I fully apologize for offending you and trying to suggest how we can make this site work better for all of us. Carry on as you wish, since clearly your goals are not the same as mine. Good night.

Well NP, thanks for the apology. (I'm not apologizing because I feel there's nothing for me to apologize.)

Honestly, as I said, if you're trying to make the forum work better for all of us, please follow your own advice and lead by example and post your suggestions in the Fodorite Lounge. More people will read them. Katie_H may even think that your suggestions are great and include them in an FAQ. Everyone is happy.

And do e-mail me if I'm the only intended recipient. It's much more efficient and we both save time. Enjoy your evening.

And at the risk of pointing out the obvious -- yes this thread has now been littered with some "b/s" and some nastiness. My comments were polite, to the point, and meant to be helpful whether you want to believe that or not -- please go back and read them (but yes, I realize when you got offended by anyone making a suggestion that you turned to nastiness).

Here is the littering of the site with b/s -- I did not turn to this kind of sarcasm myself.

"Actually NP, isn't it better for you to take your own advice and start a new thread in Fodorite Lounge?

I'm kind of afraid that all your thoughts and complaints will get buried in a thread on Priceline in San Francisco. Especially when it's so useful!"

And here's another.

"So let's leave it at thanks for nothing, and do find a better way to spend your time.


I get so tired of people being nasty and then blaming someone being polite and helpful of being the nasty one!!

Geez. We were posting at the same time. Do you honestly NOT understand that my suggestion for not posting a new question onto a two year outdated thread was aimed simply at the person who was doing it and is best accomplished by posting it right there where that person will see it?

And trust me I do not have your email. I have no recollection of why I would have it, but believe me I do not keep a file of individual's emails. This is a public forum -- I reply to public posts and do not choose to start taking comments away from the original intentions of this website. I'm sorry that you feel no one should suggest helpfulness to other posters here, but it should only be done in private. That isn't going to happen with me. I have a very short memory of previous contacts with other posters. I get the feeling that you on the other hand entered this conversation with a memory of a previous converstation. I did not. I was simply responding to an anonymous poster. I have neither the time nor the interest to keep a score sheet of previous converstaions with individual posters. I will try to make a mental note that I am not allowed to post anything to you since you have a deep seated resentment of anything I say, but no promises that I'll remember to do that. I tend to forget names and incidents very quickly.

Hm...

With apologies to (almost) everyone, I may have to start a new thread on Priceline and San Francisco after all.

I haven't attempted to bid yet. Maybe I'll start the coming week. I may start a new thread then.

Oh, by the way, NP, my e-mail is op111 op111 @ hotmail.com (remove the spaces to reply). I'll keep reminding you as necessary. After all, I am the only person you were trying to reach, so why not write to me?

And indeed, I normally don't remember things all that well either -- especially because I tend to have memory lapses. Maybe I even hallucinate and make things up once in a while.

But basically I can't read and I misunderstand and I'm nasty and sarcastic and I'm just an awful person and I just like to repeat myself again and again.

It's frightening.

I already reached you. I made my point. You read it. You acknowledged it (with nastiness and bitterness, but nevertheless, obviously you read it). There is NO point in my emailing you further. My point was made whether you want to accept it or not. And clearly you don't want to accept it. Fine. Let's move on. I have no desire to fight and clearly that seems to be your desire. There is nothing left to be said in personal emails back and forth. There is nothing to say that I haven't already said.

Are you honestly saying those quotes of yours above were NOT meant to be nasty and sarcastic? Surely you jest. Of course there were! How else can anyone possibly interpret "thanks for nothing" and "do find a better way to spend your time"? But if you're in total denial, so be it. I'm sure in your world those were innocent and friendly remarks and I was the one being sarcastic and nasty by suggesting it is a good idea to start a new thread when the other information is outdated.

Ok, you have my e-mail address just in case at some future point in time, you have some suggestions for *me ONLY*. See, I'm already thinking ahead!

But yes, I'm definitely still in total denial because I (actually still!) honestly believe that I can engage in rational conversation with a certain someone.

If I may dare say this: Let me repeat myself and write the following. The next time you have suggestions on how to make the forum better, consider (A) and (B).

(A) If the suggestions are for me only, then e-mail me. Please ask for my e-mail if you don't know it. I'm happy to give it to you.

(B) If they are intended for a wider audience, then, I think that it'd be better for you to lead by example and follow your own advice (as you have so cogently argued) and start a thread in Fodorite Lounge. That way people can discuss and debate and the editors may even like these ideas. Important ideas certainly deserve to be brought to the forefront and not be buried in 2-year old threads!

The idea of not reviving a two year old totally outdated thread mainly about prices to ask a new similar question does NOT need to be discussed elsewhere. Most people can figure that out for themselves. And that's why it rarely happens. But when someone does it, the best way (in my opinion, which is clearly different from yours) is to post the suggestion right there where the person is most likely to see it. That's what I did. And the person DID see it. Normally, people who don't understand the best way for a website to work and who refuse to take suggestions from others are NOT going to go in search in the FAQ or other places to find that advice.

But since you're so intent on insisting that such suggestions should NOT be made on a regular thread -- please explain why YOU are doing just that here? You tell me to follow MY own advice, yet you insist on NOT folowing your own advice. You tell me I shouldn't post suggestions of how to post here, but then you post YOUR suggestions of how to post right here where you say they shouldn't be posted. Too funny. But I bet you won't get the humor in that.

Well I don't have your e-mail. When I intend to address people in private, I e-mail and call them if I have some means of doing so. (I think that's what most normal people do -- it's what social convention tends to dictate, no?)

If you've a preferred way of being contacted privately, do let me know. I think I've suggested taking it offline repeatedly.

