Genealogy Chat

TBH.......this thread wasn't actually about people NOT replying to messages. It was about people sending a not very well worded/impolite message wanting information about someone in your tree without any indication of how they think this person might be related to their tree.

And I don't think my replying in a similar vein to their message is rude/impolite/bad mannered in any way at all.........in fact I would expect from the tone of their original message that this is how they would expect the reply to be given! If it isn't how they want to be replied to, then they shouldn't write their message to me in such a way in the first place!

Anyone who has ever had a message initiated by me will find that it is polite, giving the information about how I think the person in their tree may be related to me and thanking them for their time if the person I'm asking about isn't related.

Mary

Patience is a virtue which sadly in this day and age has been forgotten. Maybe it can be blamed on new technologies with instant reponse who knows.

Getting angry or upset about lack of reponse to messages is a waste of ones energy. After all even if I get a response I still have to go and find the records to prove it. Yes there have been instances when I would not have found that necessary lead that has tantilizingly eluded me but everything comes to he/she who waits.

Daff I am please to hear that you are on the mend and wish you well.

Something else for consideration. My husband is dyslexic and when contacting members does not always come across as politely as he should. However I encourage him to persevere rather than just write everything on his behalf as this will not help his self esteem. So what some may construed as lack of common curtesy may be because the other person is try very hard to make contact were reading and writing is very difficult

Thank you Barbara.

TBH Mary, I realise that the thread was about courtesy, and good manners.

But the threads complaining about people who don't respond, are, in my opinion, also ill mannered and discourteous. They make an assumption in many cases that not replying is deliberate and wilful and I would even go as far as to suggest that some even feel that it is malicious.

When the fact is, the non responder may have been ill, died, had family problems, be moving house, whatever... just not able to respond for whatever reason.

So, to me, this is an appropriate thread for this topic, and not off topic at all.

Love

Daff xxxx

Please and Thank you, dont hurt anyone

So why dont people use it anymore.

It dont cost anything.

Hazelx

we have one on TTF at the moment - initial posting was quite impolite - however, a stack of information has been found for her - she has been advised by pm to return - these pm's have been opened but she still has not managed to acknowledge anything that has been found for her - in this instance I call this bad manners

Sorry if this has been said already but regards people not replying, they might not have renewed their membership.

My membership was due for renewal last November but I wasn't sure if it was worth renewing as I wasn't really getting anything from the site in terms of new contacts of any use to me. I let my membership lapse and was surprised to find that I could still access everything I already had but couldn't access anything new. This meant that although I could see messages, I couldn't reply to them.


I don't know if this is a form of psychological torture on GR's part in order to tempt you back but curiosity did get the better of me and I renewed a couple of weeks ago.

You ask for something and normally say Please
You receive something and normally say Thank you

What is so difficult about that!

I agree please and thank you should be the easiest thing in the world for everyone. As I put dinner on the table my 21 year old son thanked me. This made me think yes he always says please and thank when asking for and receiving and it put me in mind of an incident which happened when he was at school.

I had been called into the office because my 11 year old was swearing in school. To say I was shocked was an understatement but the teacher then told me she knew that there was no swearing at home because he swore in the wrong places and was trying to fit in. She said you can tell the ones who hear it all the time because of the way they speak on an every day basis. Yes please and thank you' s should be said when asking for or receiving from others but what if some have not been taught it at their mother's knee? What if some have not been brought up to be polite, is it really our place to criticise and to teach good manners on these boards.

Maybe the answer is not to respond with the information requested with a hope that they look at threads that do get responses and learn that you must be polite to get help

Sorry but why Miss the poster dont tell her contact privatly direct by pm instead of posting a thread about it, tell the person you expect a more polite request.

Kay, I have indeed replied directly to the person asking me for information using the advice given to me by earlier posters.

I posted my initial message because I have become exasperated by the way some people make contact with me.

I am always civil to everybody, when making contact with them or responding to their messages. I suppose I was letting off steam about my experience, enlisting support from like minded people and also POLITELY requesting that when people ask for help they should do so in a well-mannered way.


Chris

Mary, when I posted my original comment Yesterday at 09:53 the thread did make reference to people not replying to posts, which is why I made mention to Daffs thread on the other board.

On reading through it again this morning it appears that there have been some mysterious editing of comments & postings somewhere along the way.....!

IGP, yes. it looks as though I was referring to Missy and this thread as being rude, when I am not... she is quite right, there are many rude people about.

My post was about a different type of rudeness, the threads from people almost demanding that they have a right of reply from others... and I was explaining some of the occasions when others may not be able to reply.

