My blog is dedicated to folding trailers (AKA PopUps or PUP’s). Hopefully non-PUP owners will find some of the posts of interest/value.
I’ll cover equipment, modifications, maintenance, camping stories, and of course SPUT’s (Stupid Pop Up Tricks). Please forgive my rants & raves and posts on my camping buddy – my granddaughter.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So I try and keep the post short but augment them with pictures from my SmugMug gallery.
Enjoy.
He Ruide
I’ll cover equipment, modifications, maintenance, camping stories, and of course SPUT’s (Stupid Pop Up Tricks). Please forgive my rants & raves and posts on my camping buddy – my granddaughter.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So I try and keep the post short but augment them with pictures from my SmugMug gallery.
Enjoy.
He Ruide
Two words that should be said on the internet
Posted 07-05-2008 at 06:08 PM by heruide
Comedian George Carlin, who died late last month, was famous for identifying seven words you could not say on TV. Now while I knew of Carlin, I must confess I had to look up what those words were. Of course I was not surprised to find that the words he listed were not exactly nice words.
I recognize I will never achieve the fame of Carlin, but I hope that the one and only person that reads my blog will remember me for listing the two words that should be said on the internet.
Now I actually wanted to list six words. Other than Daddy and Mommy, these were the first words that my parents engrained in my brain and they did such a good job that they are still there today. And I’m so please to say that my little 23 month old grand daughter might not be able to put complete sentences together but she knows and uses these six words.
Some of you will think that I’m old fashioned. Yes - Guilty as charged since I’ll confess to being old or I guess the politically correct way to say it is “Mature”. And I’ve been known to be fashion conscious thanks to my lovely wife. However, in today’s informal internet communication it seems short cuts are the new way of life and you need a special dictionary to interpret the new vocabulary.
So what are the two words I believe should be said on the internet? They are simply “Thank you”.
I know many of you may be surprised, but I actually did a little research to quantify what I sense was common practice. I reviewed 35 messages that I had responded to in five different fora.
Before I share the results I must say this was from folding trailer fora and hence I don’t know if the same results are true for other types of RV discussion groups.
OK the results – A little more that half of the time (54%) the original poster after asking a question did return to the thread to thank the responders for their answers. Of course some will go beyond the call of duty like my friend David who has offered me a drink of my choice whenever we are camping at the same camp ground
NOW THAT IS JUST WONDERFUL.
Unfortunately the others (46%), never ever said a word after lots of folks had attempted to provide assistance… they just disappeared back into cyberspace. Now 15% of folks ended their question with a “Thanks in advance” so you might give them a break, but I think that might be nice but not good enough. As I describe below, if a poster does not say anything you have no idea if they even read the response and if it did in fact answered their question. The only saving grace is that 15% of the time, someone other than the original poster would chime in and say thanks for the information.
As I said above I believe it is the responsibility to the poster to respond their thread and indicate if the response was helpful.
Case in point, a month ago a poster wanted to know where to buy a ceiling storage unit.
I saw the question and remembered that I had seen this unit in a camper at a RV show. But which show was it? Which camper? Did I take a photograph? Who made it? So after more than an hour of searching thru files and files of photographs I found two, loaded them on my SmugMug page, identified the manufacturer, and saw that it was available as an option.
So I responded “I believe this is what you are looking for. I believe it is called an overhead kitchen pantry and is made by Rockwood.
Result of my effort?
Nothing, Silence, Zilch, Nil, Nada, Zero. Heck maybe what I described was not what the poster was looking for.
But wait… there is more.
One month later the same poster in the same forum asked the same question again.
And as one that must be gluteus for punishment I responded again. The good news is there were other readers that found the information helpful… and finally the OP did confess that he saw my response but it was not what he was looking for.
So if my 23 month old grand daughter knows to say “Thank you Pappy” I don’t think it is too much to ask the same of some of my fellow campers.
Ruide
PS… for those wondering what the other four words are… they are “Please” and “You are welcome”.
Total Comments 4
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Ruide, first and foremost, THANK YOU; for your very informative blog, modification pictures on the Smug Mug site, and on this blog, sharing the one of your grand daughter. Is she giving Pappy instructions? Sure looks like it! oldsailor (AKA Chuck)
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Chuck,
You are welcome. Oh yes the grand daughter has a couple phrases that we hear all the time. Typically she is either saying: "I can do it by myself." or "Let me show you how." She does have an independent streak that we encouraging. Take care of yourself and thanks for leaving a comment. Ruide |
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I was trying to find a place to do this and I guess my guardian Angel let me to this post....
so with that in mind I want to say.... Thank you Very Much! Your an inspiration to others. UtahGuy |
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UtahGuy,
You are welcome. The mods, taking the pictures, writing the blog has become a labor of love. I know lots of people visit my SmugMug pare and read my blog, but typically they don't leave a comment. Comments like yours and others are very meaningful, its what keeps my working on this effort and is priceless. Thanks, take care and blessings to all guardian angels. Ruide |
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