Forum Etiquette (I think I did a bad thing)

Okay, so, it's Monday Morning here and I stare weak~eyed at my biz email... and see a flurry of... inbox full messages. Wah? Inbox is not full, I am looking at it...

...then it dawns on me. My _SL_ forums inbox is full. Just like it says. But it's Monday Morning and not all the neurons are firing. And apparently its been full for... well, days at least. And lotsa people trying to contact me.

Which is curious because I don't think I've written anything terribly controversial (or meaningful) in the forums this weekend, though reaction is sometimes hard for me to judge. Maybe it's something else... let's see... not banned, $L balance still there, housecat was at home when I left... who knows?

Anyway, on to the point.

* * * * *

I've been on the internet since the days of 110 and 300 baud modems, but even so, a lot of the modern forum social rules have gone right over my head. So here are a list of questions.

a) Is it expected that I personally contact everyone looking for me via private message, if my inbox overflowed? I don't know some of them.

b) Does everyone look at the little PM inboxy thing each time? I am lucky to notice it maybe once in every five forum visits. If I'm happily posting away with "5 Unread" is that generally something that will cause the messager to get upset? (not the case this weekend but I have done that before more than once)

c) If it overflows and I leave it that way, is it considered rude, or just a personal choice?

d) I've got PM inboxes on other forums, which I almost never check. Does everyone else keep up with all the myriad forum inboxes out there, or are all of you just as intransigent as I am?

e) There seems to be this sort of... I dunno, social network consisting as much of private messages as public forum posts around here. Which is cool, I get that, people have their friends and I think that's a very valid usage of forums. But I'm more of a forums 'write and run' kinda guy... I post in forums between doing other stuff at home, or the office. For instance now I'm writing between customer orders. Last night I was cooking seafood (while a bit sick) and you can't let fish go too short or too long, you gotta watch it. I only read 3 or 4 interesting threads, and then I gotta go do something else for 20 minutes. Does this make me seem sorta distant or detached (or clueless?) on forums somehow?

f) (okay unrelated but similar) ~ I am not on Facebook. Were I to be on Facebook... I'd lose maybe 2 more hours a day to interacting socially on the internet. My email's fairly well known as it is... but I keep getting constant invites to: Facebook, LinkedIn, Plurk, Twitter, the list goes on. Now, I know one person here invited me to a forum last week and that was very nice, there was a personally written note with it and a 'hi' and all that kinda stuff. But I'm talking about the automatic invites, not the ones where someone took the time to write. Does one write a gentle "no thank you I am overwhelmed" to each automatic Facebook invite via email/SL IM/notecard/whatever, or just let it go?


Hugs to everybody who PM'ed me this weekend and I didn't get it.

It's ok Dessie. I was just trying to tell you we probably (I did anyway) had the Russian flu in 77, so maybe it won't get too horrible with this Swine

If it had been urgent I would have shot a cannonball with a note attatched to it through your window.

I have my forum options set to pop up a notification box when I get a new PM. I get so few, mine never fills. I do usually read and respond as soon as I am notified or shortly thereafter.

You did a bad thing? Heck, I just about told someone off in the kid skin thread... :-/

I don't always see the PM thing, but when i do, I try to respond promptly. It's not the most expedient form of communication, however.

I can let mine go for a few days before I notice it - although I do have it set to send an IM to a regular account when I have a message. Sometimes it gets hard to keep up with it all.

Personally, I think one should always respond to messages. There is a famous SLer who I shall not name (but who's name appears on these forums with regularity) that I sent a PM to through SLU once and never got a reply to my inquiry regarding a business proposal.

It has colored my opinion of this person ever since.

Now, I get that not everyone likes me and I'm ok that this well-known person is clearly not a fan, but I think at least a courtesy reply of "Sorry, that's not something I would be interested in at this time" was due. At least, that is how I would treat someone that I didn't much care for. Just because I didn't like them wouldn't be an excuse to be rude and not reply at all. That isn't good business nor is it basic manners.

I have the CP options set to send me an email when I get a PM, and also do a popup when I refresh the forum screen. However, the notification email does not contain the text of the PM (%$#^%!), so is just an alert.

But people don't send me PMs very often - might be a bit spammy for you, Des!

I'm one of those folks who use their email as an archive, and PM accounts hold only 70 messages, so it tends to fill up with things I don't want to delete. Not my favorite mode of communication - I'd much rather get email or IMs.

1977... what was going on around then? The Freedom Train... Pink Lady... KC and the Sunshine Band... yah maybe there was a Russian Flu in there too. Can't remember. I was 13 and had just discovered girls.

Pop up notification? Gah! Maybe I should... but it sounds pesky.

There's a kid skin thread? Yet a further sign of my selective reading... but yeah, normally it's not worth raising hackles in forums.

I try to answer PM's when I get them, I don't have popups turned on, so I sometimes miss them, or when I am traveling I don't go online, but I think a simple acknowledgement should be given. Where I need to do better is emails. I sometimes check my email only once ot twice a week, and it sometimes piles up to where I just delete all and hope nothing important was there.

Isablan now I'm all worried and thinking I should check my SLU (and other) messages!? I don't sound like the person you are talking about (I think) but I wonder if I did that same kind of thing to anybody...

