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Post by gabriele on May 31, 2013 20:17:17 GMT
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Post by gabriele on May 28, 2013 9:33:57 GMT
The problems with having to sign in to post when I'm already signed in is only getting worse...giving me absolutely no reason to even try to assist anyone...and can I complain to the mods? Of course not, I can't sign in to post.
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Post by gabriele on May 21, 2013 8:36:37 GMT
1:34 PDT (West Coast daylight time, Tuesday): notice posted three hours ago: Lonely Planet þ@lonelyplanet 3h Thorn Tree update: Unfortunately, we still have some work ahead of us. While you wait, here is TT back in 1996 ow.ly/lefZl
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Post by gabriele on May 20, 2013 23:35:00 GMT
Update, 4:32 US West Coast Daylight Time (00:33 UK Summer TimeT Tuesday): Lonely Planet þ@lonelyplanet 1h Thorn Tree update: We've encountered a few unanticipated problems - working hard to get it back up & running. Thanks for bearing with us!
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Post by gabriele on May 20, 2013 20:16:47 GMT
LP has posted twitter that they're having problems transferring Thorn Tree to the new server... 7 hours ago: Lonely Planet þ@lonelyplanet 7h The migration of Thorn Tree to the new server is nearly finished. We hope to be back up and running in a couple of hours
2 hours ago: Lonely Planet þ@lonelyplanet 2h We have encountered some issues with the migration of Thorn Tree to the new server. We are working to fix it asap in the next few hours
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Post by gabriele on Apr 17, 2013 10:30:48 GMT
News of a sort: skift.com/2013/04/03/breaking-arthur-frommer-gets-his-brand-name-back-from-google/Arthur Frommer has regained the right to publish the guidebooks and run the travel website that bears his name. The guidebook founder confirmed the return of the name to the Associated Press’ travel editor Beth Harpaz in a phone call late Wednesday night. No price for the naming rights was disclosed. I'll probably post this on a thread or two on TT...
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Post by gabriele on Apr 11, 2013 3:45:31 GMT
Ansh, I was looking at my old PMs and I have some from you, so they're still in the system. Nothing I think you would want to keep, though...fingers crossed you are able to access them...
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Post by gabriele on Apr 9, 2013 10:33:55 GMT
It sort of seemed as if TT was slow...so I counted: 18 posts in a 24 hour period (8 April) for WE forum. I'm sure there are more popular forums but since it's the one I know best it's what I used. For those who frequent other forums, are you seeing a decrease-perhaps I should write 'continuing decrease' --on those as well?
Any my complaint about the type size? Now I can't change the type size to Largest, if I want larger type I have to use the Zoom (yes I'm on IE) to 125%....seems like another case of 'let us fix it by making it worse'.
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Post by gabriele on Apr 7, 2013 2:32:20 GMT
Did some research for a reply on shipping a bike from Munich airport to lHR...everything was old on the advice forums...gave a couple links, the usual attempt to assist...and it got an automatic 'must be approved'. But when I went back and posted that the first post would be delayed so it could be approved by the mods...that posted immediately!
So far I'm not too happy with some of what I read on RG forum. Poster said he didn't want to drive down from San Francisco to Big Sur, what public transportation was there? Someone who has supposedly posted a lot said, oh, well, you really need to drive to see all the scenery. Coast Hiway 1 while beautiful can also be frightening...the hiway in many places goes right along cliffsides above the ocean. I really like the Big Sur area, been there a couple times and I KNOW there is public transporation, just a matter of a little searching, which I did. Train from SF to Monterey, bus from Monterey to Big Sur. Gave links, some transit times, etc., suggested they'd need to spend the nite in either Big Sur or Monterey. OP could decide from the schedules, etc if it was worth it to them to make the trip. Well the first replier came back and said, no, no, no, they can't take public transportation, they'll miss the whole beauty of the drive and it will take too long. If it were TT I would have gone back and reminded the guy that the OP said they WANTED public transporatation, and didn't want to drive, they don't drive much so his advice was quite contrary to what the OP had requested. But RG doesn't feel like my forum yet so I didn't. But it certainly felt like a very big ego trip (and I don't care that he lives in Asia now and has posted X number of times it was still bad advice) and someone on Has LP Had Its Day? made a similar comment about a 'regular' poster or advisor. Thanks for the confirmation bjd I was wondering if I'd done something wrong on my computer. I wonder if they're trying to downsize things so they fit on a phone screen...
Ansh, I know your birthday is the 7th (which is why I mentioned that date in the Flower Parade post, but with the East of GMT and West of GMT I decided I would be early rather than late. Any special celebration with your family? If your mother fixes a special meal you should post it on Get Stuffed...
