http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=1047756

Dear Monks,

I am writing this to suggest a comment on the Permission Denied page to state that "maybe you used some bad markup syntax. Check the Markup in the Monastery". Details follow.

---

Last night I struggled posting a response to SoPW. See here. I am learning to use this website and I tried to be helpful by providing a cross reference to another article on this web site. I read Markup in the monastery and discovered the request to use the [ ... ] notation. I have used foswiki for many years and thought I could put [ http://... | and so on. The text in chapter three makes it clear that that is not the case. But hey, it was late and I thought I knew what I was doing.

The result of what I did confused me no end. I got a Permission Denied message. First I thought I had exceeded some limit. The thread ended at 5 responses which I thought was quite long.So I thought that I should register to have such a long post. I did and I am happy to be registered. But I still did not have permission to post.

Then I tried to post a new request, because I did (sort of) diagnose the problem in the thread and had a workaround. I wanted to share the observation. But the new post did not work either.

Then I tried chatterbox and got a very prompt response telling me to persist, because smetimes the server does this kind of thing. As I was waiting I wrote the intro that you find in the referred post. And I had the aha! when I saw that I had incorrect syntax. I changed the syntax and hey! it worked.

So I added my Ooooh... comment at the top as an update (btw. not realising that I could have removed my confused comment instead. I have learned that too :-) )

I am writing this to suggest a comment on the Permission Denied page to state that "maybe you used some bad markup syntax. Check the Markup in the Monastery". Given my confused state, I might not have noticed that either. But smarter people than I may make this mistake and find the comment helpful

Thanks for the assistance provided. And thanks for listening.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Suggested improvement to the 'Permission Denied' page
by kcott (Archbishop) on Aug 04, 2013 at 04:54 UTC

    G'day BramVanOosterhout,

    Welcome to the monastery.

    It's good to see you're "learning to use this website" and reading relevant documentation.

    Before posting, you should use the [ preview ] button. When the preview appears, check for: typos; mismatched tags; invalid links. Fix any problems, hit the [ preview ] button again; repeat this cycle until your post is correct.

    In your post, you have three instances of "Markup in the Monastry". That was probably one typo (i.e. s{Monastry}{Monastery}) that you copied then pasted two more times; however, regardless of how you generated those errors, there is no "Markup in the Monastry" page so those links all go to the "Super Search" page. I'm sufficiently familiar with the site to know that you almost certainly meant "Markup in the Monastery".

    Similarly, when I checked "Permission Denied" (i.e. [Permission Denied]), I found "Permission Denied" was not a unique page name: the link went to a "Duplicates Found" page. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with that page and, given that's the page you're requesting changes to, this is critical information. I did find "Permission Denied" and "Permission denied." but, as they're both just normal threads you could have added to yourself, I'm assuming neither are what you meant to target: you probably mean some site documentation to which you don't have write-access. So, please determine exactly which page you're referencing and then visit the "SiteDocClan" page (it has a link to information about requesting changes). [Just before posting (while previewing, actually) I found this "Permission Denied" page which is probably the one you meant.]

    Here's a few other pointers you may find useful:

    • Take a look at "What shortcuts can I use for linking to other information?". Regarding "... thought I could put [ http:// ...": you can — see the "Arbitrary external sites" section. Here's two examples: http://perldoc.perl.org/perl.html (markup: [http://perldoc.perl.org/perl.html]); Perldoc: perl.html page (markup: [http://perldoc.perl.org/perl.html|Perldoc: perl.html page]).
    • Regarding "The thread ended at 5 responses ...": I'm not sure if this indicated that you had trouble seeing more than this. You can change how much you see by going to your home node (BramVanOosterhout), following the "Settings" link, then changing "Replies header depth" and/or "Replies text depth" (I usually have both of those set to 10 but choose whatever you want).
    • It's usually better to update your posting than starting a new thread: "How do I change/delete my post?" gives some pointers on doing this. [Actually, I wrote that after remembering your two posts yesterday; however, I checked them and found that the first one was anonymous so, obviously, you couldn't update that one. The information linked to is still valid for future reference.]
    • The "Posting on PerlMonks" page has links to other information you may find useful (it's one I have bookmarked).

