Help SWIRT

[Proud Texan]

Some time ago everyone recommended that I not use my actual name nor the name of our B&B so that I might vent with some anonymity. I changed my name to "Proud Texan" and now my name shows as that with the exception of text where I was quoted. Is there anyway to have that changed globally throughout the forum?

 

[agoodman]

Heavens if anyone has the time to go back through all your old postings they have too much time on their hands. STAND UP AND BE PROUD, why would you care if people know who you are??

 

[EmptyNest]

Heavens if anyone has the time to go back through all your old postings they have too much time on their hands. STAND UP AND BE PROUD, why would you care if people know who you are??.

Because sometimes we talk/ vent about guests and a long time ago ..a guest was reading the forum and read about themselves and called an innkeeper on it!!! IF you want everyone to know who you are that is fine. But many of us prefer to remain anonymous....except to those we really want to know.

 

[JunieBJones (JBJ)]

I agree. Everyone here knows who I am and where I am, if they don't they can email me and I will share. I just don't want some rant about some
"interesting or unique" guest to be identifiable.

This needs to be a safe place. (As safe as the www can be - ha ha)

 

[Morticia]

Heavens if anyone has the time to go back through all your old postings they have too much time on their hands. STAND UP AND BE PROUD, why would you care if people know who you are??.

Because sometimes we talk/ vent about guests and a long time ago ..a guest was reading the forum and read about themselves and called an innkeeper on it!!! IF you want everyone to know who you are that is fine. But many of us prefer to remain anonymous....except to those we really want to know.
.

Because sometimes we talk/ vent about guests and a long time ago ..a guest was reading the forum and read about themselves and called an innkeeper on it!!! IF you want everyone to know who you are that is fine. But many of us prefer to remain anonymous....except to those we really want to know.

That was me over on the About forum. And I agree...I want to come here and talk turkey and not want any random person wandering in to recognize me immediately. You all know more about my business than my competition does, no need to make it easy for them to find me online.

 

[swirt]

There is no easy way to do a find and replace. But I will see what I can do.
email me off the forum because I've forgotten what your original username was (LOL out of sight out of mind).

 

[ginocat]

There is no easy way to do a find and replace. But I will see what I can do.
email me off the forum because I've forgotten what your original username was (LOL out of sight out of mind)..

I use my own name but I'm careful what I say. I have a Canadian BB forum and it is absolutely private!! Nobody can read it except members. That's where I vent. I often wonder why this board is not made private?

 

[JunieBJones (JBJ)]

True. I wonder if we had a private side to the forum would that get used more than the public side?

 

[Morticia]

There is no easy way to do a find and replace. But I will see what I can do.
email me off the forum because I've forgotten what your original username was (LOL out of sight out of mind)..

I use my own name but I'm careful what I say. I have a Canadian BB forum and it is absolutely private!! Nobody can read it except members. That's where I vent. I often wonder why this board is not made private?
.

I don't know how new members would find us. Your private forum is members' only but you have to be a member of something to get access.

 

[gillumhouse]

Actually I like the fact that an wannabee or a newbie can stumble in to stimulate converswation. When GeorgiaGirl came in we got a new insight and set of opinions. Closed is to me, too restricting. Eventually we would all get bored because we would know exactly who was going to respond to what and how. I like the Open Door....

 

[Morticia]

Actually I like the fact that an wannabee or a newbie can stumble in to stimulate converswation. When GeorgiaGirl came in we got a new insight and set of opinions. Closed is to me, too restricting. Eventually we would all get bored because we would know exactly who was going to respond to what and how. I like the Open Door.....

Eventually we would all get bored because we would know exactly who was going to respond to what and how. I like the Open Door....

You think? There have to be a few loose cannons here...

 

[ginocat]

There is no easy way to do a find and replace. But I will see what I can do.
email me off the forum because I've forgotten what your original username was (LOL out of sight out of mind)..

I use my own name but I'm careful what I say. I have a Canadian BB forum and it is absolutely private!! Nobody can read it except members. That's where I vent. I often wonder why this board is not made private?
.

