I might be asking a stupid question, but what does bumping mean?

bump is a term people use to "bump" a topic back to the top of the list so someone else can answer it or help or reply.

Threads are listed in chronological order from the thread with the last post to the ones not posted on since a long time ago. Most people only read the recent ones, so if yours has not been posted on in a while, they probably won't read it again. To get it back up higher on the list, people post again on their own thread, thus "bumping" it back to the top of the list. They usually just type "bump," to let everyone know that they bumped it up. The reason for bumping is if you are not satisfied with the answer (ex. you ask a question, and really haven't gotten a good answer yet).

However, bumping is considered bad etiquette. People have not answered your thread because they are not interested, and by bumping you are pestering them with your topic. Be prepared to be ignored, or if you persist, to receive some negative responses. People don't want to read a topic that has a bunch of "bumps" at the end. In other words, bumping is considered a bad thing, and you should avoid doing it (but it's your life).

Thanks for the information. I am not really into the message board terminology. Thanks for the information.

some people also bump their own topics to increase their rank (Elite Waterdeep Guard, Manshoon, etc.) rather than to get their question answered. This will result in instant and painful death. However, gentle bumping is OK, just do it in a way that uses real words, and not "BUMP!" Not following my sagely advice will result in a highly hostile reaction from many people (OK just me, but i can get pretty angry... [img]graemlins/evillaughter1.gif[/img] )

[ 06-15-2002, 11:23 PM: Message edited by: Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs ]

<font color="lightblue">To bump, as Nerull said, is to post in a thread with the sole purpose of moving it to the top of page 1. But, it is not always the thread starter who bumps a thread. Threads are bumped all the time in a forum situation for whatever reason... a help topic might be bumped because of more help being needed on the same problem; whereas a thread with (semi-)important information may be bumped for newbies to read.

Also, I would say that at Ironworks atleast, bumping for whatever reason is not considered bad etiquette, unless you do what someone did a few months ago in the Darkstone forum; and bump many many topics at once purely for the sake of bumping them. </font>

<font color="gold">Cant say that I remember that. Oh well, I dont hang out alot on the Darkstone-forum either. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

But I remember that right after I joined, there was a guy named Caine, IIRC, who liked to bump. Pretty annoying. [img]tongue.gif[/img] </font>

<font color="lightblue">I have read no posts in Darkstone bar the ATTN one for this guy [img]tongue.gif[/img]
The latest post in Darkstone was the ATTN; so it struck my eye... </font>

[img]graemlins/smilebounce.gif[/img] *BUMP* [img]graemlins/smilebounce.gif[/img]

Yup, it works!

The key words here are INTENT and RELEVANCE. Nobody minds a topic being bumped up if there's a good reason for it, eg. it's an interesting topic from long ago, it was a query from them that slipped off the front page (many people don't check page 2 of a forum, believe it or not), or it contains information that is useful for new members (eg a How-to-create-Items thread or a List-of-Good-Mods-to-Install).

People who bump topics for the purposes of fooling people, especially old irrelevant topics under the guise of answering a question that someone asked (and had received an answer to) over two years ago will not be very popular here - the names of those people tend to stick in the memory for some reason. ;)