Saying thanks, or simply acknowledging info given

One thing which has always annoyed me on TT are users who ask for help and then don't bother their arses throwing out a simple 'Thanks' or in any way acknowledging the fact that people have tried to help them out.

I commented on it recently here...


Another prime candidate is Malikos. I'm highlighting him because he does it all the time, but there are plenty of other people displaying the same basic lack of courtesy. Here are a few of his topics...

Looking for info on Altenburg airport
Looking for info on kitchen installation costs
Looking for info on lakes near Dresden
Looking for info on furnishing an apartment
Looking for info on work visas
Looking for info on English language TV

If you ask a question on Toytown and receive responses then show some manners and say thanks.

Fully agree - especially when the question could be answered much more quickly through a Google search, like Western Union banks in Frankfurt.

That grates me too. What I find worse is when someone sends you a PM looking for advice/help based on a comment you made in a random thread, then you take the time to personally respond and that's the last you hear of it. Hasn't happened me here but I've encountered this alot on other forums.

Agree with Jester in particular - I occasionally get PMs from people who think I'm a Notar in Munich (I'm not!) and by and large I get a thank you in return, and on one occasion got a very lovely PM from somebody. On other occasions I've had fuck all response and been left wondering if I should bother anymore.

Oh, and Keydeck, by the way - back in September 2003 you answered a post of mine about where to live in town and where to go out - thanks for that.

I blame it on violent video games. Then again, every now and then you get some post looking for information with a thank you up front and then no one posts.

IN retrospect and for all my negagoogleabilitiness and general "I cant do this alone" type postings

THANKS TO EVERYONE (I do mean it by the way)

(especially the sarcastic replies, they always keep me happy)

Nope Keydeck is right. I like to think I have mostly thanked helpful TTers most of the time for helpful advice. Many a time I only ask when I can't find the info on Google.

It isnt the case here in Germany as I have a full family support network of my wife's, but when I arrived knowing no one in Saudi I was bowled over at how helpful expats were to me getting set up. They showed me where all the underground bars shops and restaurants were. I had no way of repaying their kindness but what I did was feel duty bound to help newcomers find their feet by taking them down to the local fortnightly disco on one of the compounds.

So it should be with TT, for those who can get out more than I can.

I try to do my bit for TT by posting up what I think are interesting astro things for people to go out and see even if they havent got a telescope.

Oh and while we're at it, anyone know where I can get earplugs to protect my ears from moaning kids!

Your local chemists will have earplugs, in your case the Apotheke am Marktplatz in Hoki.

I'd personally like to thank Keydeck and anyone else who's posted up cute pics of chics over the years. Alsho I'd like to thank God and Jesus and my family , hi Mammy! for the time they sat me down on/over their knee and told be the basic facts of life and I never did look at cabbages in quite the same way again.

So to sum up.

I must say on forums I prefer people not to add a THANKS at the end of the thread if I helped out. This is because if i see a thread with "TITLE-X" and I go in and I reply with information and I close out of the thread I dont see the thread anymore on my "view new posts".

But if someone posts a thanks, up pops the thread again, and i have to go in and spend time reading it just to find its a THANKS mail and not a request for further information etc etc.

Forums are more the type of place where you say your thanks by posting the next bit of help to someone else. People helped me with information when I started (yea thanks for that) and now I help other people who start, and I like to think they in turn go on to help the next new starters and so on. I would rather one person passed my help on to another needy person than have 100 people thank me for help.

Either way I cant say the posting or non posting of a thanks on threads irks me in any way. Its just a preference in the opposite direction.

I wonder if its also worth posting out that this is a forum made up of a global community with Germany as a common factor. In some of these posters home countries certain ettiquettes are possibly different to others, so why try and enforce one standard ettiquette here accross them. A case in point, i think i read somewhere that there are several words for Thank You in Japanese but they all generally translate to english as "I acknowledge you are superior to me in the preceeding matter, and i rather dislike you for it"

You haven't.

