StuDudley

Several people have contacted me via the new Fodors message feature, and asked for my itineraries. I will not respond or even read these messages because it is VERY inconvenient and time-consuming to access these messages and to attach my multi-page itineraries to the response. I usually receive 3-7 itinerary requests every day through e-mail, and when I return home from our 2 annual one-month vacations - I have about 150 e-mail requests waiting for me. If I had 150 Fodors messages that all wanted attached itineraries, it would take me forever to respond. I'm not sure I can even attach a document to a Fodors message.

Stu Dudley

xcountry

That’s rude of them. How did they even hear of these itineraries?

kerouac

I agree. It is intolerable for people to send you private messages at Fodor's when you have asked them to send you private messages to your email address for years. Perhaps you should consider deleting your account to eliminate this inconvenience.

Rich

You can change your options to not accept mesages

5alive

This is kind of a patch--not a real solution:

In your profile, you could use one of the categories to say something like "if you would like my itinerary, please email me."

Whether you want to post your email there, is up to you.

Also, under profile privacy, you could set your visibility to "registered members" instead of everybody, if you do decide to post your email.

Christina

wow, rough crowd. I think it is normal for people to use that PM feature to ask for itineraries which you talk about all the time on Fodors, so that's how they know about them (the itinerary). I'm sure people dont' think about how much trouble it is, and the feature is new so it was just a normal thing to do to contact someone that way. And since it is a new feature, I don't think it is hateful for someone to PM you instead when that feature was never available before.

Why not just dismantle the PM feature, what purpose is it anyway if you don't want to respond to it? If I were you, I'd just continue the same way you have as always, saying people can email you when you offer up your itinerary.

I think 5alive has some good ideas, also.

I would not expect every single person who wants your itinerary to read this particular thread, either, of course, which is why you need a solution.

janisj

Stu -- now that they can PM you you will continue to get requests either via regular e-mail (which you've published) or through the new PM's.

You can't expect everyone to see this thread unless it continues to be topped. So you are sort of between a rock and a hard place. You can delete your e-mail address from your profile AND turn off the PM function . . . or just ignore the requests. (The title of your topic sounds like you were actually asking people to PM you for your itineraries. It wasn't until I read the OP that it is just the opposite)

StuDudley

Thank's all. I just "un-subscribed" to private messaging. I notified the people who did send me a private message to use my e-mail - which I gave them.

Stu Dudley

kerouac

Oh, you are cleverer than many of us thought you were. Good job!

Then again, you have just sabotaged the whole point of the new private message feature. You are not going to make friends with the Fodor's staff.

NewbE

So you would rather hand out your personal email than deal with PM's here? How bizarre.

suze

I also thought from the title of your thread you were REQUESTING people to use the new PM feature to contact you for your itineraries!

StuDudley

Newbe

Please provide me with detailed instructions on how to attach 5 separate 20-35 page word documents to a PM reply!!! And process 10 different PMs in less than 5 minutes - like I can on my AOL e-mails. As noted above, when I returned from our 5 week June vacation - I had 150 e-mail requests waiting for me. On return from our Sept vacation, I had 100. I have been doing this since Nov 2004 on Fodors, and before that I was using the AOL travel forum for 3-4 years to distribute my itineraries to people. I have minimal Spam - maybe 0-3 every day. And nobody has hacked into my e-mail in the past 20 years, that I know about..

Stu Dudley

Kathie

The private message feature was intentionally set up so you can opt out. Just disable it in your preferences.

NewbE

StuDudley,

I do not know how to attach documents to a PM; you probably can't. But you could reply with a link to a thread containing your itinerary. (I can't comprehend a 30 page itinerary, let alone 5 of them, but that's just me.) The fact that you can do so more quickly on AOL (which I didn't know anyone still uses) has to do with familiarity rather than any inherent swiftness to the process.

But I digress. Wanna know how to do this more easily? Put your itineraries into a Google document on the Cloud and then grant your requestors Read Only Access to it. Lightning fast. If you really want to streamline your process, look into it.

Holly_uncasdewar

I don't get what a 30 page itinerary would look like, either. I keep mine to 1 page for a 2-3-week trip. I also don't get why anyone would be interested in someone else's itinerary, unless it's actually a trip report.

marvelousmouse

yeah. Now I’d like to see the itineraries...

newbe probably gave you the best suggestion. The cloud would be a good option. My guess is that these folks don’t use your whole itinerary anyway, they probably cut and paste, and get it down something much shorter to print out. So a cloud link would help you both out.

maybe you’d be someone who should suggest to ibob a “sticky” function like on tripadvisor. A permanent link at the top of the relevant forum of extremely useful threads. That would reduce your emails to near zero and would mean that we wouldn’t need to top your dining out SF thread for new posters.

It would be very helpful if people who prefer email over PMs would put that in their profiles. Because usually it’s the other way around. I’m generally hesitant to use someone’s personal email if there is a pm function.

yestravel

"I don't get what a 30 page itinerary would look like, either. I keep mine to 1 page for a 2-3-week trip. I also don't get why anyone would be interested in someone else's itinerary, unless it's actually a trip report."

On our trip to the Dordogne & Gorges du Tarn this fall I used Stu's itin which were not 30 pages. It's actually a more useful than many TRs as he summarized his many years of traveling there giving best restaurants and sites. I found it useful and easy to review as we travelled. I think its nice of him to compile the info and being willing to distribute it.

xcountry

Call me crazy but I think he likes the emails.

StuDudley

The e-mails provide me with some feedback. I've actually distributed 6 to 7 thousand itineraries. Many, many people have used my Provence itinerary, for example, and have later contacted me and asked if I have a Dordogne, Brittany, or "other" itinerary that I can send to them for an upcoming trip. Often, just after I sent the itinerary to most people, they reply with a "thank you" to me, and often add words like fantastic, awesome, I can't believe this, etc This tells me that they find my itineraries helpful & it provides me with some motivation to continue to update them. After our Provence trip last year, I updated my Provence itinerary. The first rainy day we have this January, I'll update my Italy itinerary based on our Sept/Oct trip. If I had no feedback at all - I probably would not have even started to develop them 20 years ago. Many people also ask additional questions via e-mail about "this & that". Yesterday I had a "go around" with someone about the Verdon Gorge and another person about the Loire. I suspect that about 80% of the people who ask for my itineraries are lurkers here on Fodors and don't really ask questions on this forum. My 4-7 "requests" a day are more than the number of "new" threads started each day about France.

Here is a link to a small portion of my Italy itinerary that will give those of you that have never received one of them, an idea of what they are like
Scenic drives in Tuscany

I spent my entire work career in IT (starting as a programmer, & ending as CIO) with some companies everyone has heard of. I have no desire to get into clouds & such. My PC and the word documents are the extent of my IT existence today. My sister was a flight attendant for 25 years, and she never wants to see another airplane.

Stu Dudley

janisj

People have been requesting and using stu's info for years - it is very comprehensive and essentially a guidebook.