Aborted threads

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I was getting ready to start a thread asking people to submit their favorite typing tests, based on another thread I’d recently participated in. The more I typed about it, the less sense I found myself making, until finally I reached a point where I decided that the whole idea was stupid, and needed to be tossed.

I have a queasy feeling this thread should have qualified for the same circular bin filing, but I’m plugging ahead anyway.

At any rate, I figured that since this board is so wide-open, and people manage to contribute so many different ideas, there must be some interesting/amusing stories out there about half-baked thread ideas. So I thought I’d ask the rest of you: what topics have you started on and then abandoned, and why?

2

I seem to do this all the time. I’ll start composing a thread I that’ll be interesting, and then halfway through the OP I’ll decide “Ahh, forget it”.

I do it with replies too. Sometimes I’ll have a few paragraphs writ

3

What? Oh. Sorry. :cool:

4

I wrote up several paragraphs in response to this question and decided to go with this post instead.

5

Self-censorship is usually a good thing in these situations.

I wish it were more common on the Internets.

6

I’m one of those that aborts their replies half the time. Mostly because it’s nothing new, or informative, or all that funny.

7

Yeah, ditto on that. If I posted what I’ve started, I’d have two or three times the number of posts I current have.

8

I keep wanting to ask why I have lines on my arms. They go from my wrists to halfway up my upper arms, spaced about 8 cm apart. In the right light, it looks like I tried very methodically and unsuccessfully to slash my wrists. I never figured out why they’re there :confused:

9

I was just tempted to open a new thread called “Name 100 Characters from ‘Snakes on a Plane on a Treadmill’”.

Fortunately, I stopped myself in time.

10

Luckily, I have a couple of txt files that I hammer out prospective theads/OPs in, so I’ve actually got a pretty good record of topics I decided against.

Some of the notable ones…

“What terms/words are OK today, but will horrify my grandkids?”
(A WAG thread. I guessed that the word “gay” would be like the word “colored” in a few decades)
“What profanity can I use on TV, on a regular basis?”
“Worst ways to have your Secret Identity exposed?”
“Best kisses ever put to film?”
“Comics: morality of killing/why is it OK to kill sentient robots?”
(This one, I thought, had promise, but it’s probably a quagmire to start it)
“It’s 1943: Hitler has The Bomb. What happens next?”
“Favorite weapons for hunting supernatural creatures?”
“Favorite fictional ragdolls?”
“Futurama: What does Fry/Zoidberg know?”
(There was a similar thread about Stewie Griffin, once.)
“Worst/ugliest superhero costumes?”
“What Disney character has killed the most people?”
“What diseases/conditions could require a full body prosthesis?”
(Based on a GitS-style premise that you could reconnect nerves to machines, and create biological life support systems small, reliable, and maintainence-free enough to stick in an android, but the rest of medical science wasn’t up to “star trek” level yet. I thought it was sounding more cumbersome than it was worth posting.)

11

This aborted thread happened again today, and it is at least the 3rd time it has happened:

I have no doubt that the U.S. using the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima to end WWII was necessary and saved lives. It truly shocks me to hear it viewed & presented otherwise (I have heard the arguments – I am just shocked people buy them) Soooo whenever this topic arises, as it has now on GQ, I want to start an IMHO thread:

“Avoiding GD territory, WAG me what percentage of folk you have met personally believe the use of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima wasn’t necessary.”

But I always end up editorializing like I do in that first paragraph – so it ends up being essentially “*Avoiding GD territory, IOW DON”T ARGUE WITH ME ON THIS EMOTIONAL ISSUE AND ACCEPT MY WORD AS GOSPEL, WAG me what percentage of folk you have met personally IGNORANTLY believe the use of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima wasn’t necessary" * EYE ROLL

And so I realize (again) I can’t do this thread w/o a GD and I don’t think we need another GD on the subject - and really that is not what I am curious about – just how widespread the belief is. So I have a perennial aborted thread.
*
sorry if this was a little rough I exaggerated for comic/illustrative effect & felt a full explanation necessary - wasn’t REALLLY making fun of others views or trying to sneak a GD editorial in here.*

12

I think some of those have promise, and I particularly like the secret identity question – you ought to go for it.

13

Doesn’t happen. I only start a thread when I’ve had it in my head all day with intense curiousity, and then at first chance I go for it.

14

I started one today called “100 Ways that C K Dexter Haven Can Lock A Thread,” but thought better of it.

15

I self-censor all the time. This happens a lot in IMHO when I’ve written out some long, wordy post, and eventually realize that I’m only repeating exactly what someone else said anyway. It also happens frequently when I’m posting passionately in disagreement with something someone has posted - I realize I’m just a little too aggravated and stop myself from hitting submit.

16

I have the opposite problem - when I can’t sleep at night, I think of amazingly profound and fascinating threads.

Then of course when I’m actually sitting at my keyboard, I can’t think of a single one.

17

My last thread abortion was the result of not knowing the proper nomenclature in describing the various parts of a seat belt mechanism. I think it was a thread on design improvements you’d like to see made on common everyday items. My attempts to describe the components were so lengthy and convoluted that my post would have been lost on most readers.

Other times I abort are when I realize how dumb or irrelevant my reply would look if I were to view it after hitting “Submit Reply”.