is up and running, with completely new polls.
One amusing new survey area is this one:
There are some interesting answers!
We've also changed the overall poll. I confess that I saw what appeared to be vote stacking, which us rather against the spirit of the challenges, so the overall poll is now a wholly subjective and esoteric question now.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I find it difficult to see and understand the results.
The summary shows different percentages on different links.
The votes for each story show different numbers of voters. Last time I looked, it was 38, 32, and 24.
My questions are these: where is the overall summary, which link (there are two)? Is there a summary showing votes for the aspects of all three stories voted on? Why are there different numbers of voters for each story? Can readers vote twice? Do readers only read some of the stories? Why are there so few summary voters compared to story voters?
I'm sorry, but I just do not understanding the voting. Any enlightenment would be welcome.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"William King wrote on Sat, 02 December 2017 09:30"I find it difficult to see and understand the results.
The summary shows different percentages on different links.
Each poll is multiple picks. Thus the percentage is the percentage of the people who responded who ticked that particular attribute
"William King wrote on Sat, 02 December 2017 09:30"The votes for each story show different numbers of voters. Last time I looked, it was 38, 32, and 24.
That is because each story has had a different number of people vote for it. Th poll in each story is freestanding, referring only to that story
"William King wrote on Sat, 02 December 2017 09:30"My questions are these: where is the overall summary, which link (there are two)? Is there a summary showing votes for the aspects of all three stories voted on? Why are there different numbers of voters for each story? Can readers vote twice? Do readers only read some of the stories? Why are there so few summary voters compared to story voters?
No, there is no summary setting each story's results against other stories as such, though there is the overall results page. Inventive readers can possibly achieve voting twice. We seek to prevent it with several mechanisms. Readers read only some of the stories. Of those who read by no means every reader completes a poll. As for the last question, I keep asking that, too.
[Updated on: Sat, 02 December 2017 13:53]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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Out of interest we have the following 'stats', in no particular order, from a snapshot taken just now:
And yet only eight people have voted overall.
All I can conclude is the folk are individual. You can't make 'em do anything, ever.
[Updated on: Sat, 02 December 2017 13:57]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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I would expect there to be a consistent ratio between the number who have read a story and the number who have voted.
That seems not to be the case from the figures above, otherwise Second Skin would have more votes cast as would The Trouble with Tony - Hanging Out. Or is A Game of Fox and Hare somehow extraordinary in that it has attracted a greater proportion of votes? It's well written and imaginative, yes, good quality, yes, but so are the other two. They are just all differently well written and imaginative.
I suppose you can argue that folk won't vote on a tale they don't like, but most folk are, presumably, polite enough to cnsder doing what they are asked to do, even if they decide not to.
I have never had any idea what goes on in our readers' minds, though. Anyone care to speculate?
[Updated on: Sat, 02 December 2017 23:36]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Pedro
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: March 2014
Messages: 94
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As any politician will tell you, it is pretty much impossible to understand what the voters are trying to say with anything other than 'first past the post' and even that doesn't always get the result you might expect. It also depends on the question being put.
For the individual polls:
As Timmy suggested, maybe people are more likely to bother to vote on the stories they like.
However does reading order come into it? Are readers making the effort for the first one they read, then less effort as they go through? This effect will be distorted if readers are aware of the authors - it is a natural tendency to read the ones you like first. Yes, the names were there in the new stories panel at the top of the home page, at least until the next release date.
Similarly, a reader might choose to start with the one they think has the most intriguing title.
Does story length distort the reading view figures. A longer story might take two or more sessions to read. I'm not sure that would apply in this case. I haven't done a word count, but my guess is they are all roughy the same length at around 7-8000 words
For the group poll:
There does not appear to be a link back to the challenge page from the individual story pages. I found I went back to the site home page to get to the next story. That way I missed the overall poll and had to go back through the challenge page to find it. That equals work!