But I agree, well said Keydeck and thanks for pointing out what really should be obvious and common courtesy.

Maybe in other places, but here we not only give up our seats for old ladies so they can post more comfortably, but we also seem to like it when the standard conventions of politness are applied to our interwebbie interactions.

or as I say to my kids, manners cost nothing.

Aye Gideon but then we are British and did at least invent manners didn't we?

I always say manners are inefficient in Germany and smiles waste muscles.

Yes gideon, but who's manners? In an international online community concentrated in one forum all posting together, whos definition of "Manners" will you choose to take and enforce across the entire Forum. Your own I would assume as to each person "manners" is a term describing the right way to act in their own culture.

In fact the definition from a dictionary is "the prevailing customs, ways of living, and habits of a people, class, period, etc.; mores: The novels of Jane Austen are concerned with the manners of her time. "

As a case in point here is a random internet article:

Please and thank you

Which is very effecient on the web I find.

International english speakers standard manners.

If I ask for something and am given it I say thank you. Fact. Otherwise you're rude. Maybe EB should write that into the user bits, just in case the odd Somalian comes on here asking for stuff.

I can't believe this is even coming up to discusion.

Good academic link Mauddib but then remember we are in the land where rudeness is normal and has nothing to do with please and thank you.

Germans are rude. Fact.

You neglected to mention another - far from negligible - common factor: the ENGLISH LANGUAGE and the fact that this forum is primarily intended for native speakers of English. For the purposes of TT, that fact alone makes the dissertation on African and Asian languages in your second post totally irrelevant and redundant.

Join the club!

_{Topics not merged by admin!}

In the "About" section *points up* the following is stated:


Now, that could well imply an Anglo-Saxon cultural ethic at a push, but at least a "please" and "thank you" culture from posters' own backgrounds (as I really don't want a brick through my window for the use of the term Anglo-Saxon).

And the thread-starter Keydeck is Irish. Not British.

Personally, I like when I get a thank you but I don't expect one on here. Makes for a nice surprise when one appears. There's a greater issue for me personally with one-sided posters who ask tons, but do not contribute or acknowledge. For those candidates, I'm less likely to have a think on their behalf.

That's what smilies are for.

Ever been to France? In comparison Germans meet US standards.

I wont continue to post articles from the web here but im finding it an interesting read all the same. I would advise having a look yourself. In fact there are contradictons to your last post among them too. Diversity of the use of the words Please and Thank You are as colorful within the english speaking world as they are among the global community. I would argue you are taking the Englishmans view, as an Englishman, of the international use of English. Whereas... and this is an education to me too I must add as Im only reading these articles on the back of this thread... this is a very limited view.

A totally twisted way of looking at the debate, to give a fresh perspective on it, is the post that started this thread in the first place. In Ireland where I am from if you have a problem with someone you go to them and discuss it with them directly. Publically naming and shaming someone for their failing in the was Keydeck has done to Malikos would be considered the HEIGHT of bad "manners" there and would rightfully deserve an angry response.

However there are other cultures where publically pointing out a failing and as a unit working towards fixing it is also the norm and Keydeck would have acted quite rightly.

And in still others a "please keep it to yourself" mentality would prevail and Keydeck mentioning it AT ALL would be bad manners.

So which should he have done in the context of that? I think this is the same argument from a different view. And I certainly would not say because the people involved have chosen to use English (british, american, international or whatever) as the language for in which to communicate should be used then as a basis for determining which cultural choices they should make.

There we'll have to agree to disagree...

