to think you should be only allowed to mark your place on a thread if you...

[MardyBra]

... add a pertinent or witty comment?

"Oh no, I'm not place marking or anything" does not count as witty.

I couldn't be doing with email updates.

All the furniture arranging, food getting and the "this is so funny" type comments disrupt the flow of the thread and add nothing to it. I wonder why people do it, is it essential that they are 'seen' on the thread?

I don't get it. Isn't a bustard a bird?

Coach/bus pun on 'bastard'

You might be thinking of a buzzard.

Funnily enough I just read a magazine article this morning about bustards and how they are endangered, how the Pakistani government issued a license for hunting buzzards to the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and instead of shooting the 100 bustards allowed by the license (which is bad enough given that they are endangered) actually slaughtered 2,100 of the poor things!!

Hearts play on the words coach and bus?

Oops, I said buzzards, I really meant bustards!

Bustards

This must really pee people off, these threads have been repeated nearly every other day lately.

I like the place marking
It's fun. You know that there are lots of people, who like you, are waiting to see how the penguin date or whatever went after the school run.

I can't imagine wanting email updates on threads though.

This is a bustard

I get it now

This is a buzzard

Hah! Xpost!

So he shot bustards instead of buzzards, or was the licence for both but only a limited number of bustards?

Bustards look like wild turkeys don't they?

Heaviest flying bird, they are.

I didn't know there's a bird called a bustard!

Bustards look fun!

I started getting emails when they were trialling it - I keep thinking I'll turn it off and then I find a thread like the Wolf Hall one that I want to keep track of but it keeps dropping out of active convos.
It needs tweaking a bit, as it's all or nothing - it would be more useful if you could choose which threads to get emails for or just get one when the OP posts

No buzzards were involved at all, that was just my typo. They gave him a license for killing an allotted 100 bustards, instead he killed 2100 bustards, the bastard.

It gets worse, too. For next year, to make sure that the prince does not embarrassingly violate the terms of the license in such a jaw-dropping manner, his license for next year is blank. Meaning unlimited. Meaning he can kill as many as his little heart desires.

Rusty that would be fantastic - updates only when the OP posts. Great idea.

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia sounds like he is utterly fowl.

Is the Pakistani government chicken, or what?

I apologise - couldn't resist it.

M going to object to the "didn't want to read and not post" comments.

I've done that a few times, particularly when it is quiet, and a poster clearly needed to be acknowledged and know someone was listening, but I didn't feel I had enough knowledge of the topic to advise.

In fact, I'm going to object to most of the complaint about place marking,nor one thing it keeps threads up on the active list and people who can help are more likely to notice them,

The only exception being this post:

.

Which is just downright rude really.

Hearts that's awful, sadly, I'm not surprised.

Sister what's the issue/problem with putting threads on your 'Watch List' and periodically checking the list? Reams of 'place marking', furniture arranging and popcorn gathering posts are tedious and just disrupt the flow of the thread, especially when there are pages of them non place marking posts just get lost in the virtual white noise.

It's really sad about the bustards, given that shooting and egg collecting are the reason they became extinct in Britain. My photo is of one of the pair at Birdworld, which are part of a project to reestablish bustards in Britain, by captive breeding and by hatching eggs from Spain with the chicks to be released on Salisbury Plain. All that effort, and elsewhere in the the world they're being slaughtered.....

Are they shot just for sport? Eaten -thinking of grouse?

No-a-flippin'-gain

Place marking is for when you want to pick it up later that day - either you are in a rush but want to read a long thread in full later, or when there's an on-going thing that you want to know how it resolves itself.

Putting a 'watch' on a thread is what I do when I want to keep a thread for future use. So it might be a recipe one or it might be something to do with teens car insurance, or holidays which I don't want to come back to now, but will be useful to me in 6 months time.

Now what can be annoying to a lot of us, is when people start threads going over the same old ground that is brought up week in, week out..... no particular subject being mentioned ...... but just pointing out, we all have things that annoy us, they just might not be the same things.