Gosh, I hope it isn't rude. I don't have email notifications turned on, so I often leave a comment and check back on the thread a few times ... But not religiously.

Not rude. Plus it's a new feature!

What's rude is to post a request for help and never appear to return, but even that is rare and often attributable to bad notification software. (It does appear that the forum software is finally being upgraded and is almost up to the 21st century.)

I don't have an email that works for my account anymore, and can't change it at this point so I never use email following.

In fact, I think it would be tremendously annoying to have my email in-box fill up with notifications of subsequent replies to comments I'd made. I'd probably stop commenting if it became unavoidable.

I do check back after some of my comments, but not routinely as I only have so much time for GW.

However, for any orginal post that I might make, I do feel an obligation to monitor, and comment on any replies that are posted. That's only common politeness if you've asked a question and people have taken the time to write out an answer. Although I comment quite often, I very rarely initiate a post, perhaps only six or eight times in more than a decade on the site.

Long ago there used to be a hard limit to the number of threads that could be created/accsseed. In those days there was much more of a social need to refrain from adding threads that were essentially comments about comments. Nowadays it doesn't matter at all. So if a commenter seems to have faded away, then it's OK to start a new thread trying to re-attract their attention.

Or at least no one gets on your case about it!

I like it the way it is, but then I find the idea of the hyper-social connectedness (like sending out notices of where you are shopping, what you are reading, etc.) to be the definition of my own personal He**. I have no FB or, Twitter account, nor any other S/N accounts partly because I highly value my own privacy but also because I would be bored out of my noggin to recieve that much info about anyone else's life.

L.

Well, that is a relief. I didn't want to be rude but I didn't want to follow every thread either.

No one knows if you are following a thread or not. It seems kinda slow here lately so all comments, drive by or not I'm sure are appreciated.

I don't have my e-mail activated but I do check back if I make a comment in case there is a question about it. I'm a very private person and only want to be e-mailed by people that I have given permission to. A couple of people have asked me for my e-mail as they want to follow up on something specific and I have passed it out privately.

If you initiate a question, either general or specific I think it should be followed up on by the OP. That,to me, is good manners.

Years ago, probably as far back as paying by the byte for transmission, and discussion boards with a Windows interface were new, it was considered rude to reply with "thank you" because it caused people to think there was new content and pages too FOR.EVER. to load. In the subject line, you were to put "NT (no text) Thank you!" or "NRN" (No reply necessary).

But those days, sometimes sadly, are gone.

It has always been good board form to respond to those who take the time to offer their very valued advice. As mentioned above.

I don't care who emails me. Like turning the channel, I reserve the right to respond. Or not.