If a reader finds the overall poll then they have to decide to answer the question and how. I suspect a 'yes/no' question is more likely get answered than 'how did you feel?'. Mental effort again!
Anybody else got any ideas?
Pedro
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Pedro
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: March 2014
Messages: 94
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He, he! That's fun! I am in Barcelona at the moment and my posting has come up with the Spanish flag. I'm not sure all the locals (Catalunya) would approve. (Timmy has explained why this happens before - something to do with identifying the location of the last or first server in the chain to his.)
[Updated on: Sun, 03 December 2017 06:36]
Pedro
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"Pedro wrote on Sun, 03 December 2017 07:26"
For the group poll:
There does not appear to be a link back to the challenge page from the individual story pages.
Anybody else got any ideas?
--
I think not being able to vote on summary question after reading the story is the problem. It is rather too much to ask readers to make a summary vote if and when they have read all three stories.
On the plus side a lot of people read the stories and tick the list of questions at the end. Not everyone reads all three, perhaps, but may pick their favourite author first.
What to do to address this?
I suggest you put the summary question at the end of each story:
Which tales made you feel close to one of the participants? Choose as many as you wish.
You change the wording slightly,
Did this tale make you feel close to one of the participants?
If possible, you put the question in the list with all the rest, then pick out the score to summarise. If not It's separated, but at the end of each story. I am convinced you will get more votes and the scores will be much closer.
[Updated on: Sun, 03 December 2017 08:05] |
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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There is an issue with putting the summary question at the end of each tale. Answer it then and you cannot answer it as the end of ghe next one, nor the end of the next one. In other words it will get a tick at the end of "Biggles Flies to Town" but not at the end of "Algy does a big Rescue" and certainly not at the end of "Ginger Pulls It Off". Lord help us if the whole squadron has a story. This mechanism prevents multiple voting by those who would do so. And yes, you can bypass that set of interlocks, but I am not about to tell you how.
There is a link from each story back to the challenge page thus:
"Quote:"This story is part of the 2017 story challenge "Inspired by a Picture: Just Hangin'". The other stories may be found at the challenge home page. Please read them, too. The voting period of 30 November to 21 December 2017 is when the voting is open. This story may be rated, below, against a set of criteria, and may be rated against other stories on the challenge home page.
I can make this clearer, and your (plural) thoughts would be appreciated on how to do so.
The reason for the overall survey is that folk like to compare stuff. I'm not so sure about that because it smacks of winners and losers. So what ought the overall survey to be for the next challenge?
Poll tickers tick questions that really are surprising. Who has read other work by Joe Casey? It was not on this site, so where was it? Yet several have ticked that they have read it.
Reading order is changed automatically every time a page listing the entries is refreshed. Thus I do my best to remove the 'donkey vote'.
[Updated on: Sun, 03 December 2017 12:31]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Who has heard of Joe Casey?
Google him and he's quite a well known author (not I suppose the same Joe Casey) but it perhaps explains why people ticked the box.
I don't think you could do it any better from what you say. The interesting result for me was the percentage ticks to the different questions, which tells the author things like, people found the stories romantic, could identify with the characters and thought they were realistic. The results are all in the questions.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"William King wrote on Sun, 03 December 2017 16:50"Who has heard of Joe Casey?
Google him and he's quite a well known author (not I suppose the same Joe Casey) but it perhaps explains why people ticked the box.
I don't think you could do it any better from what you say. The interesting result for me was the percentage ticks to the different questions, which tells the author things like, people found the stories romantic, could identify with the characters and thought they were realistic. The results are all in the questions.
--
I suspect there may be several people named Joe Casey who write. Whether it is this Joe Casey I have no idea.
