My best WAG is, “They’re alliterative?” Maybe with another evite service, we’d have a thread about “Also-Attending Assholes.” :rolleyes:
It would be so much easier if there were a way for event-creators to restrict rsvp responses to only yes or no, if they like. Of course, that said, I do sometimes choose maybe, but always try to update my response as soon as possible. It’s just polite!
Incidentally, this thread makes me feel a little better. Last year, one of my friends invited people to her wedding via facebook. I don’t use facebook much and I missed the wedding. Arghh! Truth be told, I didn’t give the invite the attention it apparently deserved because I assumed a “real” invitation would be coming in the mail, or at the very least, a reminder before the date! Oops. I’ve felt bad ever since, but now I at least feel like my initial “a facebook wedding invitation?!” knee-jerk reaction wasn’t totally unwarranted 
Social networking websites are serious business.
I can see wanting to use Facebook (or Evite) to begin planning for this event. But not following up with your “Maybe” people via phone or e-mail is really fucking stupid.
I hate going to parties where I don’t know anyone besides the host(ess). I’m extremely introverted around folks I don’t know but I’m comfortably extroverted around those I do. My SO is the extrovert but his working schedule usually isn’t conducive to parties, so I’d be on my own.
That said, I’m the type who will say maybe. I would like to go, but if I don’t know anyone besides the host, it’s a no-show.
There’s also the part that wants to show interest. I could say “no” and then not get invited to another party. Which, who doesn’t want to be at least invited to the party?
I don’t actually have any problem with electronic invitations for most things, but it’s pretty dumb to assume that people will use them exactly the way you would use them.
For real? Sheesh!
This is just like those people who don’t leave a phone message because they say “well, you’ll see my number in the caller ID and know to call me back.” What am I? A mind reader? And I don’t check my caller ID if I have no particular reason to.
No Scooter, No Miss Piggy, No Kermit?
What is the purpose of this thread? I wanted Muppets, dammit!
I would say don’t use FB for “personal” invites. Use it for the opening of your new boutique or similar, but not a formal dinner party. And how formal can it be if there are Muppets?
Admit it: I’m not the only one who checked urbandictionary.com to see if Muppet was some sort of Facebook jargon. Turns out it’s not.
Speaking as both the holder of a Muppet username and as the occasional user of a “Maybe Attending” response on Facebook… what’s the big freakin’ deal?
Obviously, if I’m checking off the “Maybe” box, it’s usually for a large-scale event where my participation is entirely optional - stuff like shows my friends are performing in, large gatherings like house parties or BBQs, gallery opening/closing parties, and the like. My work schedule is unpredictable, and most of my friends are well aware that any weekday plans with me might have to change at the last minute.
On the other hand, if someone’s world is going to collapse if I’m not there or if they specifically ask in their invitation for a firm RSVP, then I’ll make an effort to say Yes or No. Which brings me to my next point… there’s really nothing stopping you from sending a short message to the Maybes asking them to confirm their RSVP if it’s absolutely essential, is there?
No need to take it so personally. It’s just a Facebook invite, not the signing of the Geneva Convention.
(Also, what’s with the Muppet hate? Eeesh)
Once upon a time, the honor of being invited to receive someone else’s hospitality carried with it the obligation promptly (i.e., within 24 hours) to reply with a definite yes or no. All this quite without any formula on the invite indicating that a response was anticipated from the potential guest!
To those who feel “No” is too harsh a response, etiquette had a solution to that qualm as well. One accepts an invitation if one intends to go to the event; on the other hand, one regrets that one is unable to attend if one would rather have one’s fingernails ripped out than suffer another evening of jello shots and beer pong.
If one is worried about knowing no one other than the host/hostess, the ancient saw was that “the roof is an introduction.” Amazingly, one did not need to know the other attendees prior to the party in order to be allowed to talk to them. Practiced in the dark arts of small talk, they knew that things like “How do you know the host?” could always be relied upon as a source of conversation.
You could just remove it from your events so you aren’t listed as “no”.
I don’t know where the OP’s from, but where I’m from (England - and this term is used all over the UK as far as I’m aware) muppet used as a pejorative means ‘idiot,’ or ‘daft person who made a silly mistake,’ and is a very mild term. It can be used in an almost affectionate way.
As in: ‘you invited people to a private dinner party by creating a Facebook group? You muppet - you know that most people don’t take Facebook invites all that seriously!’
I have high standards for my friends. One of which is that they actually communicate with me. That is, with me, not with my WhateverSocialNetworkingService username, and especially not through mass means. If I’m not important enough to get a 30 second e-mail (not bcc’ed) or a telephone call, then they’re not important enough to get a few hours of my time. I’ve got better things to do than hang out with people with no sense of etiquette.
Once upon a time, the honor of being invited to receive someone else’s hospitality involved an actual invitation, not a mass-sent electronic bleat.
I’m sorry they outraged you by inviting you–via email!! :mad:–to enjoy their food and drink in their home. Happily, I rather suspect it is an error in judgment they are not likely to repeat.
Does this pre-date, or derive from, Jim Henson?
If you feel that actual communication with your friends is not possible via a social networking service, then why in the world are you signed up with the social networking service in the first place?
Also, your complaint that if you are going to be invited somewhere, then an email is acceptable, but only if not cc’ed to other people is frankly weird. Do you feel similarly slighted if you get a paper invitation in the mail that has been pre-printed and sent to multiple people?
Dropping someone as a friend because they had the nerve to include you on a cc’ed email invitation to an event seems a lot more weird and a larger breach of etiquette than sending a cc’ed email invitation does. Is this perhaps some sort of generational thing?
Also, scifisam2009, thanks for the explanation re muppets!
No idea. I post-date Jim Henson’s muppets myself. My parents’ generation use the word, but that might be because of the Muppets too for all I know.
Since you aren’t required to indicate yes/no/maybe upon reading the invitation, why not just scroll down a few inches and see who has replied “yes”? Then you’d be able to accurately predict who will be attending or not.
I thought the British term was moppet, and then Muppet was a portmanteau of *moppet *and puppet?
We live in different universes. I don’t think I’ve gotten an event invitation via email for 3 years now, hell, I think I’ve gotten maybe less than a dozen real actual emails from friends in the last year. Facebook is the medium for every type of communication. Half of my friends, I don’t know their email. There are even some close friends I don’t know their cell phone numbers.
Facebook event invites allow you to do a ton of things that email doesn’t. You can see at a glance who’s RSVPed. You can update information at a later date and add pictures and links. You can invite people at a later date or have friends invite people and they’ll receive the most up to date information. It integrates with my Google Calendar seamlessly. It’s a great platform ruined by some awful social etiquette.
I just got back from a weekend in a friend’s beach condo and she was also commiserating about Maybe Attending muppets. The condo can only fit 8 people max so she needed to know who was definitively coming to make arrangements. As it stands now, two days after the event, there was 8 attending (two of which couldn’t make it) 6 maybe attending (one of which who came) and 12 not yet replied. The uncertainty as to whether there would be enough room was a major stressor leading up to the event.