… but just don’t feel like posting, so you just leave?
This could be because you don’t feel like writing a reply, or having what might be an interminable conversation afterwards, or maybe you don’t care enough about the topic, or maybe you don’t want to be associated with your real opinion, or any sort of other reason.
Is there a pattern to your reticence? Does it wax and wane with the moon? Is it always or generally in one forum or another? A specific topic?
n/m
I often don’t feel like contributing to a thread an just leave without posting.
I feel that I could contribute to a lot of threads in GD but fear that any contributions I could make would drown in the sea of opinionatedness and stupidity that is GD, so I stay the hell away from there.
How’s the air, way up there above everyone else?
I hit “back” instead of posting something I’ve started writing about 75% of the time.
I get a couple sentences in and realize it’s not really that interesting or germane.
Big Brother…
Once in a while, maybe for every 10 replies I post, I write one reply that I scuttle. I read what I wrote and realize it doesn’t really move the discussion forward, actively diverts the discussion, or I am just plain talking out of my ass.
Yeah, this. Or sometimes the thread is one I don’t want to be sucked into.
Uh huh. Yup.
I often feel I have valuable insight to share, but then realize that to contextualize it and make it coherent and relevant, I’d need to add a lot of explanatory and framing information. And more and more lately, I’m lacking the time or patience to do so.
Also, the ‘sucked into’ thing noted above.
This.
But sometimes, someone else already went to the trouble, and I can just add a little bit more.
Now that I read it again, I suppose this implies that 25% of the time, I don’t realize that what I post is neither intersting nor germane.
Which…well… um
All the time. The majority of threads I ever read I pass by in silence. That’s why my post count isn’t any higher despite my seniority of Doperhood. I’ve become much more circumspect about sharing personal information or my eccentric thoughts, lest it bring on harassment from the gallery of rotten peanuts. Too much aflatoxin out there. Before I post anything, I run it through a mental filter to check whether it would add anything of value to a thread.
Not as often as I should. But I’m getting less and less interested in serious debates on here, partly because of the effort involved in maintaining a high standard of discussion which I’m often unwilling or unable to live up to. So I’m often deliberately closing tabs with half-finished posts after I realize the post isn’t worth much or it will just lead to having to post more and more in that thread, often to respond to all the people who presumably just read every other word and assumed I meant something completely different, like they’re the fucking Microsoft Office Assistant.
A grand majority of the time I don’t post - I feel that comments quickly get lost in the sea here, and certain people look for certain other people until before you know it, it is a conversation between those two parties and you aren’t invited unless you say something so controversial (and likely not your actual opinion) that you get lambasted.
Also there is a great deal of difference in what people consider common knowledge, and I don’t feel like doing all the research for people that will say “cite please?” when you make a general assertion such as; poor people have less money. Can I get a cite? No - get a clue
This, too. Most of the threads where I could contribute something already have 100 replies by the time I find them. If I do post, chances are it will get lost among the others. Even if I don’t worry about that, I don’t want to write something someone already said, so I’ll have to read everything to catch up if I want to participate.
Me 2.
I have to be careful of the me 2 replies. I find myself about to do them too often.
This, about half the time.
All sorts of things factor into it. Am I on my ipad, is the OP a wanker, is the subject one of those many where people always pile on just to say they don’t care about the topic (they don’t watch tv, care how the look/smell/sound, etc.).