Maybe, Perhaps, READ Before You Post?!

[Harmony]

Has anyone else noticed this?

I'll come across a moderate length to long thread that has gone off on a tangent, and the general consensus will be that the OP was wrong or some other such thing. And then at the bottom of the thread, there will be some user who didn't read the thread, maybe read half of the OP's post, or even maybe just the title, and will ramble on about exactly what everyone else has decided is absolute nonsense.

In some ways, this bugs me, and in other ways, I wonder why the person is posting in the first place. Getting post counts up is much easier in the "word association" threads... why make a fool of yourself in the process?

So what about YOU? Do you read the whole thread? Do you skip posts? Does this bother you? Or is it just me?

 

[Socrates]

Has anyone else noticed this?

I'll come across a moderate length to long thread that has gone off on a tangent, and the general consensus will be that the OP was wrong or some other such thing. And then at the bottom of the thread, there will be some user who didn't read the thread, maybe read half of the OP's post, or even maybe just the title, and will ramble on about exactly what everyone else has decided is absolute nonsense.

In some ways, this bugs me, and in other ways, I wonder why the person is posting in the first place. Getting post counts up is much easier in the "word association" threads... why make a fool of yourself in the process?

So what about YOU? Do you read the whole thread? Does this bother you? Or is it just me?

I read this whole thread!

 

[ghpham]

I second that.

 

[Arch]

yup unfortunately this happens... but look on the brightside if you find your not interested in the topic you can just skip the thread, where as i have to read everything!

 

[usayit]

No one said this form of communication was perfect... you gotta live with it.

Perhaps a live chat room is more to your liking....

 

[Harmony]

yup unfortunately this happens... but look on the brightside if you find your not interested in the topic you can just skip the thread, where as i have to read everything!

:lmao: That is why I am NOT a mod!

 

[Icon72]

Gotta love community forums on the interweb. You see this all the time on any type of forum. People so eager to post their opinion they don't bother to notice that the same opinion has already been posted.

 

[mrodgers]

So what about YOU? Do you read the whole thread? Do you skip posts? Does this bother you? Or is it just me?

Yes, no, yes, no.

And I read this whole thread without skipping posts

 

[Emerana]

sometimes people just jabber on and on and on and on and on so if you feel like you can add something you just skip it. Perhaps the person at the bottom is just agreeing or didnt understand what other posters said.

I hope no one already said that.

As for me, I am a busy woman. I read it all if it is interesting. If its jabber I skip it or read the first line of each paragraph

 

[DSLR noob]

It depends on how many pages it is, what the topic is, and how long some of the posts are. If it is a mild interest topic with replies that are 2 paragraphs long, I'll probably skip most of them. Also, sometimes if it's a thread where I can insert a quick opinion that comes to mind RIGHT as I read the first post, weather or not it's already been stated, I'll insert it at the end, then go back and read through.

Last factor, if somebody who I typically like on the forums posts, I take the time to read their post, because I usually tend to agree, or find their arguements intiguing, or they seem to be down to earth (normally someone with thousands of posts that has had a few years on the board to have "seen it all" and they know JUST what to say at the given time to end an old arguement, or start the thinking process on a topic)

There are sooooo many factors for me, some include how tired I am, it depends so much, I'll just leave it as:

"I try to read full topics most of the time, but sometimes find it impractical, I read whole topics maybe 80 to 85% of the time I post."

EDIT: looking at this post, I can say it's juuuuust approaching the length where I'd be 50/50 to ignore it or read it, most of the time reading the begining to see where it's going, then decide

 

[Harmony]

Last factor, if somebody who I typically like on the forums posts, I take the time to read their post, because I usually tend to agree, or find their arguements intiguing, or they seem to be down to earth (normally someone with thousands of posts that has had a few years on the board to have "seen it all" and they know JUST what to say at the given time to end an old arguement, or start the thinking process on a topic)

agreed.

I admit that I do speed read if it is a mild interest topic, but in a mild interest topic (to me) then I probably wouldn't be posting in it anyways.

 

[Phranquey]

Sit and think about a real life conversation while sitting down with a friend or two. Doesn't the conversation usually run off in many tangents over time? One thought or subject leads to another...now multiply that by how many people get in on a conversation online. Go to any forum related to any hobby/subject, and you will see the same thing....human nature.

 

[Harmony]

Sit and think about a real life conversation while sitting down with a friend or two. Doesn't the conversation usually run off in many tangents over time? One thought or subject leads to another...now multiply that by how many people get in on a conversation online. Go to any forum related to any hobby/subject, and you will see the same thing....human nature.

I think that you are right... in a way.

However, forums do differ from face-to-face conversations. Conversations generally don't start with a set title and reason for being written. The exception being, of course, the off-topic forum. People start threads there for no reason at all! But let's say someone wants to know about DOF, they start a thread about it. I think the OP of that thread would want his/her thread to stay on topic, or at least until his question/query is answered.

And then there are trolls. They deliberately bash people or try to derail topics, which is exactly what we don't like. Granted, derailing topics isn't the same as meandering off topic.

Which I seem to have done! Reading back, I realize the original post wasn't about this.

Oh well, Socrates (the actual guy, not the user) said to follow reason, and that reason is the conversation.

So you are right. Humans are, on a whole, very easily distracted!

 

[Battou]

Has anyone else noticed this?

I'll come across a moderate length to long thread that has gone off on a tangent, and the general consensus will be that the OP was wrong or some other such thing. And then at the bottom of the thread, there will be some user who didn't read the thread, maybe read half of the OP's post, or even maybe just the title, and will ramble on about exactly what everyone else has decided is absolute nonsense.

In some ways, this bugs me, and in other ways, I wonder why the person is posting in the first place. Getting post counts up is much easier in the "word association" threads... why make a fool of yourself in the process?

So what about YOU? Do you read the whole thread? Do you skip posts? Does this bother you? Or is it just me?

I've seen a handful of this over the years, truth is it's a fact of nature on a forum. Long lived threads are particularly susceptible to this, What happens is the longer a thread gets the more likely the odds of hits from search engines. This results in people finding it before they find the rest of the forum so to speak and after reading the OP and determining that they have something to share they share, the number of existing pages often does not even come into play during the reading part of things until afterwards if at all. This also plays a part in the fact that a lot of times when you look at the latter pages of these massive threads you will find that a good handful of posts are the only post made by the individual.

yup unfortunately this happens... but look on the brightside if you find your not interested in the topic you can just skip the thread, where as i have to read everything!

:lmao: That makes you far more dedicated than me, I don't read diddly squat on the forums I moderate.

 

[LaFoto]

Pssst, may I tell you a secret?

Whenever a thread starts having lots and lots of direct quotes of things the one immediately before has written, and I see a lot of darker grey among the lighter grey, I tend to "cross-read" that thread a lot easier and faster.