Today I'd have a question to my American friends. What's your understanding of "cross-posting"? I know what dictionaries have to say but just wondered whether there might be a more recent, second meaning which I'm not aware of. (As unlikely as this may be...) I'm asking because the word has been used in German-language forums for some time with a different meaning which I think is non-existent. Here cross-posts are supposedly those posts that are solely written to challenge a member whom you don't like because of what this person had posted earlier on and, thus, do not aim at making a contribution to the topic being discussed. Is there such a meaning of the word cross-posting, would you say, or is the meaning given in dictionaries and lexicons, i.e. to send a single electronic message or article to several different newsgroups at the same time, the only one you'd know of? Thanks in advance for your answers.
Thomas, I don't claim to be an expert... but in my internet experience it simply means posting the exact same information on more than one website. Or even in multiple sections of the same website. For instance, posting a thread in the Education section of the forum and then the same thing in the Health section in an attempt to get more responses. And of course, if you take the words at face value, "cross" can mean irritable, so I'm quite often guilty of "cross-posting."
Thomas, I believe cross-posting is causing many problems in this country. Your ad hominem is not a serious since it tends to lighten the intensity of subject matter at hand. An argument is more fallacious rather than factual whereas cross-posting can be really serious stuff.
Lois, I don't understand your comment... how is cross-posting causing problems in this country? I must be missing something.
I could be wrong, but I thought cross posting is when every article, web site or news report use the very same source for their information. A lot of times they even use the exact same words. Few reporters or journalists do any of leg work to find the truth or bottom line. They just keep repeating each other. This is why our news sources are totally unreliable.
I can see where cross-posting might have that definition, as to be cross means to be angry or mean. However, as "cross" is not so much used in that way anymore here, that's not what most people think of as cross-posting. Like others, I consider cross-posting to be what some people are guilty of here, which is to post the same thing in other forums as they post here. Whether it's something original to the author or not, as far as SEO goes, it is too often viewed as plagiarism, as the same thing is posted here that had already been posted on another forum, and it's not a good thing. In another thread, I discussed something more to what you might think of as cross-posting.
Thanks to all for your input. You don't need to be experts. With your help I just wanted to find out how the word is being used and understood by native English speakers. Most importantly, I learned that none of you would understand it as an angry posting nor use it with that meaning. So, it's not a commonly used and valid word but one of those pseudo-English words created for a given community but which are not understood in an English-speaking context. That's what I had expected. We have many other words of that sort. @Harry Havens Yes, as you say, it would be akin to ad hominem and, more often than not even more so, to ad personam but would not be completely the same. That's why I didn't want to use these terms. Both can be part of a post but very rarely make the complete post. As you know, an argumentum ad hominem would also be more structured and would refer to the point under discussion. This is often not the case.
Again, thanks to all of you for your feedback. Can I now ask you what you'd call that kind of posts which I have described like this: "Posts that are solely written to challenge a member, often subtly, whom you don't like because of what this person had posted earlier on and, thus, are essentially off-topic and do not aim at making a contribution to the topic being discussed." Leaving Latin expressions aside, is there a specific English term for that kind of harassment which springs to mind or which you've come across? I guess cyberbullying would be stronger? Not so happy with trolling either. The tricky thing is that it's often not an open attack but attentive readers and moderators reading between the lines would know that the post is another indirect and disguised retaliatory response to another forum member. Hal, no, I don't mean plagiarism.
If one is attuned to the the hidden jabs at sarcasm, one can miss this sort of jab, Thomas. Usually, I can tell when this is happening. Of course in this country, it is becoming more open and obvious.
I don't know of a specific term. It is trolling, but that is more often applied to the person who is trying to disrupt a forum or a forum thread, in general, rather than the one who is targeting a specific person. It is also a personal attack, but it goes beyond that. In real-life, a personal attack might involve punching someone in a subway, while this would be the equivalent of following him around town to attack him repeatedly. People do that, and they do that here. I don't always notice because, for one thing, I don't read every thread, and often it's subtle enough that you only notice when it's directed at you, which is what makes it particularly annoying to the person who is targeted. That does fall under overly annoying behavior.
I'd say "trolling" or even "stalking," if one poster was following another around for the simple reason of sniping at them. Personally speaking, if I don't care for another poster I usually ignore them altogether. Keeps my blood pressure in check.
"Stalking" is the word that I was searching for earlier. Unable to find it, I concluded that it didn't exist. Yes, stalking perfectly defines it and it is a word that has been used to describe that behavior.