Just say I have a thread that nobody replies to.
It gets shoved down the list of posts as time goes on.
I want to make sure that everyone reads it so I reply to it myself so it gets shoved back up the list so everyone sees it.
Is this frowned upon or is it a legitimate way of making sure everyone hears you?
If they didn’t respond the first time chances are they WILL respond the second time . . . with irritation.
Which is probably not what you wanted.
People do occasionally “bounce” threads, but it needs to be a thread of some merit to begin with, so choose carefully.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
:wally
Have to disagree with the “putz” designation. I don’t think asking about bumping a thread qualifies the questioner as a putz. 
Pushkin, IMO you are perfectly within your rights to bump your own thread as long as:
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You are asking a serious question that no one has answered yet, or answered to your satisfaction. “My cat is making this horrible noise, what should I do?”
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You are posting a serious debate topic that unfortunately no one wants to talk about because their attention is elsewhere on other terribly important GD subjects, such as Elian or gun control or Bush/Gore, and your thread sinks to the bottom almost immediately.
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You post the original thread, on whatever topic, during a high-traffic period, like Friday afternoon, and it slides off to Page 2 literally within minutes.
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You post a poll in IMHO and nobody responds and it slides off to Page 2. If you’re bumping it, explain why. “Gee, I can’t believe I’m the only one who thinks Fantasia 2000 sucks.”
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You bump a thread by clearly stating that it is in fact a bump. Don’t lie to us, or pretend that you’re adding something when you aren’t. We know a clandestine bump when we see one.
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You only bump it the one (1) time. Once. If you bump it, and still no one responds, then obviously no one knows why your cat is making that noise. Don’t nag.
Times when you are, IMO, not within your rights to bump your own thread:
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You are posting a MPSIMS whine, “Poor, poor pitiful me, everybody feel sorry for me and my numerous personal problems.” If no one responds, please don’t bump it, thereby whining even louder.
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Pit rants. You said your piece, now sit down.
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You’re having an argument in GD with someone, he’s stopped posting to the thread, but you’re not done arguing. Please, don’t keep bumping it. He doesn’t want to talk to you any more, okay? Get over it.
There isn’t any way of making sure that “everybody reads it”. There are over 10,000 registered posters here; the only way of making sure that everybody reads some literary treasure contained in your thread would be if Ed Zotti allowed you to post it at the top of the forum. The most Views I’ve ever seen for a thread were in the high one-thousands. Most of them get about 50 to 150 views before they disappear, and that’s just the way it is. Don’t make yourself crazy by dwelling on the unfortunate fact that most people aren’t going to see your threads. That’s just the way it goes, 'kay?
Sometimes when I’m cruising through the nether regions of Pages 2 through Last, I find lonely little threads with big fat zeros next to them, and if I think it’s a good question, I give it a courtesy bump. But only one.
Esteemed TubaDiva,
Given the recent, and possibly ongoing, outbreak of pranksterism on the Board of pointlessly bumping threads, this seems the most appropriate place to ask this.
On the forum pages, in the column labelled “Last Post,” would it be feasible to to modify the Board software so that we could also see the date when the thread was first created? Right now it is difficult to distiguish ancient threads resurrected by the prankster from recent threads, as he/she/it is indiscriminantly bumping threads of any age.
Forgive me if this question has been answered before. It seemed a good time to bring it up considering what went on today.
I don’t think there’s any way we can make that show up right now, I’m sorry.
Please report all incidences of this sort of online vandalism to the moderators of the affected forum and we’ll clean up.
Thanks.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
I’ve been sort of wanting that feature, regardless of boosts.
Also would like “last poster” as well as first (or instead of) on search lists, so I can search on threads I’ve posted to but don’t click on things I’m the last poster on.
These looks like things only vBulletin, the board software supplier can add.
You can make suggestions directly to them at this site
** http://vbulletin.com/forum**
Just an addendum, of rare importance, really. One additional generally OK bump scenario is when one, or often, several, are trying to get a Dopefest to gell - some of these things take a couple of months to get going.
In fact, I think I’ll go bump the Houston in January thread now.
Ah, great minds think alike. I was coming back to add that it’s also OK to bump if you’re trying to get hold of somebody and for some reason you don’t want to e-mail. Hence the occasional “Hey, So-and-so, over here!” MPSIMS threads. But usually you should figure on bumping those only once a day or so. Not everybody is around the boards all the time, and if So-and-so doesn’t happen to be checking MPSIMS, you may just be out of luck.
Difficult, but not impossible. Let your mouse cursor hang over the link. The URL should show up toward the bottom of your screen. If the threadid is over 50000, it’s quite recent. If it’s over 45,000, it’s fairly recent. If it’s 500, it’s old.
The recent bulk-bumping has exacerbated the problem somewhat, but it is not uncommon for perfectly good questions to just slip between the cracks. For example, this fine question on cowlicks by the newly arrived Recently Digested is languishing all the way down on page 3 of GQ (any hairdressers here?)
Eh, Picmr, my WAG would be that nobody knows the answer to the OP, is why it’s languishing. But it’s a textbook case of what we’re talking about: nobody responded, so the OP bumped it once, correctly, after the first day. But sometimes bumping doesn’t help, and you just have to go home with your question unanswered. [shrug]
Thank you bibliophage, that was a very helpful suggestion. That info was hidden the way I had Netscape set up, but I have since modified the page so it shows up. Also thanks to Wildcard for the info.
Colibri, vBulletin does not play well with Netscape. I wish it did. However, if you’ve got a choice, I suggest using IE to view this and any other vBulletin boards.