[GO65]

some instructions on what "pings" and "bumps" are would be helpfull. I've been here a few weeks and still haven't figured that out.

[Admin Moderator]

A ping is a flag that someone posts because they feel you might be interested in that article. You will see it in 'my comments'.

A bump is just a place marker to advance the thread back up to the top of the latest comments page. (bttt is sometime used - bump to the top)

[Tall_Texan]

ping - notifying someone or a group of someones who have not been participating on the thread to the existence of the thread. Some who indicate a continued interest in a particular topic join "ping lists" that are used to ping multiple people.

bump - a method of keeping a thread in the "latest posts" category. Frequent bumping might prevent a thread or topic from being ignored by the group.

[sourcery]

There are two rather different ways of reading Free Republic:

1. Using the Latest Articles page: This page shows articles (also called "threads") in the order in which they are first posted.
2. Using the Latest Posts page: This page shows each post (whether a new article, or a comment/reply within an existing article thread) in sequential order.

Many view FR using the "Latest Posts" page. Whenever any comment/reply is posted to an article thread, that causes the article to which the reply/comment is posted to be listed on the "Latest Posts" page, thus "bumping" it to the top of the list of latest posts.

The term ping comes from internet/UNIX slang. Many years ago, when the internet was very young, a little Unix program was written named ping. It's purpose was to send ICMP-protocol packets over the IP transport layer from one computer to another, for the purpose of verifying that the internet connectivity between the two computers was functioning as expected. Using the ping program is analogous to dialing a phone number to see whether it rings, and whether the person who answers is who you expect them to be. The term's usage on FR is metaphorical. We use it to notify someone that a thread may be of interest to them.