I'm new here - what's a "PING"?

4/1/04 | Caravaggio

[Caravaggio]

I take it a ping is something that brings a topic up to the top? But what's the "ping list" I keep hearing of? How do you get on one? And also how does one do italics and bold? Any help to these questions would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Jaysun]

I can help you with italics and bold. It is done by using HTML when you post your message. There's a good page that explains some HTML basics HERE.

There is a post that goes over the Freerepublic lexicon.....I can't locate it as of now. Perhaps someone else can help you with the lingo.

[dsc]

"What's a ping?"

It's the sound your heart makes when you look at "The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" by Caravaggio.

But here on FR it just means to call someone's attention to a thread or post, generally by addressing a post to the pingee.

[general_re]

In the future, you'll help yourself by not putting general questions like this in the religion forum. Not that the regular denizens of the religion forum are incapable of answering such a thing, of course, but it is sort of off-topic. and you'll get a wider audience in one of the other forums. You're new, it happens - now you know ;)

Anyway, when you're posting a comment, you can direct it "To:" any other poster, regardless of whether they're active on that particular thread or not. If I put your name in the "To:" field of my post, my post will then show up in your "My comments" page - that "new posts to you" thing in the upper right corner of the forum window. That's a ping. It's just a way of calling your attention to some thread you might be interested in - a way of saying "hey, get over here and get a look at this!"

Ping lists are lists of members maintained by someone, dedicated to a particular issue or topic or author or whatever, so that whenever an article on that topic is posted, those members can get pinged as a way of notifying them that something they're interested in is available - otherwise, things can get lost in the shuffle, and you might miss something you would have wanted to see, as this place is pretty busy. If you see a ping list for a subject that interests you, the way to get on is to politely ask the person who maintains the list to please add you. Easy as pie.

[VRW Conspirator]

Ping = Loogatmahbutt

[Dajjal]

Welcome!

I take it a ping is something that brings a topic up to the top?

No, that would be a bump, of BTTT (bump to the top).

As you post at FR, you may meet some people you consider friends, and you may want to ping them to an article or discussion thread they might find interesting.

[A.A. Cunningham]

What is a Ping?

[fishtank]

Here's one Ping I found.

[fishtank]

Here's another Ping I found.

[fishtank]

Yet another Ping.

[Talking_Mouse]

Ping is a computer network command. It originated in UNIX. It checks to see if another computer is up on the network.

For example, if I wanted to know if the printer printer3 was online, at the command line I would enter:


$ ping printer3

If it was online I would get the response:

$ printer3 is alive

[xJones]

I know! I know! It was in the movie, "The Hunt For Red October" when one submarine would bounce a "ping" off another.

"One ping only, please", said Sean Connery to his Russian sub captain.

Seriously, a ping is getting someone's attention that you want to see something, and you do it by putting their screen name in the "To" bar above.

Bumps and bttps involve bumper cars.:)