What does the thank you smilie look like?



which apparently could also mean "yeah right you clever bastard now go feck YOUR SISTERS HUSBANDS CAMEL" in Somalia. Be very careful when using the Dafur version of TT that I can tell you.

yes Sara I spent a lot of time in southern France years ago, about two months a year renovating a barn. I found rural French to be quite friendly and polite enough. Everyone moans abou tFrench but I reckon its the Parisians theyy mean.

i would disagree too. The French appear to have a very structured and formal politeness similar in a way to British please and thankyous. You have to be carefull to address people in the correct form (tu/vous), if asking questions of strangers it is normal to use "Monsieur" and "Madame" and you always use "merci" or "merci beaucoup" as well as "s'il vous plaît" and the rest. The parisians may be quite gruff and arrogant but even they usually seem to stick to these rules. Like I said, very formal, much like your peas and queues.

Probably off-topic but this is a big interest of mine, based on many arguments with my boyfriend about different forms of politeness between cultures.

I have to say I am refreshingly impressed by how often I encounter friendly, genuine staff in shop here since moving to Munich last September. On average it definitely beats the often hypocritical and superficial service in Dublin, where you just know the staff don't give a damn and are at least impatient if verging on rudeness most of the time. Yes the Irish are known for being very friendly and often say please and thank you, but that doesn't mean they always mean it!

Having said all that, I've already had my fair share of extremely rude Germans too - they seem to be either one extreme or the other around here, but definitely not as bad as I expected (I'm half-German, half-Irish, grew up in Ireland).

But yes, please and thank you don't cost much and are appreciated!

Realy? I forgot I only just got of the boat and have been living in England all my life and dont speak fluent german etc. Go figure.


Well you're in the majority of one there. Accept it is considered on this forum to be the right thing to do. Simple and easy, I don't see why it needs even a debate.

Oh did I smell flounce there?

My last two weeks' experience was around Montpellier and then in Reims. Matter of fact, most of the Parisians with whom I spoke were charming; they appreciated that I had made the effort to learn their language and we shared some holiday cheer.
But back on topic: I have sent PMs with loads of information to various newbies and never got a reaction. These people learned in time and have used please and thank you in later posts. I suppose the good example set by the vets rubs off after a while.

Well like I said it may be a limited view but I am also just finding this out myself as I read and educate myself on the articles I am finding on the back of this debate. Its eye opening.

And as for accepting it as the standard on this board and me (personally) being a majority of one... if enough people have been acting differently to have created enough fuel for this debate in the first place, then I would argue that the standard isnt as rigid as you are trying to enforce it to be?

Enforce politeness? Hardly. Seeing your help appreciated is how I would put it.

Quiet right. Maybe it should be enforced more by the moderators! I've heard this sort of complaint a fair few times, I don't think people enforce it enough in this modern world where impolitness is somehow seen as cool.

But they do judge you on it.

So if you wish not to appear like an ungrateful egocentric ignoramous - and more importantly get replies next time you post - those two little words go a long way dont they?

I said enforce standard, not enforce politeness

this is a subtle difference but again sarabyrd I return to the same point. By whos standards of politeness and display of gratitude do you measure it. The person who asked for the help, the person who gave the help, some international standard? As I said Keydeck for example sees his help appreciated by getting a thank you. In my own personal culture i see my help appreciated when the receiver goes on to pass that same help on to the next person.

In other words I am not enforcing politeness, I am saying each person is polite in the context of their own cultural ways of doing so. Its the enforcing of a single standard of it that I find is the interesting side of this debate.

Jesus H Christ. What a bunch of arsey pedantic windbags some of you lot are. Far be it from me to speak for Keydeck, but I am pretty sure this topic was never meant to be a debate about cultures and politeness. There are a billion other topics on Toytown for that type of discussion.

If you're so goddamned busy that you can't acknowledge when another human being takes the time to help you out, or have some sort of moral or political or cultural problem with simply typing out the eight letters that spell 'thank you,' I seriously pity you.

Ah Mauddib, but that misses one thing: by posting that assistance on a forum and not by sending a personal message for example, the assistance given has already been passed onwards, going through the asker to the interweb at large.

So your version of thanks is pretty, erm, useless or daft in that context.