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Post by gabriele on Apr 6, 2013 0:57:39 GMT
I just posted on WE Amsterdam Flower Parade....interesting parade...but the main reason was the last line...a greeting in Dutch whiching Ansh a happy birthday...on Sunday he'll be 16! Bonne anniversaire Ansh! (sfgirl)
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Post by gabriele on Apr 6, 2013 0:19:14 GMT
pressing
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Post by gabriele on Apr 5, 2013 22:55:50 GMT
I reset my text size to largest so TT is back to the regular size but it makes this site and others look like a large-text book...either like a child's book or one for people with eye problems... I can remember working for one company that had an old computer system (1993) and there had been so many fixes done on it when they needed to change something it took them a week to figure out what all the previous patches were, when they were done, what they involved and so on and so on...and the company had its HQ in New Orleans and branch offices in every port city in the US...and this was just an AS400...can't imagine how complex the LP/TT xyxtem is
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Post by gabriele on Apr 5, 2013 22:41:12 GMT
Is it just me or is the type smaller?
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Post by gabriele on Apr 5, 2013 9:56:14 GMT
Just tried to post a reply to a query about Marseille in the WE forum and got an error..telling me the page didn't exit. Went to the home page, clicked on Thorn Tree...took me back to the same 'fail' site Nice picture of two meerkats and the text: "Sorry, we can't find the page you're looking for.
Could be there is a broken link, or maybe it's just a mistyped address. Want to head back to the homepage?"
Funny thing is after looking up a couple things (OP had asked about 4 days in Marseille) when I got to the home page there was a main article about a weekend in Marseille, City of Culture!
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Post by gabriele on Apr 2, 2013 21:55:52 GMT
As I alluded to previously, I wrote to RG about the forums and received this answer (in part):
"Thanks for your email and your kind words. We're sorry to hear about the TT troubles - it was/is a great resource for travellers. We re-launched the Rough Guides website in January with a brand new forum area, and it's been growing rapidly ever since. There's now 1,000+ people posting questions and answers.
The main difference with ours, though, is that we have expert editors and writers on it every day to answer your questions. The Rough Guides team are online every working day and answering queries, so you're likely to find some expert advice within hours of posting a question (not to mention answers from the other users).
The Rough Guides community area is continuing to grow and we'd love to welcome new travellers.
I think if I personally comment on a competitor's forum it might be bad form, but feel free to pass this information on!
So, no home for us except as sort of second-best advisors...but I can see why they would choose to start with their own experts...I'll see what the experts come up with, though... I did post the quote about the expert editors and writers and 1000 members so far (starting in January)...in the Has Lonely Planet had its day thread. (and it hasn't been deleted...) either a new set of instructions for the mods or they're busy training new people or something...
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Post by gabriele on Mar 30, 2013 10:48:57 GMT
Hi all, First of all, interesting new thread on Rg: www.roughguides.com/questions/introduce-yourself/Second, this isn't the place for it but I'm not ready to adventure out into the bigger world of posting on APS, so here it is... Why Paris is Special... Where else do you see horizonal rainbows? Perhaps you've already seen it yourself live kerouac.. apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130327.htmlIf you've not seen the website before they post a great image every day...
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Post by gabriele on Mar 30, 2013 10:26:59 GMT
The TT thread about PM messages....the mods don't seem to be doing much monitoring...it's still there and gotten a comment...
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Post by gabriele on Mar 30, 2013 0:49:06 GMT
nutrax, I've posted the link on the PM thread...hope you don't mind.
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Post by gabriele on Mar 28, 2013 16:38:19 GMT
I'm down a thousand also, but I certainly didn't have as many as you bjd...I wonder what the criteria is? I'm sure at least a hundred of the missing are from writing a message on spam, then flagging for spam (I was suprised when they considered such posts in the total) so I'm not missing those. A previous computer had crashed and I lost all the links but hadn't worried about a lot of them since I thought I could find them on TT...oh well, they may all have disappeared anyway.
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Post by gabriele on Mar 22, 2013 6:05:28 GMT
Mobile destination apps: Lonely Planet’s cautionary story skift.com/2013/03/21/destination-apps-in-mobile-lonely-planets-cautionary-story/"Research from PhocusWright suggests that travelers overwhelmingly favor accessing websites rather than apps from their phones while traveling. A report on mobile usage among travelers from last January showed that 30% of travelers in the study mainly used websites with occasional app use, while only 9% reported doing it the other way around." and more. Sounds like the TT archive is more valuable that we thought...
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Post by gabriele on Mar 19, 2013 23:16:07 GMT
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Post by gabriele on Mar 19, 2013 23:07:50 GMT
So now we wait to see what actual plans the new owner has... Easter is coming....is it too late to give up following Thorn Tree for Lent? (not that I'd be sacrificing much...)