    -- Ken

      Hi Ken,

      Thanks for your references. And I appreciate your advice.

      I also appreciate ww comments and working examples. The following example was the cause of my confusion:

      I wanted to write

      Win32::OLE and Excel - Tips and Tricks by cacharbe (Curate) Thank you

      Which I keyed as [http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=153486|Win32::OLE and Excel - Tips and Tricks]

      when I pressed create (after multiple previews :-) I was sent to [id://2294|Permission Denied]. And that does not happen today. So maybe it was nothing I did, but just a server thing.

      (I now know there is more than one page and how to avoid going to a search)

      With respect to the Monastry typo, it shows as a link in preview. I found out it was wrong after I created the post and updated the text to monastery.

      anyway, thanks again for your patience and advice. I hope I have not overstayed my welcome!

        "Thanks for your references. And I appreciate your advice."

        You're welcome.

        "Which I keyed as [http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=153486|Win32::OLE and Excel - Tips and Tricks]"

        PerlMonks has (I believe) six domain names: three TLDs (.org, .net, .com) each +/- the "www.". When you specify the domain name in a link, you'll often take readers to another domain that they're not logged in to: at best, this is a nuisance we'd all prefer to do without; it can cause various issues which then require further effort to rectify; it might result in angry responses which is probably something you'd prefer to do without. By not specifying the domain, the readers remain on the domain they were logged in to (and all is good). Anyway, that's the reason for not doing it; you appear to have picked up how to do it correctly (e.g. with id://). You might also be interested in: "How do I link to a node on this site by number?".

        One further point on this: you don't need to use the exact page title as the "link text". Often, when referring to another node in the same thread, I might write something like this markup:

        ... in addition to [id://nnnn|the very good points] already made by [M +onkName] (above) ...
        "I hope I have not overstayed my welcome!"

        I hope so too. :-) Otherwise, I've wasted an awful lot of time providing advice and information for future reference to someone who isn't coming back and therefore won't need any of it. :-(

        Seriously, we all make mistakes when starting out: don't worry about it. You're clearly making an effort to do the right thing and that is appreciated.

        -- Ken

Re: Suggested improvement to the 'Permission Denied' page
by ww (Archbishop) on Aug 04, 2013 at 03:22 UTC
    You're still wrong on the facts... as you were last night... and you were told then that your interpretation of events was incorrect (in Re: install cpan Win32::OLE on cygwin - $Excel->Workbooks->Add; fails).

    Here's a an ill-formatted (for PM, that is) link: [http://google.com]
    ... this one also comes up short of the PM standards: [a href=http://google.com"].

    Update: rjt pointed out (by msg) that combining crack, alcohol, excess caffination, funky mushrooms and PM is not a really good idea.
    Well, actually, the msg mentioned that the first of the two allegedly malformed links above is not malformed. rjt is correct, and I don't have a clue where my mind was (well, 'lala land?') as I wrote that, but -- fondly (or not) remembering Dan Quayle -- I can confirm from the personal experience above that 'a mind is a terrible thing to lose.' Thank you rjt; apologies to all others for spewing an inaccuracy.

    The first just works; the second sends you off to Super Search (after mulling it over for a bit). BUT NEITHER TAKES YOU TO 'The Permission Denied page."

    As for "... I could have removed my confused comment...." -- DON'T!

    The norm here is to strikeout (strike ...(old content) </strike>) the material you're tempted to remove. Actually deleting content -- especially if you have replies -- will likely leave future readers of the thread without any context for some of those answers. That's also true if someone is crafting a response as you're changing the original. So, DON'T DELETE; strike and update.

    To paraphrase the wisdom in the admonition "cut once but measure twice," write as you wish, but check your facts, first.
Re: Suggested improvement to the 'Permission Denied' page
by sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Aug 05, 2013 at 20:33 UTC

    As someone who has used this site for about six years, and who has from time-to-time encountered this message, and who as a result himself just might have said, “persist, because sometimes the server does this kind of thing” ... I for one would be delighted to discover that “some bad markup syntax” might be the true culprit.   (I never want to have to “read a manual” to discover how to use a web-site “correctly.”   I just want to author a post and It Just Works.™)

    Good Eyes!   Thanks for spotting this!