You could pass the information further if you so wish, but my role as supplier is two-fold, I've supplied information/assistance to you (singular) and to you (globally). People can search TT, can google search, TT threads often come up that way, by posting, I give my sole ownership up, but it doesn't solely belong to you either.

But your acceptance (is there a better word? Maybe acknowledgement as the information might not be fitting or relevant, but it still exists) of that information can be thanked.

As I've previously posted earlier in this thread, the thanks are nice, but participation, whether feedback or converting help received into help given is even better.

But I don't think anyone is enforcing anything. It has just been ever-so-gently pointed out that saying thank you is generally appreciated by those giving advice.

Particularly in the case of people with English-speaking cultural backgrounds, of which the vast majority of this forum is. Take it or leave it, but it might be worth considering no matter how much you argue that cultures have different ways of expressing politeness.

In my own personal culture we call people who dont say thank you rude words refering to various female sexual parts prefixed of course by the word ungrateful.

There is no debate.

Use the words thank you, otherwise you come over as an uncivillised bog/savanah/paddy field/outback (cross off according to your cultural deffinition of uncultuered and uncivillised peasentry) dweller. Bugger what the Somalians or Lower Mountain Bush People do.

Actualy you should respect the culture of those who help you. Thats pretty standard in the world. SO if a bunch of somalians do give me advice on MWST reductions for business I will of course being raing my left eyebrow in appreciation.

what a bunch of tools!

I think it's a symptom of the society of entitlement and high expectations we live in, fueled by a medium where any amount of information is available for the asking. People expect to be served, to be catered to. They've no time for thanks, they've moved on to something else already.

aww thanks ER!

_{lets see if I can start a trend}

Where, in all this, would you see the idea of politeness as the codification of respect for someone else's sensitivities? In other words, being polite in the context of your own cultural way, as you term it, is merely following a set of local rules and not actually showing any respect for your interlocutor by adapting your behaviour to actually fit his/her own cultural context. Is politeness about following an algorithmic and programmed behaviour or is it about empathising with and respecting the feelings of another human being?

Thank you for melting my brain.

Sorry all was called to a meeting there, have to rush post this:

"Jesus H Christ. What a bunch of arsey pedantic windbags some of you lot are."

To this I would say what I said at the very first post. I am not irked either way. I am not saying we should or should not do it a certain way, im not saying anyone was wrong or right. And Im not being pedantic. I simply find it a stimulating discussion to have, based on a thread of thought this post has created in me, to debate what standards you should use in an international community to dictate the proper actions of the participants. Your response and Gideons response saying "There is no debate" are a little disappointing in this context. There is always a debate. If there is a part of your life that is so black and white that it cannot be reexamined and reevaluated constantly based on new input then you just arent looking at that part of your life close enough. I said before this is an education for me. In fact when I first read the post I was almost in full agreement with Keydeck. But then I read some pretty interesting articles on similar subjects, learned things I never knew before about other cultures and am currently (mid debate I must admit) actively having a rethink and asking myself, and all of you at the same time, how DO we judge such things as a people and how SHOULD we or COULD we deal with these things. Basically my feeling is when you read a line like:

"have some sort of moral or political or cultural problem with simply typing out the eight letters that spell 'thank you,' I seriously pity you."
and
"In my own personal culture we call people who dont say thank you rude words refering to various female sexual parts prefixed of course by the word ungrateful. "

then you find you are talking to someone who is looking down on other people based on some assumption that their cultural way of dealing with a certain behaviour is automatically superior to the opposing one and hence pitable. And thats a scary way to think of people. Sure call them names in your culture. They have not got the proper "manners" for your culture. But the OTHER cultures have different ones so to look down on them or resort to infantile name calling sullies your own culture not theirs I think.

