Is anyone else puzzled by the number of long, often slightly rancid first-posts we get here on personal relationship issues? This isn’t Callahan’s Bar; I’m not sure why the SDMB attracts so many users willing to log in and share gritty, even grotty, details in their first message.
Many of whom never return again.
Many of whom seem resistant to advice given.
Many of whom seem, well, to live under a bridge.
Just me?
I have noticed it and it’s always puzzled me. I expect a fair number of them are bored people trolling the web. Some of them seem for real, and I don’t get why anyone would suddenly come upon this board and think “Here’s the place to get advice about my relationship!”
No it doesn’t puzzle me. Why care? You don’t have to read their threads. Besides the more traffic to this board the better.
This makes sense on no many levels.
Why would Dear Abbey traffic improve this board?
Why do you care that I’m curious? It just seems weird to me and whenever I see one of these threads I wonder where these people are all coming from.
Advertising page-views? Those embedded ads don’t generate revenue unless someone looks at the page they’re embedded in!
Other than that? I got nothin’.
Yeah, the reported phenomenon is weird. /shrug
I don’t look at 'em, and frankly, if you go looking for conspiracies, I assure you you’ll find them. It’s just not worth the effort.
Slightly puzzled, but more amused. I think this board has a dedicated core of trolls who have way too much time on their hands.
I hadn’t actually thought of it from that perspective, but having read far too many things on SEO and how to make millions trafficking in the web… duh. There are a LOT of black-hat/gray-hat schemes that involve planting spurious, controversial content.
I wasn’t/ain’t looking for conspiracies. Just puzzled that people would wander by and decide to introduce themselves with a detailed account of their family’s multi-generational incest and such.
I’ve often thought about starting a thread asking opinions on how many there are. Two or three who then Bevis and Butthead about it in the Snackpit (or whatever it’s called these days)? Just one very lonely, very pathetic poster who keeps making these things up? Two or three people who are similarly lonely and equally pathetic but have no idea of each other’s existence? I’ve always found them more sad than trollish–there’s something deeply disturbed about carrying on for so long.
Er, obviously I agree with Donkey’s assessment. It’s clearly one person or a small cadre of people getting the more gullible/credulous among the Dopers to play along. I guess the socks are tapping into the same emotion that gets people to play with dolls (or the Sims) or get hooked on daytime TB. But to think that so many people are randomly finding the Boards and deciding that MPSIMS is the right place to post to get such advice (even the rate at which such drivel gets posted to the right forum suggests serial socks).
I’m sure there are occasional posters who delurk to ask a personal question after reading the boards for a while. And I’m sure there are a handful of long time-ish posters who create a sock in order to ask a personal question, but IMHO those are the anomaly.
And I’m equally sure that among those who do read and respond to those threads are some that aren’t gullible and envious of Dear Abby, but are earnest helpers who’s true calling is in the world of social services or psychotherapy.
Has anyone ever checked to see if the same personal question has been posted on other boards?
I would recommend that posters employ a policy of “Caveat lector” (Let the reader beware) for any such confessional threads by new posters. I will often check out such posters for possible socking, but clear evidence may not be there. We may close or move such threads if there is obvious trolling, but in other cases posters should employ their best judgement. (And remember, if you suspect trolling, please report it rather than making accusations in the thread.)
Why do you care that I care that you’re curious? (It wasn’t directed at you and it was a general statement. I really don’t care why you’re curious.)
This. The more money the site makes the better the chances it’s not going to be shut down by who ever owns it now. What are we on the 47th owner now?
I don’t understand the advertising thing. There are three people repeatedly making up sob stories to make their lonely day go by that much quicker. They are not new readers. Their painfully pathetic posts don’t attract new readers. The people who answer and participate aren’t new readers. Where is this advertising revenue supposed to be coming from?
Volume.
There has always been a “Callahan’s Bar” sort of aspect to the internet – this aspect of things was recognized as far back as John Brunner’s Shockwave Rider, which was published in 1975 before there was even much of an internet.
Heck, it goes back even earlier than that – wasn’t there a story in Greek mythology about someone who dug a hole in the ground and yelled into it because he had to say something and couldn’t tell anybody? The urge to get stuff off your chest is strong and probably primal.
Today it’s even easier to reach out to what is perceived as any useful community that will listen to a story. Yes, they’re not always true stories, and bad actors and charlatans and pure ol’ maladjusted people are in that number.
Sometimes they are genuinely distressed people who have no one to talk to and feel the need to share their story with somebody, anybody – see Shockwave Rider, it’s not a new story. Sometimes it’s people who are just bored who want to wind pther folks up.
In a few cases it’s people who live in a world not at all based on this one who act out of illness.
It’s hard to differentiate.
Of course both Callahan’s and Shockwave Rider are fiction. Sometimes I wish there was a Callahan’s for real. We seem to be edging closer and closer to the Shockwave dystopian world, though, so I expect more callers. 
Well, this board is attached to an advice column, and there’s not really a downside to sharing a sob story with anonymous people. And, we’re oddly sympathetic to the right topics (while actively hostile to others–that’s more the odd part). And, frankly, there aren’t that many free boards out there anymore that have this high volume of users.
And while there aren’t a huge amount of similar threads, there are some, and that tells both troll and legitimate poster alike that we accept those types of threads.
The thing I don’t get is why long term posters still make these types of threads. You don’t generally get much real advice. You get either hostility or agreement–neither of which is that useful. What advice you do get creates even more hostility of you don’t think it’s good. If you want the advice of the SDMB, you’re just as well off just imagining what we will say, as you’re correct 99.9% of the time. We’re not that surprising.
Yes, but the SDMB is a tiny backwater in the middle of New York. There are thousands wretched souls walking about digging holes, but not only are they walking about a huge country, but also there are plenty of cities with lights and billboards actively seeking to make themselves an attractive place for their misery.
The likelihood of them randomly digging right in our town square is fairly small, especially compared to the handful of malcontent that have long relationships with the board. Snarkpit? Behind Your Back forum?
Again, there may be the odd random person who does find this a good place to share, and sure, I bet one or two of the one-off threads are a poster who wants to remain anonymous, but it takes either intense gullibility or extreme credulity to adhere to the fantasy that there really are a string of such heartbreaking tales that have found their way to the SDMB. It doesn’t quite happen on other boards (thought there are other quirks), and there’s far to great a commonality (as noted by the OP) for it to be more than a small number of sad, sad people.
Whether they’re the ones who also pose as the far right is a different story, but there’s a similarity there too. A continual stream of one-off posters who dump talking points and move on. There are other explanations (e.g. astroturf), but the pattern is very similar.
This board hasn’t been ‘attached’ to the alternative press in years. And the idea that someone reads Cecil or Dan Savage and follows the link here is an example of the dedication to credulity I’m referring to. A good story that may account for one or two of the made-up sob stories, but not for the continual stream.
Similarly, telling a story that includes one of the mollywannabes out there researching and getting a feel for the culture of the Dope is pretty unrealistic and smacks of rationalization. That’s a big reason why the sockery is so transparent (though understandably unprovable by TPTB). How did they find the Dpe? Searching? Then reading the handful of threads? While there’s a once-a-week poster(s) who puts them there, it would be lost in a sea of other topics to a casual, random visitor.