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Thread: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

  1. #1
    Registered User Niall Anderson's Avatar
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    Default Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    Have just noticed a slightly odd behaviour in the Classifieds section - not dramatically important, but a mild irritant :-)

    I was trying to place an add with the maker name NK Forster (initials plus surname). That came out as "Nk Forster" when I posted the ad. I assumed I had mistyped the name, deleted the add, and put a new one up after careful proofing - the same thing happened. Edited the name to be Nigel Forster, but added "(in UK)" - lo and behold, this turned out as "(in Uk)". Have given up at this point and will just leave it. Thought I would post a mention to see if this is a known issue, though!

    ETA: Modify'ing the ad has no effect - updates to the title (in terms of capital to lower case changes) don't seem to be recorded.

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    What if you put a space between the N and the K; like N K?

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    Default Re: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    Hello Niall,

    I had just been looking at your advertisement when I noticed this post. Are you sure that it is not the auto-correct/general typing settings on whichever device you are using typing on that is changing the capitalisation? I ask this because advertisements from The Acoustic Music Company tend to put UK at the end of the title, and as far as I can recall both the 'U' and the 'K' display in upper case.

    Here is an example from the classifieds
    Rob

    My YouTube Channel
    My Book - The Solstice Blade - featuring zero mandolin content!

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    Default Re: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    I have the same problem. I have sold several blue chip picks and whenever I want to say "TAD 60" it changes it to Tad 60. I think it's something with the site and not a setting on our computers.

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    Administrator Mandolin Cafe's Avatar
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    Default Re: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    Yes, we edit ad titles on the fly so you don't have to read ads like this:

    ## L@@K --> Hot $$$$$SALE on my mandolin <-- L@@K ##
    1945 MARTIN D-28 BLUEGRASS CANNON MU$T G0
    ::::## fire $ale, all instruments mu$t go:::##
    Buy my $*@&#!!@ GUITAR

    Short answer: my programming creates the corrections, or mistakes if you please.

    Long answer: in 1995 I saw my first internet classifieds somewhere and it was a big, boiling, hot mess of all of the above and more. Keyboard vomit run amuck. I vowed I'd never host anything that make me disgusted to look at. Solution: regular expressions--they drive a lot of the internet, and there are several hundred employed on classified ad titles alone so you don't have to look at the attempted keyboard vomit that gets attempted daily.

    All text, regardless of case, first gets clobbered so each first letter is capitalized and then the remained of the word lower case, titles only. Then we take selecting terms like MT (Collings designations), etc. and tell the software to make Mt into MT (with rules assigned). There are other cases more complicated. You have to be careful that you observe things like spaces, where they fall, etc. Some terms like dollar signs and @ symbols mean other things to programming languages so you treat them with care, and make sure (technical description/reasons omitted) all is well.

    From time to time when I see a term that's getting used a lot that should be changed, I'll add that to the programming. Case in point: Schertler's RESOCOIL which I recently noticed is actually an upper case term so we allow it treated in that fashion.

    In the case of RK and TAD Blue Chip picks I've changed that programming, if it's those exact terms. In the case of RK, only if it's at the beginning of the title and followed by a space, TAD only if it's surrounded by spaces so we don't clobber some words ending in 'rk' and 'tad.' Comprendo?

    Trevor Moyle always ads UK to the end of his ads so I've altered that so it's left as is. He wants to let prospective readers know they're shopping in the UK as a courtesy. UK looks better than Uk.

    We don't attempt to catch everything. In the long run, I have to decide what's most pleasing to the eye. Keyboard vomit (my term) I think has few fans. Oh, and if you haven't noticed, the Forum headlines observe some of this behavior but that's programmed into the software. I could look into those rules if I felt like it and had other things less pressing, which isn't the case at the moment.
    Last edited by Mandolin Cafe; Feb-25-2017 at 10:48am. Reason: correction to the rules of regex as explained

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    Registered Loser blawson's Avatar
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    Default Re: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandolin Cafe View Post
    ... Solution: regular expressions ...
    regex!

    https://xkcd.com/208/
    /* no comment */

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    Administrator Mandolin Cafe's Avatar
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    Default Re: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    Quote Originally Posted by blawson View Post
    Ha, fellow computer nerd, this member. See what you've started?

    This stuff is like poetry: s/(\w+)/\u\L$1/g;

    Perl: the duct tape of the internet. More than a few people have lost jobs due to this kind of programming. OK, slinking away now with my pencil/pen pocket protector and calculator.

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    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    10 PRINT All this geek talk is getting to me.
    GOTO 10

    I'm old.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
    --M. Stillion

    "Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
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    Fatally Flawed Bill Kammerzell's Avatar
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    Default Re: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    I notice the abbreviation for Hard Shell Case remains HSC.
    Ray Dearstone #009 D1A (1999)
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    Administrator Mandolin Cafe's Avatar
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    Default Re: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    Quote Originally Posted by willkamm View Post
    I notice the abbreviation for Hard Shell Case remains HSC.
    It doesn't remain that way, it's altered on the fly. Type it as hsc with a space on either side, or hSc, or hsC, or HSc, etc. and it'll end up as HSC. That's an exception that's programmed in. Same for SOLD, OSHC, IBMA, JM, MAS, WTT, DADGAD, CMSA and dozens of others.

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    Administrator Mandolin Cafe's Avatar
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    Default Re: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    Quote Originally Posted by MikeEdgerton View Post
    10 PRINT All this geek talk is getting to me.
    GOTO 10

    I'm old.
    You are the Maytag repairman of ancient mail servers everyone is afraid of

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    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandolin Cafe View Post
    You are the Maytag repairman of ancient mail servers everyone is afraid of
    Indeed I am.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
    --M. Stillion

    "Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
    --J. Garber

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    Administrator Mandolin Cafe's Avatar
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    Default Re: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    Also, so that everyone knows, we've been engaging in this for probably close to 15 years. If we didn't, I promise many of you would be screaming at us to get people to stop some of the crazy stuff they try to submit as titles.

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  18. #14
    Registered User Niall Anderson's Avatar
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    Default Re: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    Thanks for that. I'll watch out for that in future.

    Glad I gave everyone an excuse to let their inner geeks out for some exercise ;-)

    Niall

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    Moderator JEStanek's Avatar
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    Default Re: Capital letters in Classified ad titles - odd behaviour

    Look at Mike being all BASIC.

    Jamie
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