However kudos to Gideon, although the debate was in danger of getting boring or decending into bickering he just put forward a thesis to begin to answer the question. ITs a start anyway! The thesis was "Actually you should respect the culture of those who help you." This is at last a point of view to answer my origional question. Looking at it he is quite right!!! So if Keydeck is from a culture that expects a thank you then maybe he is quite right to be irked when he doesnt get one. But then Gideons origional post along the lines of enforcing a set level of politeness accross the entire forum is contradicted because the helped may be culturally not expecting a thank you.

But although a contradiction to his own view earlier i think its a good step forward, well done for that. Now in the spirit of a good old romping debate I will have to play devils advoctate against this view to test it. But its getting near home time so I will think it out

My liver still regrets getting involved with you in any way, shape or form, Mr. Jimbo. Could this be the post that started all the trouble? There's a seriously frightening amount of Helles under the bridge since back then.


But back to the present...


Darn tootin' Katrina. Oddly enough so is Mauddib so I'm not entirely sure what his references to cultural differences relate to. In theory we've spilled the same blood in the same mud.


I'm from Ireland too mate and I'd have to disagree with you. In Ireland people are more likely to bitch about someone behind their back rather than confront them directly. However, that of course depends on the individual in question and has nothing at all to do with any cultural issues. Posting the thread on the open forum lands somewhere between sending Malikos a PM and just having a bitch about him in private. However, he is not the subject of the thread, he is simply an example to illustrate the point. If he has a response then he is more than welcome to make it. Nothing is being said behind his back here.


It was not intended to be a debate, it was a statement of fact. Personally I care not a jot for the cultural differences of anyone in terms of what is deemed to be good manners. Neither to I care what individuals wish for in terms of response when they provide assistance. Based on about 4 years usage of this site I can tell you that it is deemed good manners here to give a word of thanks or acknowledgement when assistance is provided. The users of this site give information freely and oftenly (if that's not a word it should be). Yes, quite often users don't write anything after they've gotten help; that is rude and ignorant. This is not an opinion or prompt for discussion. It is, as I said, a statement of fact.


By my standards. Standards which have, on this website, been developed over years of giving assistance, reading others giving assistance and generally observing online behaviour in our little community here.


Damn right GG and feel free to speak for me. If you get it wrong I'll slap you down quick-smart anyway .

Debate all you want, it's an open thread and you are free and welcome to do so. Just know that the initial post was motivated out of annoyance at those who defy the social norms of this community through rude and ignorant behaviour.


Gonna have to stop you there. Christ, you're a garrulous one.

Note: Use of the word 'garrulous' above was prompted by Adetmus' fabulous post of which I understood about half. Fair play to ya horse.

So, to sum up, if you get help from someone on this website then say 'thank you'. It takes a couple of seconds and is definitely appreciated. Otherwise you're an ignornant fucktard. The use of the word 'fucktard' in the previous sentence is brought to you by the letter 'F' and the sudden realisation that the rest of the post was lacking in colourful langauge.

Jeebus those are long posts...

Said the actress to the bishop.

Did she thank him afterwards though, ha? Answer me that.

As much as I'd like thanks, I think feedback would be even better. If 12 people recommend 12 different gyms to join, a dance group, a place to watch gigs, how to fix your cat whatever, it would be nice to know what the end results are. Eg: "I checked out McFit and thought it was a bit too downmarket, but also looked at Elixia and thought it was great and have joined" or "Thanks for the tips on where to find Black Forest folk dancing. Look for me at the Heidelberger Volkfest on Tuesday in costume!" or "I think I'll try out Atomic Cafe, they have a good list of gigs coming up" or "Binky is now neutered. It was traumatic for us all, but the vet and assistants were really kind. Thanks for the tips on where to go".

I bet Binky won't be thanking anybody.

dunno, he could be relieved really. A load off his mind, now he can fool around all he wants without consequences.

And Binky being neutered was certainly not traumatic for all. It;s like saying the the Father "shares" the birth experience. Nope.

Binky was all safe in the knowledge that he could give his balls a lick whenever he wanted until that one day that he fell asleep and some bastard nicked them. How do you think he feels eh?