Last month, I posted a thread (MPSIMS) asking for people to solicit stories about their pet being a hero. The single response I got was rather noncommittal, with no real story put forth. This struck me as very odd, as I KNOW Dopers here must have tons of stories to share on that topic, so to get nary a single response seemed rather bizarre in a way.
Fast forward to last night, and someone posts a very similar thread in IMHO, except that it was more narrowly focused on dogs only and their coming to your rescue. In 14 hours it got 28 responses. :dubious: :smack:
So the obvious question remains: what the #### did I do wrong? Was my thread title too wishy-washy? Did it vanish off of the top 25 post list too fast or something? [The Original Poster using “bump” here seems to be frowned on] Do many people not use the mouse-over? Am I being too paranoid? Many of the responses in the new thread were after 12 am EST, so it isn’t a posting from work thing.
Yes part of it is ego I’ll admit, but also genuine curiosity. I’ve had other threads that flamed out and died upon birth, also puzzling me (once I just wanted to know what the difference was between connection errors like “Web site X is taking too long to respond” vs. “the connection with site X has timed out” vs. a “404 error”, but got nary a nibble on that either, when I know there’s plenty of Web techs on this board). Or maybe that day my thread just fell through the cracks or something, nothing more profound than that.
I don’t think it’s anything personal. I know I’ve been in the middle of typing a response to a thread and been interrupted, and just got too busy to go back.
Your thread title was also a little vague whereas the other asked a question. If a thread isn’t picked up then it sinks to the bottom where people don’t scroll down to read so there is leverage in both directions.
As others have said, your title wasn’t very specific. And it was on Thanksgiving. But I think on top of all that, the successful thread got the ball rolling with a few for-instance examples. The OP let everyone know, “here’s the type of thing I’m looking for”. Your examples were maybe too specific, or at the worst, too over-the-top (i.e. “there’s no way I can top being pulled out of a fire, so I’ll stay quiet”).
Plus, it sometimes just doesn’t seem to have the right timing. I’ve had the exact thing happen to me too and feel it isn’t personal either. Simply tighten up what you’re looking for and remember when the board has somewhat of a downtime (holidays, overnight) and you should be golden.
P.S. I always like your threads and look forward to reading them. So please don’t give up. That’d make me sad.
Thanks ff. I usually try to include an example from my own life-closest I had in this instance was a stray Shepherd mix we picked up preventing my toddler sister from going down the upstairs steps at night to get a midnight snack-nipped her right in the britches. But I knew it was a rather weak (if humorous) example, so that time I didn’t put in any examples.
I’ve had some threads die quickly on topics that I thought were interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever had someone scoop me on starting a thread, however.
I think also, in this case the word “hero” might have put off posters as setting a too-high standard. I mean, for many people you can’t be a hero unless you consciously understand the risk you are taken to help someone else, and animal behaviors would rarely qualify – by saying “hero” you seem like you are asking only about really remarkable events, and those things haven’t happened to most people.
Last time I looked, and it’s been a few years, fully 1/3 of my threads got no responses at all, and most of the rest got one or two. I haven’t looked again because I don’t need any more depressing news.
What sucks for me is that I tend to trust the board software too much. I expect that threads in bold really don’t have something new in them, when often they do. I’m sure your thread wasn’t just at the bottom, it probably wasn’t bolded.
I try and use a solid thread concept, a concise and eye-grabbing title, a decent first couple of lines in the OP that’ll show up in the rollover text, and not to post when it’ll be the middle of the night in the central and eastern time zones.