But it wasn't aimed at this thread by Missy at all. The deleted posts do take away some of the relevence of my posts as well.

I tend to just add extra, with a note that I am editing, rather than leave a blank post... unless I have double posted, then I explain so. That is common courtesy, after all.

Love

Daff xxxx

Love

Daff xxxx

What I cannot understand is this, and I know many will disagree with me, but I have not put it up to cause a disagreement, just perhaps to get an explanation, why this happens.
Last October, I put up a query about a relly on, I think, the TTF Board. A person, who answers alot of people's queries, very kindly took up this challenge.
For the last couple of years, I have spent more time in hospital than out, and having to go at a moments notice, although the researcher obviously did not know this. It was during one of these spells, that I received some very fruitful answers, to which I replied and gave my thanks.
Today, I wanted to look again, at the information I was given. All the information had been deleted by the researcher. Why?. After going to all the trouble to research on my behalf, why delete it. For what purpose.
I am rather perplexed at this.
This is posted in all honesty, and not to cause any trouble.
Julia in Derbyshire

Hi Julia

There a probably more than a couple of answers to your question, but here are 2 possibles. :-)))

1. The researcher has decided to try and clear out some of the contents of their *My Threads*. The only way (that I know of anyway) to do so is by deleting their posts on threads. They probably have assumed that the thread poster has had enough time to see the info they've posted, so won't be a problem.

2. They have had a fit of pique that the thread poster hasn't replied on the thread acknowledging the info found ;-)))

In most cases I'm sure it's the first reason.

Mary

Edit: I'm sure *fit of pique* isn't really the best description - but you get my meaning :-))

I quite understand what you are saying Julia. I can only think that some researchers delete in order to keep their My Threads box tidy. Maybe they just do not like pages of threads in which they have no further interest but it really isn't very fair on the new poster who may not have thought to copy things down and assumed they could pop back at any time to check things out. I was like that at first.....we all learn. Unfortunately, there are those who will delete if the work is not acknowledged within a certain time limit.

Are we, perhaps, looking at different forms of response/non response on here?

There are the pms sent/received in connection with our personal trees. If we send a message regarding a possible connection to our family and it isn't opened, then we have to accept the fact that the person is not viewing their mail for whatever reason, and we move on. If, however, the mail is opened but not replied to, there is not a lot we can do about it. The person is not interested in any further contact, however frustrating that is to us and so we move on again.

For those of us who receive unsolicited mail re our family tree, it is surely up to each one of us how we reply depending on how the query is phrased. I tend to be polite in all circumstances however bizarre.


However, the threads are a different ballgame. There are new members who post a query, suss out how to reply and sail ahead.

Then, there are those who post a query, expect GR to alert them and fail to return. On being advised of how things work, they are extremely grateful.

Of course, we will always be harrassed with those who post, know full well how to reply but for whatever reason, never acknowledge the work done for them.

The world will never be free of those who are rude, ignorant and utterly charmless unfortunately.

Julia, i think some people do tend to delete all their posts after a certain amount of time, annoying though it is, simply because they like to keep their 'my threads' list to a minimum.

I can see a certain sense in that because I don't do it myself and have a page a day or so to trawl through if i want to find something ( I only 'bookmark' 'special' things :))

xx

Julia, if it is someone who has deleted their account, rather than just someone who has let paid membership lapse, then once the account is deleted, so is all record of that person, including posts on the boards, pm's etc.... I had it happen to me.......

*grins and waves at the lovely person who did that without realising that would happen and all her hours of searching for my dead rellie would be swallowed up in cyberspace, cos she is back on now, lol*

Love

Daff xxx

Edit: Yes Cynthia, that is it... all are forms of rudeness, or can be... although some could be infamiliarity, new to the boards, etc etc... so I think different ways of being or perceiving, discourtesy have been explored, lol

Love

Daff xxxx

Good Afternoon Mary,
I think it must be your first explanation, because I answered and thanked each and every one of their posts.
Thanks
Julia in Derbyshire

PS Daff, The person is still dealing with people's queries, I saw them only the other day, on TTF, but thanks for the explanation.

Hi Julia

I'm sure in 99.99999999% of cases it is just the researcher having a clearout.........and as you had thanked everyone then in your case it must only be for that reason.

Now I must remember to c&p the replies to my queries before they're all gone! LOL

Mary

Thanks ladies for your replies. Yes, I should have done the old C&P, but I did not have time before I was on one of my 'journey's'. It is only now, that I had gone back to that particular piece of research, I could see that all the answers, once give, had now been deleted.
Many thanks
Julia in Derbyshire