It’s just a notification to let someone know there is something here they might be interested in looking at. It comes from telecom industry, when you are checking a circuit you would “ping” to see if the connection is there and check for the expected reply. So on FR, a lot of times people will “ping” another poster who would appreciate reading a thread or a post. That poster can look at the top of their FR page, click on “pings” and it will pull up links to those threads that friends have alerted them about. Hope that helps.
Thanks as well, along with the explanation. There’s enough moose steak and potatoes for both you and the Texan.