And Nika 'just an alert' would be fine for me, but yah I prefer emails. I'm not sure I'd want just anybody to have the power to pop up *any text they want* on my screen at any time.

As far as I'm concerned, the was a good thing.

I remember I got a Midnight Rider for Christmas (just like a Green Machine but blue). I was the terror of the neighborhood on that thing (once I got over the Russian flu). I hate to say it but I think Donny and Marie were on tv during that period, a KC 45 for a birthday present and...a whole lot of polyester I was thoroughly traumatized by and never think of anymore. Star Wars? Or maybe that was a little later, but I got the 'Love Gun' album in that general period, too.

Seriously though, it was epidemic for kids, and struck just around Christmas. I remember being one of the last 5 or 6 sent home by my teacher before descending into delerium.

I think on British TV Donny and Marie went around 75, Star Wars was in the cinema yes. I was pogoing to British Punk groups at Polytechnic and I had just discovered girls too.

Did you know that there is an 'download messages' option down at the bottom of the screen so you can save them off?

I was a half wild, half naked tomboy in primary school. I think the only boys I had discovered were like Mari's Johnny.

May have been reruns, because I am having flashes of Sonny and Cher, too.

a) Is it expected that I personally contact everyone looking for me via private message, if my inbox overflowed? I don't know some of them.
- Not expected by me. If it is important they will have used other means to get in touch already.

b) Does everyone look at the little PM inboxy thing each time?
- It gives me a pop up if I have an unread PM.

c) If it overflows and I leave it that way, is it considered rude, or just a personal choice?
- It woul make me wonder why you turned them on at all. Maybe it would be seen as a sign of being techno-iliterate, like the full voice mail kind of thing. I know 70 limit for inbound and out is tight, but it a mailbox is full and stays that way it does imply that either the person does not know how to manage the messages or does not care. -- sorry, that is not an answer you would like to hear, but that is a way it is seen at times.

d) I've got PM inboxes on other forums, which I almost never check. Does everyone else keep up with all the myriad forum inboxes out there, or are all of you just as intransigent as I am?
- As much as possible, I have everything directed to the Rhonda Huntress email account so I will know if someone is talking to me. I do not check every forum every day and even my flickr page goes unused for a few days at times. However, there are ways I can be reached and in general if someone stumbles on some minor presence some where I do not feel bad if it takes me days to get back to them.

e) Does this make me seem sorta distant or detached (or clueless?) on forums somehow?
- No. If fan forum statistics hold here (and I see no reason they would not) 90% of the people who read this forum regularly have never posted a single comment. I will go out on a limb here and say we would rather have you visit and comment when you can than have you never post at all.

f) Does one write a gentle "no thank you I am overwhelmed" to each automatic Facebook invite via email/SL IM/notecard/whatever, or just let it go?
- Send a reply? Oh hell no. Just let it go. It is not like I have never heard of facebook so why do people want to send me invites? If I wanted a FB account it would have been there
by now. I have had a few people take the time to send me a personal invite and those I take the time to say 'no thank you'. I have had a couple of people get pushy about it and to those I have had to say 'hell no'. But for the most part I just let it go.

/me remembers the Russian Flu and the Swine Flu first time around and shudders. Those were both nightmares I would prefer not to repeat

as for PMs in the forums In five years I have got less than dozen so yeah they can sit there a very long time before I notice them. DO I feel bad when I do notice them but so far I haven't had anyone go ballistic when I answer VERY late.

Thank you for the thorough answer Rhonda... and I'm not afraid of your answer to c), this is the kind of stuff I am looking for.

Though it was f) that made my day

Perhaps I don't practise good enough internet messaging hygiene... I try to keep up, but there's always a bit of a mess somewhere.


To answer the thread derailment that is getting rather delightful, after thinking carefully I am embarrassed to say that this is probably what I remember that year best for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REElUors1pQ Hey I was 13, gimme a break...

Nothing good ever comes of my PMs

no.



Thanks!

The derailment was inevitable and you seem absolved. ANyhow I can at least blame my incoherence on illness

You don't remember these things? Oh you missed the boat! (hope the image shows....)

They didn't come to the UK I am sure of that, probably some safety regulation regarding the colour?

Holy crap ... it's Monday!?

If it was a safety reg, it wouldn't have been for the color. You could do the most amazing spin outs on it. I would have sold my soul for one of those things had I not gotten it for Christmas

Ooooh I remember those things now.

They made an incredible sound as the wheels were hollowish or something, and you couldn't miss them for miles...

I think they are totally unlawful now unless the kid has a huge orange flag sticking up and a helmet on, because it was so easy for people to not see such a low thing coming down the sidewalk and they would back a station wagon right over them.

There was another, more ubiquitous type that was red or orangey if I recall. The green was probably a reaction to that...

Yes, and when you had a large dog pulling you on light gravel while you peddled your little heart out, they REALLY made a racket.



I suppose...never even thought of that. I was a hellion. I had access to some crazy terrain for it, too, and my parents' never batted an eye.


No idea, but mine was blue. Oh how I loved that thing. Sigh....