I’m going to go ahead and take a risk here - in this thread in Cafe Society on “Art and Popularity”, I thought I did a good job of offering a perspective on the issue in the OP (my 2 posts are at the bottom of the first of 2 pages).
However, the conversation blithely continued without a single acknowledgement of my posts - what, O Dopers more experienced than myself, might I learn from this? Options include:
Nothing - it happens sometimes. Get over it.
Nothing - You inserted a comment into the middle of an existing debate, and the participants were too focused on their existing discussion to notice or care about your posts. Get over it.
WordMan - you offered a short summary POV in the middle of a detailed breakdown of the issue - if the debate is at the “detail” point, don’t try to be “summarization guy”.
WordMan, your attempt to tie things up into a nice package was superficial and did not advance the discussion
Other - please specify:
I recognize that asking you Dopers to offer a perspective entails your reading the previous thread, and therefore I run a high risk of not getting any posts to this thread, either, further punishing my self-esteem, but I am trying to learn here, so I thought it was worth a try.
If this is better place in IMHO, thank you in advance for moving it, mods…
I think I’d go with either 1) or 2) on this one. I wouldn’t worry about this much at all. When debates or other detailed discussions come up, there will often be more people with opinions than there are people who are willing to respond to them all. It’s not a knock on you or your post’s contents if people don’t respond - as you note in this OP, they sometimes can be so wrapped up in advancing their own thoughts and responding to people who have responded to them directly that they don’t respond to yours.
One potential way around this is to address your comments to a specific person; most of the time, that person will respond to your comments directly. If you don’t address the comments to anyone in particular, the comments might be viewed as “general” and not necessarily worthy of response (not meaning that the comments aren’t valid, just that a respond isn’t necessary).
I concur. However, you can look at this positively as well.
You add your comments to a long discussion including many other posters. Your post is well spoken and makes sense. You have good points.
Many others have done the same. It would go without saying that these people did indeed read your post.
They read it, accept it, and think you have good points, but there is currently a discussion that they feel they should respond to, so instead of sucking up bandwidth slapping you on the back for your worthy efforts, they continue their discussion unabated.
They also didn’t see something so wrong with your post that they had to disagree or flame you, so at least you didn’t offend anyone with your bad taste.
Without even reading the thread, let me tell you that there have been many, many times when I’ve suspected that every single person on the board has put me on “ignore.” I’ve made points that are later repeated by others as new aspects to the argument, and asked questions that were never answered, or proposed perspectives that I thought were provocative enough to spark discussion. Nada. Nothing.
I think sometime people skim, and they leap on points they want to address because they’ve already though about them (or argued about them) and they ignore a lot of the remaining content on a thread. It wouldn’t (necessarily) take it personally.
I’d lean towards point 1 & 2 and add one you didn’t mention. First, these things tend to be like a discussion in a crowded cafe. So sometimes a particularly salient point isn’t heard or something more salacious pops up and the conversation veers. Unfortunately it’s considered boorish to repeat yourself. But sometimes on-line these things sort themselves out when someone else comes along and notices what you’ve written. As much as some posters deny the existence of a “clique” here there are of course cliques here and there is a certain amount of popularity and renown, normally deservedly so. Which only makes it more likely that they get a response.
The other point is that what you said was cogent and noncontraversial. If you’d said something stupid people would have jumped on it. So don’t assume that just because no one responds to your post that no one read or cared about it.
Also, I believe that posts that are near the end of the page, which yours were, tend to get skipped over in discussion. Next time you have something brilliant to add wait for the new page to get started.
Well, although I have deep-down suspicions that Homebrew is correct, I appreciate your glass-half-full perspective, Gorgon Heap, and agree that I should take it to heart as well. And Cranky, thanks for letting me know that I’m not the only one trying to figure out how to react to this…
I also appreciate the practical tips, including addressing my comments to a specific person, dantheman, and going for a top-of-the-next-page placement, Shibb.
I haven’t read the particular thread that you linked, but this type of thing happens to me occasionally. (Of course, most of my posts aren’t worthy of a response anyway. )
It can be frustrating if you make what you think is a good point and it’s totally ignored, and then posterxyz comes along and makes the same point and everyone is slapping him/her on the back for a brilliant response. But I try not to take it personally since I suspect it’s a bit of a random thing that happens to everyone from time to time.
What I really hate is when there are multiple pissing contests going on between several pairs of posters. It’s hard to get your post noticed among all that noise. Some people just seem more interested in being argumentative than actually addressing the OP. IOW, just like real life where the loudest voices get heard and the voice of reason is ignored.
I also think that the “skimming” thing comes into play as well.
I also agree with the, “when you’re right, you’re right.”
If someone asks who was the third cousin of the sister-in-law of some Greek philosopher, and the answer is Zrythesizer, I sit back in awe and move on to the next post.
I think a response is also easier to get if you ask a question at the end of the post (which I will not do hear and I can see all you clever wags ignoring it and moving on to the next post.)
I would just like to say that **Cranky ** I totally know where you are coming from and agree with you 100 percent. (and I read and like all your posts…no really.)
Sometimes one becomes invisible, or perhaps the OP was just not what caught everyone’s particular fancy on that day in the Universe of SD.
Sometimes the stupidest threads are hotter than a drunk church virgin at her first co ed mixer and there isn’t an intelligent life form out there than really explain exactly why this happens. They just do.
Don’t let it get you down. The opposite of being ignored is being flamed, which is much worse.
WordMan, FWIW, I probably would have agreed with you in my first post to that thread (the post immediately following yours, actually), but I didn’t see it before I started composing my own post.
Having read it after I posted, I agreed with a lot of what you said, but I try not to post with “I agree”/“Me too” posts for the seriouser topics. Besides, the hamsters were feeling sluggish.
It also doesn’t help that that thread was being hijacked by chorus’ ineffective attempt to provide a definition of “art” for all of us to live by, which had a tendency to center the show on him (her?).
Wordman, As one of the hijackers of that thread, I feel partly responsible for the off topic part of it. I got so enamoured of the references, I forgot the original OP. I am off now to make amends.
And sometimes, newbies are indowed with invisibility. It eventually wears off, but no one is allowed to tell you that you are invisible while you are in that state.
