You compose that perfect response to a thread–witty, clever, well-timed, intelligent. Then you sit back and wait for everyone on the board to see it, digest it, and finally realize what an indespensible member of the boards you are. You just know the thread is soon to be flooded by responses like “Wow, [your name], I don’t think I’ve ever read a more intelligent, well-constructed post! I agree completely! I wish everyone in the world were just like you!”
You go back and check the thread for responses…nothing. Hours pass, days, weeks, andyou realize that no one cares. Your post will stay there on the end of that thread as a constant reminder that you were the one who got to the party too late.
So how many threads have you killed? Do a search for your username on all dates and add them up. Use your total post count to compute a percentage.
Of 535 posts on this board, 32 of them were thread killers. That means that almost 6% of my comments on this board have been lethal weapons.
(The only reason I’m doing this is so that someone will come in here with a higher percentage and make me feel better)
Well, I’m not going to count, but I will admit to more than a couple.
There are interesting aspects to this: I have been annoyed that I didn’t kill a couple threads, in the sense that I actually knew the right answer, and folks just kept on posting stuff and nonsense.
How a thread is killed is all important.
If you answered the question, then maybe there’s nothing else to say.
If you were contributing to one of the less well-travelled questions, perhaps your interest in obscure topics was overshadowed by popular threads like “How many ways do you pick your nose?” and “What are only three words that end in xyx?” or “Paranoia, or is my cat trying to kill me?”
Particularly with threads with many messages, it’s not that likely that one person is going to end it. After all, then there are several mini-conversations going on, some of which you probably don’t enter into at all.
Then there’s the “cocktail party effect”. It’s not that a conversation is finished, it’s that another interrupts.
Does starting a thread that nobody responds to count? I’ve had a few clunkers in this area. I thought they were well thought-out and interesting questions that would attract at least a few responses but instead sank like a brick dropped into the ocean. As for my thread-killer count, I think I am with most people, in the 5% range.
A quick search for the posts by me gives of the 90(ish) posts I’ve made, 6 have been thread killers (tho one was a topic no-one replied to and one was posted about 5 minutes ago).
I’m guessing that you’re only going to get detailed replies from people (like me) with low post counts, where it’s easy to count. If I had the thousands of posts that some posters do, I wouldn’t think once about trying to figure this number out.
I’ve killed 7 threads. Out of 41 I’ve participated on, that would be 17%, or out of my 48 posts, that would be 15%. Oops, wait, this is one more of each, so that would be 1/6 or 1/7 (hey, that makes the math easier!). Unless this turns out to be the thread killer (which it won’t, I saw how many people already tried that line), in which case it’s then 19% or 16%.
It’s such a temporary statistic anyway. You can think you were the thread killer, then weeks later, someone else responds, and you aren’t.
I’m not going to talk numbers; I’m going to talk quality kills. The Ultimate Rochambo thread? The Where’s Springfield thread? Both were over 100 posts when I put the nail in their coffin.
I don’t just go after the big game either. Just last week, I started a thread on Larry Clark. Not a single response. In fact, it only got 12 views. Threads don’t die much worse than that.
I am glad I am not the only one…
I might as well walk into a party with my pocket protector filled with pens and say, “Hey groovy young people, let’s play twister!”
However, Kyomara, it is up to you to find this thread in - oh, two months or so, and announce the winner of the thread killer of the thread killer thread.
(Dmark steps back slowly and holds his breath until someone responds…)
Holy shit.
Do a vanity search on my username (not that I’ve ever done a vanity search, you understand, but this is what I heard ),
and you’ll see something like 8 threads in the past month in which my post is last.
Wanna go for #9?