I don't know how new members would find us. Your private forum is members' only but you have to be a member of something to get access.
.

Word of mouth or you know someone who has a bb and you invite them. I just got an inquiry from a bb somewhat close to me who looks at this site and wants to know about mine. There are three private forums, one in the UK and 2 in Canada that I participate on - one that I started and another. My board is on YUKU. Often people search places like that looking for a forum that might be of interest.

 

[IronGate]

Actually I like the fact that an wannabee or a newbie can stumble in to stimulate converswation. When GeorgiaGirl came in we got a new insight and set of opinions. Closed is to me, too restricting. Eventually we would all get bored because we would know exactly who was going to respond to what and how. I like the Open Door.....

As an aspiring, I am certainly glad this forum is not closed. Already, I've learned so much about things I would never have thought of until I faced it in reality, when I would have no basis for making a good by-the-seat-of-my-pants decision. With what I have learned here, I feel I can open my doors (someday) with a truly viable B&B. Being able to see the business from the inside out before actually being in the business allows one to make better initial decisions, which just might prevent unviable inns from opening in the first place. That, of course, is better for the industry and the "innkeeper."

 

[gillumhouse]

Actually I like the fact that an wannabee or a newbie can stumble in to stimulate converswation. When GeorgiaGirl came in we got a new insight and set of opinions. Closed is to me, too restricting. Eventually we would all get bored because we would know exactly who was going to respond to what and how. I like the Open Door.....

Eventually we would all get bored because we would know exactly who was going to respond to what and how. I like the Open Door....

You think? There have to be a few loose cannons here...
.

I don't know about cannons but might find a few loose screws or lost marbles.....

 

[swirt]

There is no easy way to do a find and replace. But I will see what I can do.
email me off the forum because I've forgotten what your original username was (LOL out of sight out of mind)..

I use my own name but I'm careful what I say. I have a Canadian BB forum and it is absolutely private!! Nobody can read it except members. That's where I vent. I often wonder why this board is not made private?
.

There are lots of reasons why I will not make it private (in no particular order)

• I like the ability of this site to attract everyone with an interest in the topic.
• It was started as a replacement to an already public forum.
• I have no time to do background checks on everyone who requests an account to see if they meet the criteria.
• I have put a lot of work into building this site to be what we need and the idea of me (a search engine geek) putting its success on the shoulders of "word of mouth" is just not enough of a sure thing. I've seen lots of forums dry up and fail and I would not want to risk that happening here.
• There are plenty of organizations that run private forums (PAII, bandb.com, local associations ...) that I don't see offering more of the same to be a big help.
• I need this site to pay for itself (cover its own hosting costs). So I need this site to actively pull new people in via search engines. In general, it is not the regular users of this site that click on the ads, so I need new people to find this site and all of its wonderful pages, and the only way that can happen is if it is open. Closed pages don't show up in search engines because if the public can't get in, neither can the spiders. Since this site also does a bit of revenue sharing, it needs even more visitors than a "normal" forum to keep afloat. Currently the site has a long way to go in terms of new traffic before it covers its own costs.

 

[ginocat]

There is no easy way to do a find and replace. But I will see what I can do.
email me off the forum because I've forgotten what your original username was (LOL out of sight out of mind)..

I use my own name but I'm careful what I say. I have a Canadian BB forum and it is absolutely private!! Nobody can read it except members. That's where I vent. I often wonder why this board is not made private?
.

There are lots of reasons why I will not make it private (in no particular order)

• I like the ability of this site to attract everyone with an interest in the topic.
• It was started as a replacement to an already public forum.
• I have no time to do background checks on everyone who requests an account to see if they meet the criteria.
• I have put a lot of work into building this site to be what we need and the idea of me (a search engine geek) putting its success on the shoulders of "word of mouth" is just not enough of a sure thing. I've seen lots of forums dry up and fail and I would not want to risk that happening here.
• There are plenty of organizations that run private forums (PAII, bandb.com, local associations ...) that I don't see offering more of the same to be a big help.
• I need this site to pay for itself (cover its own hosting costs). So I need this site to actively pull new people in via search engines. In general, it is not the regular users of this site that click on the ads, so I need new people to find this site and all of its wonderful pages, and the only way that can happen is if it is open. Closed pages don't show up in search engines because if the public can't get in, neither can the spiders. Since this site also does a bit of revenue sharing, it needs even more visitors than a "normal" forum to keep afloat. Currently the site has a long way to go in terms of new traffic before it covers its own costs.