I am far more interested in the indvidual story questions and answers than in the overall. That is why I have done my best to make the overall question as general as possible.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Pedro
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: March 2014
Messages: 94
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"timmy wrote on Sun, 03 December 2017 09:03"There is a link from each story back to the challenge page thus:
Quote:
Quote:This story is part of the 2017 story challenge "Inspired by a Picture: Just Hangin'". The other stories may be found at the challenge home page. Please read them, too. The voting period of 30 November to 21 December 2017 is when the voting is open. This story may be rated, below, against a set of criteria, and may be rated against other stories on the challenge home page.
I can make this clearer, and your (plural) thoughts would be appreciated on how to do so.
-- Oops, can't see for looking! But that hints it could be clearer. My suggestion would be to make the sentence with the link a separate paragraph, and put the link in bold caps. Some rearrangement of the text and where it is in relation to the picture might also help.
If I remember correctly, when you have voted on a story the results page comes up. But I don't think that has a link back to the challenge home page. Maybe that and a note to remind readers to vote on the summary question when they have read them all.
When it comes down to it, it still requires the reader to want to participate.
Pedro
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"Pedro wrote on Mon, 04 December 2017 09:03"
"timmy wrote on Sun, 03 December 2017 09:03"There is a link from each story back to the challenge page thus:
Quote:
"Quote:"This story is part of the 2017 story challenge "Inspired by a Picture: Just Hangin'". The other stories may be found at the challenge home page. Please read them, too. The voting period of 30 November to 21 December 2017 is when the voting is open. This story may be rated, below, against a set of criteria, and may be rated against other stories on the challenge home page.
I can make this clearer, and your (plural) thoughts would be appreciated on how to do so.
-- Oops, can't see for looking! But that hints it could be clearer. My suggestion would be to make the sentence with the link a separate paragraph, and put the link in bold caps. Some rearrangement of the text and where it is in relation to the picture might also help.
If I remember correctly, when you have voted on a story the results page comes up. But I don't think that has a link back to the challenge home page. Maybe that and a note to remind readers to vote on the summary question when they have read them all.
When it comes down to it, it still requires the reader to want to participate.
--
I've had a crack at it. This is a work in progress. Go have a look at the current challenge stories and tell me what I can improve further, or if I've made it worse!
[Updated on: Mon, 04 December 2017 11:35]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"William King wrote on Mon, 04 December 2017 15:53"It's much better, but I just want to point this out:
On the front page Writing Challenges the summary shows 9 votes, on the Just Hanging page 8 votes, when I click your new button, then click Results it's 16 votes. Refreshing the pages does nothing.
Only this page http://iomfats.org/polls/poll.php?poll_id=191 shows up to date results.
"William King wrote on Mon, 04 December 2017 15:53"This page is the 9 votes http://iomfats.org/storyshelf/contests/
"William King wrote on Mon, 04 December 2017 15:53"This page is 8 votes http://iomfats.org/storyshelf/contests/2017-just-hangin/resu lts.html
--
Your browser's normal refresh is not refreshing sufficiently to clear the cache. Refresh tends to be browser dependent. On my Mac I use Safari, whose refresh also clears the page cache. Other browsers can suffer from persistent cache. 99.99% of the time differences in web pages, even dynamic pages, come from the browser's refresh algorithm.
You may need to investigate forcing the cache to clear on refersh. Often, on a PC, if I remember correctly, it is Ctrl/F5.
[Updated on: Mon, 04 December 2017 17:29]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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I have been searching for a way to have a simple "back" link in a poll. Things that sound simple to humans are not alwasy easy for browsers.
I have concluded that the small modification I have made, see the picture, is the best way.
Ok, it's grandmother, eggs, and sucking tuition, but some of our readers are less happy with technology than are others. All web sites are a continuous works in progresss
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Bisexual_Guy
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Likes it here |
Location: USA Midwest
Registered: September 2015
Messages: 156
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While I have had horrible luck with Safari browser in the past, I have had no trouble on this site with Chrome or Firefox. I have the latest major update of Chrome from last month, most sites (except AOL and Facebook) are working better and faster than ever.