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Post by gabriele on Mar 17, 2013 4:42:02 GMT
I got my form letter. I have very few PMs but I think I have one from tony_b and I'd want to save that for old times sake.
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Post by gabriele on Mar 9, 2013 21:32:53 GMT
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Post by gabriele on Mar 8, 2013 9:07:52 GMT
Check out post #86 in Death and Travel thread in Older Travellers....
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Post by gabriele on Mar 6, 2013 20:58:45 GMT
I remember noting that an email address for one of the mods (old post) was a com.au...which would mean she was working on an Australian IPI.... so I think the reason for some of the delays are the time difference. It's almost 1 pm US West Coast time, and they haven't started working in Australia yet (6:17-6:47-7:17-7:47 Thursday (forget Perth)) and it's almost 10 pm in Paris. Could be they have the mods working regular day hours, no extra shifts. Maybe the mods are all taking sick leave or vacation time to go look for other jobs. If I worked for LP I certainly would be.
Since I haven't been around on TT as long as most, I will say 'you' rather than 'us'...
I think you did the work of building up TT so well that the powers that be think anyone can do it.
If we are going to go for a --well, not a strike, but something like that...perhaps someone who knows the internet could tell me if I go on the site and do nothing but use the search function but never select anything it brings up, what sort of site usage would it show? The Alexa site shows that the LP site if very slow...if lots of people were all doing searches at one time I wonder what it would do to the speed...
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Post by gabriele on Mar 6, 2013 18:37:43 GMT
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Post by gabriele on Mar 6, 2013 18:30:58 GMT
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Post by gabriele on Mar 6, 2013 18:21:00 GMT
Whj, Your post is there (and I am suprised). Just added this (pending approval): "Zabba: "as we've mentioned before, the objective of this thread is to provide updates on the Thorn Tree forum, not to fuel rumours or speculate about the past (or the future). Any off-topic messages will be deleted." How can concerns about TT be off-topic? TT does not exist in a vacuum without past or future. If we are not allowed to speculate then it sounds as if we're supposed to be a silent audience until someone decides what we are to know and when we know it. I don't know where the management and/or mods have worked before and under what conditions but essentially forum members are volunteer labor and are some of the better educated and well-travelled than those on other forums (departed members excepted). If we are being told we are in a 'time-out' period and we should go sit in the corner until it's time for us to hear the news, then I think you (not personally but editorially) are addressing the wrong crowd. Reminds me of Alice again: "'You couldn't have it if you DID want it,' the Queen said. 'The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday - but never jam to-day.' 'It MUST come sometimes to "jam to-day,"' Alice objected. 'No, it can't,' said the Queen. 'It's jam every OTHER day: to-day isn't any OTHER day, you know.'" Sometimes I think Alice in Wonderland is the only thing that is on topic in the topsy-turvy TT world." I am more and more of Ansh's suggestion. I also noticed on the Guardian that they most recent travel Q&A was on Holidays in France and was not the man from LP but a panel of 'experts' who of course used the opportunity to flog their own websites and books... www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2013/mar/04/france-holidays-q-and-a-expert-panel (in some cases I'd say less 'expert' and more 'opiniated'....)
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Post by gabriele on Mar 6, 2013 17:52:35 GMT
Just posted this on Welcome back...let's see if it makes it past Scrutiny... thanks Whj for the ideas in your post...
"Personal opinion only (but have done research on the web): I think LP will become a brand name only and Thorn Tree will become a BBC Travel function after they sanitize it.I think the archive is being mined for useful information and then will be discarded or downgraded. Sorry to say, I think the mods are probably looking at losing their jobs and their time is spent following instructions from on high on turning a silk purse (although woven by many hands) into a sow's ear. In its present incarnation LP/TT does not have a very high market value when one considers that online businesses are changing, and certainly the travel section as much if not more than others. Wiki getting into it, who knows what other changes are out there just waiting to surface.
I don't know how profitable the LP book side of the business is or how much revenue is generated through the website from advertisers. Remember when IBM thought it owned the world? Then came pcs....LP was one of the giants but the rise of the individual blog, the increasing number of independent travel forums (not selling books) and the change in focus from "I'll buy a book and read about it" to "I'll go online and see what I can find" may have broken the LP business model (tks Whj for the ideas) they had planned. In following various stories about US newspapers and magazines and their decline I have to wonder what company would have a real interest in LP should BBC want to sell it? Perhaps AOL might want to add it to its roster to tie in with Huffington Post, can't think of any other media company with money and interest in the US. So are we just 'copper-tops' in the matrix?"
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