And there you have it.
Interesting new threads abounding, but by the time I get there every possible answer that I could come up with has already been put forth and debated; I have nothing to add!
So instead, I follow along and dream of the day when I might wake up at 3:00 A.M and be able to offer some original advice.
Am I alone on this?
Nope, same thing happens to me. I try hard not to add a “me too”, type of post, but occassionally I slip up.
Damn. I was going to say that.
Ditto.
I’m still new, but when that happens to me, I thank my lucky stars that I found this message board. It’s really nice that people are thinking the same way I am.
I’ve posted on message boards where, if I didn’t say something, it wouldn’t get said and no one cared because they disagreed anyway.
So I find it comforting when other people have already beat me to the punch here.
(And sorry if I messed up the whole ‘ditto’ theme)
Actually Heff perhaps you hit upon something; the reason we are all here is because there is so much synergy in our thoughts. I guess it wouldn’t be much of a community if after 46 posts no one had shared visions.
I still want to be the first to respond though, dammit!
You’re not alone. But IME waking up at 0300 will do nothing to solve the problem. The only answer seems to be to get on the boards shortly before peak posting activity and check for new threads frequently until the end of prime time.
Well, that certainly clears things up!
I’ll get right on that Zag!
My problem is my time zone–peak posting hours for most Dopers (i.e., peak hours in the US) are during the night here, so I wake up in the morning and log on only to find the discussion has left me far behind. 
Hey, if you guys are starting a club, can I join? Or am I too late? It really doesn’t matter when I check in, somebody has already said what I wanted to say, most of the time. So I just read, and laugh when appropriate (or this being the Dope, sometimes when not appropriate), and bask in the knowledge of my brilliance (which, alas, nobody will ever be able to appreciate, since so many others here are just as brilliant, but faster).
I was going to make the joke that you are too late to join our club, but I see you already made that joke.
Yup, same problem with me.
Jeesh! OP here, from ET time zone and I still can’t seem to contribute!
Oh well, I’m on business in the Pacific Time Zone, and nothing seems to matter!!!
Thanks to times zones, my active hours are just the opposite of all the posters in the US (at least the ones with day jobs), so every morning there’s usually a slew of threads I’ve never seen before with 20 replies each. It’s also hard to carry on a conversation via posts when the person you’re talking/arguing with is on a completely different sleep schedule.
Same with me and the *Heroes *threads - I know my constiporter from my cheerbleeder and I even can tell you who HRG or AED is, but whenever I finally have gotten around to watch the episode, the darn thread has already grown to 5 pages and there’s nothing more left to say.
But I am used to it from the *Buffy *threads of yore, which carried the added insult that The Gaspode (formerly, now changed his name to I think Charlie Tan), who is in my time zone, not only managed to watch the episode, but also to start the thread before the US posters had time to.
Well hey, at least you read the thread before responding. I hate it when people read the subject line, skip to the end, and give their expert advice. The same advice that was given two pages earlier, and in some cases, two pages earlier than that.
Hmm, 16 posts…
I’ll wait a bit.
I love the GQ, and spend a lot of my time reading all the good stuff in there. There are times when I would like to add things to the conversation but I usually just try to answer with information that is close to what I work with. I work in the medical profession, specifically laboratory testing. So although I am attracted to threads related to medical questions I usually stay away from answering questions unless its actually related to the testing process.
For example if a Doper came in here and asked non-chalantly about the results to a Pap-smear I would not chime in to help her understand the interpretation of it. Actually no one but her doctor should, but we have those as members here who could help guide her in the right direction. But I might chime in to help elaborate on the testing process and how we examine specimens and give our results.
The most recent example was a question regarding if Ambien shows up in a drug tests. In this case I can’t specifically answer the question, because I don’t know the circumstances, but I can say with confidence that Ambien is not among the drugs commonly tested for in many situations unless someone went to great lengths to specifically look for it. Then I can talk about what we do look for, and how we test to look for it.
Is this thread ripe for me to post in yet?
::looks around::
Nope. Guess not.
::ducks out::
Just consider, if you will, the flip side of the issue: you race in to be first with a reply to an intriguing OP, on a subject you have what you consider to be a fresh view about. Several things can happen:
yours is the only reply, which indicates that a) nobody else cares about the issue; b) your reply is so inane it has barred others from being seen in the same thread; or c) you may be the only person who even considers the OP worth responding to.
your reply is squashed to insignificance by much more astute and well-presented statements by every other person who took a little time to consider the main implications to the idea in the OP.
the OP returns to tell you a) that’s not what was meant by the OP; b) you didn’t see that the OP already covered your viewpoint in slightly better words; c) your comments constitute a hijack.
In summary, sometimes it’s better to keep your opinion to yourself.