Now on my phone, I have an old phone whose operating system cannot further be updated. Could that be part of the problem? I have sometimes had troubles with various sites on my phone.
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I am no computer expert. I can only report what happens, http://iomfats.org/polls/poll.php?poll_id=191 updates with the current votes, I think, because it was 16 and now it shows 17. The other two pages with the summary votes do not change. I am using a Samsung Tablet running Android with the latest Samsung browser. But its no real problem as I know where to find the updated results.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"William King wrote on Mon, 04 December 2017 22:45"I am no computer expert. I can only report what happens, http://iomfats.org/polls/poll.php?poll_id=191 updates with the current votes, I think, because it was 16 and now it shows 17. The other two pages with the summary votes do not change. I am using a Samsung Tablet running Android with the latest Samsung browser. But its no real problem as I know where to find the updated results.
--
It is your browser. You need to investigate the way it refreshes, and cause it to refresh so it actually clears the cache of the page you are inspecting. The site is fine, the data is identical on each page. Look at the screen shots I took above, please.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"Bisexual_Guy wrote on Mon, 04 December 2017 21:39"While I have had horrible luck with Safari browser in the past, I have had no trouble on this site with Chrome or Firefox. I have the latest major update of Chrome from last month, most sites (except AOL and Facebook) are working better and faster than ever.
Now on my phone, I have an old phone whose operating system cannot further be updated. Could that be part of the problem? I have sometimes had troubles with various sites on my phone.
--
The site is not malfunctioning. The issue is at the client side, not the server side. Clear your cache and refresh your browser.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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All I want to know is whether the improvements I have made to the pages and the individual poll results pages are genuine improvementsm or were a waste of time.
While I am sympathetic to people's individual browser issues they are not within the scope of anything I can solve. I do not know your browser, nor your operating system. I have no idea what your settings/preferences are, nor what they affect. Nor do I have the slightest idea what they should be.
[Updated on: Mon, 04 December 2017 23:00]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Pedro
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: March 2014
Messages: 94
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Yes I think they are inprovements. There is now a clear instruction on how to leave the polls and from the stories back to the challenge page. Thanks for your efforts. If I think of anything else that might be worth trying to get more responses, I will let you know.
The browser cache thing has caught me many times. It is now top of my list of things to try if a return visit to a site doesn't show an expected change.
[Updated on: Tue, 05 December 2017 07:27]
Pedro
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"Pedro wrote on Tue, 05 December 2017 07:26"Yes I think they are inprovements. There is now a clear instruction on how to leave the polls and from the stories back to the challenge page. Thanks for your efforts. If I think of anything else that might be worth trying to get more responses, I will let you know.
The browser cache thing has caught me many times. It is now top of my list of things to try if a return visit to a site doesn't show an expected change.
--
I can always do better if we can think of a better way.
"Quote:""Looking at the things we do best and finding more ways to do less of them better!"
I'm sure someone will get that reference from the Director of Better at the BBC. So that's all good.
Meanwhile I think we are as far as we can be down that road until folk here work out what other tweaks are needed
[Updated on: Tue, 05 December 2017 10:33]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Bisexual_Guy
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Likes it here |
Location: USA Midwest
Registered: September 2015
Messages: 156
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Overall, I think the way you currently have the polls arranged is better than it was. While there might be possible tweaks in the future, I am not able to think of any as of this moment.
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American_Alex
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Toe is in the water |
Location: New York, upstate
Registered: October 2017
Messages: 98
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"Pedro wrote on Sun, 03 December 2017 01:33"He, he! That's fun! I am in Barcelona at the moment and my posting has come up with the Spanish flag. I'm not sure all the locals (Catalunya) would approve. (Timmy has explained why this happens before - something to do with identifying the location of the last or first server in the chain to his.)
--If this is an issue for you, then post through a proxy server in another country.
"Able was I ere I saw Elba"
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