if youre lucky theyll drop in on your thread
 

i just came across this on the fodors home page. i think it is disrespectful to people like me who take their time to write to help other travellers for FREE with no interest in selling anything at all.

If i ask a question and someone who has been through that same experience answers, then i feel lucky.i dont care if he has travelled the world or if it was his first vacation.

I ask the fodors editors to please rethink the elitist wording on that page.

ChevyChasen, for what it is worth I agree with you a 100%. It is a real turn off IMO.

how did fodors arrive at that statement? are they really of the opinion that the advice here is so rubbish that you will only be lucky if your question is answered by one of them? did they bother to follow the discussions here before commenting?

is this how fodors reviews things?

Yes, I reacted the same way. Another poster suggested (too optimistically IMO) that it was a tongue-in-cheek comment. I'd like to think so, but...

I think its a case of a poorly-worded comment, probably an attempt at humor that came across as somewhat arrogant. This happens on the internet often, and quite often on this forum. But because they are the editors, they must be held to a higher standard.

At lease they identify themselves openly when they do post on threads. They can certainly do whatever they want, as they oversee the forum and the site. Hopefully they will think twice about rewording that statement on the home page.

If you are even luckier they'll drop in on your get-together, especially if there's food!

I don't see anything about selling.

I think it was an attempt at humor. Lighten up. ((C))

I think that perhaps you're having a sensitive moment, which we all do from time to time. I can't see anything wrong with that at all, it's just chatty.

Now if they had said "..in order to tell all you hopeless, loser Fodorites where you're going wrong and that you shouldn't give advice as to how to leave your bed, let alone your country.." then I reckon you'd have a point.

But they don't.

Pour yourself a very large G&T, open a big box of chocolates and relllaaxxxx!

As one whose feeble attempts at humor are frequently taken at face value, I sympathize with the editor and we both promise to wear lampshades at any GTG.

"I make myself laugh at everything, for fear of having to weep at it."

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
Le Barbier de Seville (1775)

"if you're lucky they'll drop in on your thread"

"if you're lucky you'll get chosen for jury duty"

"if you're lucky your tax return will be selected for audit"

What all three of these three statements have in common is that they refer to a low probability occurrence.

I suppose all three are subject to interpretation as to whether they're referring to bad luck or good luck.

Best wishes,

Rex

the feable attempts by some to pass off the wording as humor leave many of us unconvinced. as i see it the purpose of the wording is to attract new members to registering onto these forums.more people coming back to the forums means more people reading the adverts and more promotion of the brand name.

like many others before me, i have answered many good questions about places i traveled on this forum and spent quite alot of time and care in answering them.many a newbie (like i was) might have positive memories of this forum because of the information received and will want to return in the future.

i didnt come here expecting payment for questions answered,as i am sure is the case with all of the members here.what i at least expect is that fodors appreciates and acknowledges that the success and *reputation* of these forums was built by its members.

if fodors pushes the idea that receiving a reply from me is not fortunate then i dont see why i should continue answering questions for its advert consumers when there are
other forums where i can write without having to suffer such indignities.

i am aware that by expressing my honest opinion i will have made myself quite unpopular with some people here. before my account becomes disabled i would like to take the opportunity to express my most sincerest thanks to all who answered questions for me.I feel more than lucky and priviledged to have been able to confide my travel questions with you and receive so many quality replies which saved me from so much frustration abroad. i will continue to do my best to help other new travellers, either here, or if not possible on a different forum.

C

Is everyone not taking all this a wee bit too seriously?

The offending message was posted, as I recall, early Saturday. It is now Tuesday afternoon, and I have yet to see a single message in the Europe forum by a Fodors editor (I assume it would be identified as such in some way).

Perhaps the Fodors editors have realized -- how could they not, given all the negative opinions expressed so far -- that they are perhaps not quite as welcome on the forums as they had hoped to be.

I would still agree, though, that the whole "image change" has been both unfortunate and mishandled by Fodors.

Fodors editors have posted on all of the forums, including this one, and their posts are identified next to their names. And, at least on the US board, they are welcome! A couple long threads exist over there regarding postings by editors and welcoming them.

First, these are book editors and most if not all have nothing to do with the web site.

Second, they are also people who enjoy travel and who have personal insight to share regarding the destinations they have personally been to. Just because they have the fodor's stamp next to their name doesn't make their opinions less valuable, does it?

I don't care one way or the other about the comment fodors put on the main travel talk page, but I really don't understand the animosity toward the editors themselves? Why should they not be welcome to post here, or to join in GTGs? They're just people who love travel who also happen to get paid to do something travel related.

Jlm_mi: Do you mean the messages with a red Fodor's in front of the name?

Please point me to one on the Europe forum that has appeared since Saturday.

*putting on freud hat* but could it be that we are deep down jealous. they get paid for what we all pay for. just a thought...heck i'll admit i'm jealous. travel and get paid for it...sign me up. *auditioning*: right to your left is the eiffel tower...and umm, ummm, ok i'll stick to programming on second thought.

I've looked at the Fodors home page, and don't see what you are referring to. Can somebody point to it for me>|?

Thanks.

--Marv

By the way, ChevyChasen, there are webcrawlers that go looking for peoples email addresses all over the web, then the email addys get sold to spammers. To fool them use something like "(at)" instead of "@". Unless so much spam is not a bother to you, of course.

--Marv

Heavens! Infotrack (or Marv) is perfectly right: The offending message

"We are happy to announce that the Fodors editors etc., etc."

has disappeared! It's gone!

Yes, those are the ones I mean. I didn't say they had posted since Saturday, just that they had posted on this board.

Good grief --- it is their site and maybe the wording was clumsy......but this whole thing is free so if they want to weigh in, why should we complain?