I really am quite logical and I try to do follow good, sensible rules. I wish that others would follow their own rules.

And actually I do see a lot of humor in this. Too much perhaps -- which is why I'm actually still posting.

For the third time there is NOTHING to take offline. I'm sorry you were offended that I suggested a new post on the topic would be more effective. That was my ONLY reason for posting at all. I'm finished here. I do not care to make this into World War III which you seem bent on doing, and I am really sorry I fell into your trap of "let's argue about it". The whole thing is silly. You don't think people should offer suggestions of how better to post. FINE. I get it.

Well, I've already said this repeatedly. If you have comments or suggestions for *me only* (such as your latest post), why not e-mail me?

As I said, it's better to do that than to clutter Fodor's with b/s.

And no, I think people *should* offer suggestions of how better to post. In fact, I suggested methods based on (A) and (B) by synthesizing other people's suggestions! I actually thought "hey, he had a point." But then I got confused by why he wasn't following his own suggestions.

In fact it's a public forum. We're all free to opine and make suggestions. I just happen to think that some things (such as your suggestions to *me only*) are better taken offline.

I don't have comments for you personally. Everycomment made here is made only because you chose to pursue what was a simple attempt to offer a suggestion of how to post better. If you didn't want to discuss it further, you could have said, "Thanks for the suggestion. I will repost for more current information" and the whole converstation would have ended. Any attempts for you to continue the conversation resulted in more conversation right here where it belongs. This IS a public forum. If you didn't want me to respond in public to your comments, then you shouldn't have posted them here. Easy. See how it works. Your attempts to get me to contact you personally are starting to seem a bit creepy to be honest.

Your comment about "to me only" is totally taken out of context. All I said was that the comment to start a new post was aimed at the poster who revived the old one and the best way to reach that poster was to post it right there. Obviously as you can tell, such an action worked -- that poster DID see it there -- in other words I DID post it in the most successful place. That is not the same as having some "personal" comments that are meant to be private. I had or have NOTHING of any personal nature that needs to be said to you only! What on earth are you driving at here?

If you're really concerned with cluttering Fodors with b/s, there's a very easy way to stop it. You could have avoided it all together by simply accepting the original suggestion or ignoring it. It didn't call for a lot of discussion. At this point if you want to stop adding a lot of b/s to this thread, there is an easy way to do that. I think you should be able to figure out what that is.

Well you did write "You were the only person I was trying to reach."

And honestly, your rants do sound that way.

So I gave my e-mail not to be creepy -- just to let you know that there's a more efficient (and different!) way of doing things.

And as I said, thinking ahead, the next time something similar comes up, I think that it'd be better to e-mail me.

"And as I said, thinking ahead, the next time something similar comes up, I think that it'd be better to e-mail me."

The next time you revive a two year old outdated thread to ask about current prices, I assure you I WILL NOT email you directly to suggest that you start a new post. Your suggestion that I do so is beyond absurd as far as I am concerned. I can't imagine a public forum like this where anyone having a comment to help another poster would be instructed to contact that person by private email rather than simply posting a suggestion of a better way to get results. But you are welcome to do that if you somehow think it makes sense. I suspect you are in a vast minority of thinking that personal emails are the best way to offer suggestions to other posters on a public forum.

On the other hand, the next time you do revive a two year old post for the same purpose, I hopefully will recognize your screen name and remember that you are obsessed about receiving suggestions online in public, so I will seriously try to refrain from offering any suggestions to you at all. OK? Peace. Now let's drop this insanity.

Well again, NP, I think that you could have e-mailed that last rant to me privately, since I was the only person you were trying to reach with that rant.

Actually I'm very happy to listen to public suggestions and engage in public discussion, but rants intended for *me only* are better e-mailed to me.

If you haven't figured it out yet, one of the main reasons I don't want to email you directly, is I don't want some obsessive person telling me what to do by email. Get it yet? I have no desire to provide you with my email. As I said, your obsession with me within these dozen or so posts all because I dared to suggest that you start a new post instead of reviving an old one is really creeping me out. Do you honestly not understand that?

And your consistent lists and posts describing HOW to contact or post while at the same time insisting that I should not do the same thing is the most bizarre example of "it's wrong for YOU to do it, but perfectly fine for ME to do it" that I have ever seen here.

And for the record, you have chosen for me to make these rants to you publicly. If you didn't want me to respond to your constant rants about this, you wouldn't have continued to rant publicly. If you didn't want more posts of response, then you wouldn't have continued to post. Pretty basic logic. I firmly believe you are enjoying all this to the fullest.

Well I *think* I *do* get (most of) it!

What I don't get is why someone insists on posting rants meant for *me only* publicly -- especially when I offered my e-mail address at around 10:15 pm last night.

It just seems to me that e-mail would be better.

And I do think a request to e-mail and take this offline fits basic logic (not to mention social convention), and that's why I can't quite wrap my head around it.

Editors, please remove this thread. Or at least from the point where I tried to make a suggestion to post a new thread. It was a seemingly harmless suggestion which I greatly regret making.

I've sent this e-mail.

Time stamp is European time, in case you're wondering.

--

From: XXXXXXXXXXX
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2009 6:17:42 PM
To: [email protected]; XXXXXXXXXXX

Hi, please delete or edit this thread.

http://www.fodors.com/community/unit...-francisco.cfm

If you're editing (instead of deleting) this thread, I suggest
deleting all the responses starting from March 19, 2009 (mine
would be the first one when I topped the thread).

I've already copied a copy of the thread for my own research.
I'm happy to start another one on Priceline and San Francisco
when I actually bid on my hotels.

Thanks so much!

111op