.

I'm not saying you should be private. I was just tossing the comment out.
Is this board expensive? Yuku is free (with some ads) but not very expensive to keep it add free. Very easy to set up and use also. You might want to take a look at the layout on one of the public forums on YUKU.

 

[trishany]

Why not use your actual name!? My father always told me to "it's better to MAKE a decision, than NO decision at all"
Soooooooo, post here what you feel, and don't worry about what everyone else thinks. I don't.

 

[Morticia]

Why not use your actual name!? My father always told me to "it's better to MAKE a decision, than NO decision at all"
Soooooooo, post here what you feel, and don't worry about what everyone else thinks. I don't..

Why not use your actual name!? My father always told me to "it's better to MAKE a decision, than NO decision at all"
Soooooooo, post here what you feel, and don't worry about what everyone else thinks. I don't.

Trish...no one knows who you are. Your name is 'trishny', it doesn't give your B&B name or any other identifying facts. THAT'S what PT was talking about. His previous name gave his exact location with the name of his B&B.
So, if you want to follow your da's rules, then you need to have the name of your B&B on every post. Which many of us do not want to do, for good reason.
The LAST thing you want is for a guest to look for your B&B and find you (or anyone of us) out here complaining about the dopey things guests do. Yeah, it can be funny, but no one wants to think they're going to end up on a B&B forum being laughed at for making a mistake.
Which is why we go anonymous out here. So we can talk about bedwetters and stains on the linens and bugs and all of that without it being 'common knowledge' where these things are happening.
If I found this site as a guest and read that one B&B had lots of issues with noise and drunkenness, I wouldn't stay there.

 

[trishany]

I would LOVE for guests to read about "the dopey things that guests do".
I know I can be very sarcastic here on this forum, but Bree, you know, I think that's a great idea. To post on our site, -- DOPEY THINGS THAT GUESTS DO.
Most of our guests go to tripadvisor.com and not THIS forum.
Maybe it's me, but I really can't imagine a guest coming to this forum unless they are psychotic.

 

[Morticia]

I would LOVE for guests to read about "the dopey things that guests do".
I know I can be very sarcastic here on this forum, but Bree, you know, I think that's a great idea. To post on our site, -- DOPEY THINGS THAT GUESTS DO.
Most of our guests go to tripadvisor.com and not THIS forum.
Maybe it's me, but I really can't imagine a guest coming to this forum unless they are psychotic. .

Here's the idea...someone knows your B&B name. They put in a Google search because they can't remember the exact website for your inn. Lo and behold, you just posted a story about the guests who almost burned the house down by putting the candles in the bookcase. SO, because that is a brand new post on a very popular forum (really, it is) the post about the house-burning guests shows up BEFORE your inn's website. IF you list your inn name on every post.
Soooo, the guests, being curious go and have a look...and lo and behold, there you are telling all kinds of stories about guests. Or, just saying what terrible guests you had one weekend. Now the new guests reconsider. Maybe the bad guests will come back. They don't know.
THAT'S what PT is concerned about.
And it DID happen to me. 3 years ago I posted a long rant on About.com about guests who took advantage of a fund raiser I had here. Instead of booking 1-2 nights and donating to the cause, they stayed 8 days and made a $25 donation. They sat in the dining room for 4 hours every morning and would not shut up, we couldn't tend to any other guests or get out of the house. I had to start hiding in the afternoons! They brought their family over to mooch the snacks in the afternoon. Of course I ranted.
And the guest found the rant when she was looking for something on About concerning places to stay in my town. And she emailed me, insulted. There was no way she wouldn't recognize herself, and there was my name.