I’ve been thinking lately about my own behavior with regard to reading message board threads (both here and elsewhere) and it’s made me curious regarding the behavior of others.
I think the poll options are pretty self-explanatory, but feel free to ask if anything needs clarifying.
I’ve never made a poll before, so bear with me.
Depends on the length. (In this case, I read the whole thing.)
Depends on the length. (This one is long, so I stopped reading after the 1st post.)
Scanned for my name, didn’t see it, left.
I almost always read the whole thread before posting. If it’s just too long or loses my interest before the end I won’t post.
I often use the User CP to see what threads I’ve posted in are updated.
If I know it’s devolved into a pissing contest unrelated to the main issue I write it off, but if I’m still interested I’ll keep up to date on it for at least a few days.
I always read before posting with the exception of certain polls. “How old are you” does not need me to read everyone’s age before posting my own.
It really depends on the topic of the thread, I usually reply w/o reading but then later have to go back and edit my posts…
This.
But I’ve been using search to find my recently-posted-to threads; I didn’t know user CP had that feature. Thanks for the tip.
ETA: It appears user CP only lets you track threads you’ve subscribed to, not ones you merely posted to. That’s not nearly as useful, at least to me.
If a thread is very long, and I have something to say relevant to the OP, I will usually read the first few responses (more if the discussion is interesting), then use the browser search-in-page feature to check whether what I want to say has already been raised. If not (or if I think I can show that what has been said about it is wrong) I will post. If someone else already made my point, I will usually shut up (occasionally I will post to explicitly agree with and reinforce their point).
I usually return to threads where I have posted to see whether anyone has responded to me (often using an in-page-search on my own username), but I am not systematic about it.
I tend to read the whole thread unless it’s a poll or one I’ve already read before. I do occasionally just read the last post when the software has taken me there, and I have a pressing reply.
Otherwise, when I see a post in a thread that I want to respond to, I open a reply box in another window and type what I want to say, then read on to see if it’s already been said in such a way that I don’t think my post will add anything.
And I hardly ever check back after I’m finished, unless the thread has new content the next time I’m on. I refuse to subscribe to more than one active thread at a time, and even that’s only if the topic is amazingly interesting or I actually need an answer.
I do try to make a point to come back to threads I start, however. But that’s pretty rare.
None of it!