What's with all the "pings"?

WileECoyote

I notice many posts which are titled "Ping Joe Smith" or whatever. These are apparently attempts to communicate with specific forum members.

The problem is that you have to wait for the desired forum member to check the forum, see the post before it scrolls off whatever view they are using, and then reply to your thread in public. If the desired forum member doesn't check the forum in the right period of time or use the right view then they will never see your message.

So I am wondering why people don't just use the forum profiles to contact other forum members directly? Simply locate their profile page and click the email link to send them a private message. Your message is delivered right to them, immediately, and you won't have to wait and hope that they will check the forum at the right time and with the right view to see your thread.

The present PING method isn't really a big problem but it does clog up the forum with unnecessary posts, most of which are personal and not relevant to the general public, and it seems terribly inefficient. Is there some other reason why people use the ping approach?

Celtic Wolf

nmsg..

RRP

Dear WileE,
in the past I would have supported your post as it makes sense etc. OTOH since the BGE Border Patrol went in to place I have personally been on both sides of complaints that BGE processed emails get hung up in spammer files and what appears to correct that one time may not work the next. Unlike you and WessB I don't go ballistic when I see PING messages. What was given to us to eliminate problems is still not a perfect solution.

Good night and don't let the PINGS bite!

WileECoyote

Thank you both for your very informative and helpful replies.

I am not "going ballistic" about the PING messages. I simply asked about it because it doesn't make sense to me. I figured there must be a reason why it is done so often on this forum but almost never on other forums.

Perhaps it is the spam trap issue. I have seen first-hand that some of my private messages from this forum do indeed end up in the spam bucket. My spam service automatically sends a challenge response and if the sender confirms then their message is automatically delivered to me, however I believe that this forum formats the original email in such a way that it prevents the challenge responses from being delivered to the original sender, thus the majority of my private messages from this forum remain in the spam trap.

I guess this is just one more oddity / frustration that we have to live with on the BGE forum, but thankfully not on all of the other internet forums which seem to work so well without needing tons of customization and bug-fixes to keep basic features working... :S

Celtic Wolf

You are missing the point. Is it really worth even mentioning? Nope!! Nobody is gonna die because someone pinged someone else.

WileECoyote

Celtic Wolf wrote:

You are missing the point. Is it really worth even mentioning? Nope!! Nobody is gonna die because someone pinged someone else.

I just sent you a PM to thank you for replying to a thread twice which was not worth mentioning. Better check your spam trap though... next time I will PING you... :woohoo:

Celtic Wolf

and I will answer..

Hmmm three times now.. :P