# If you don't visit a message board for awhile, do you bother catching up? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 11, 2012, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-visit-a-message-board-for-awhile-do-you-bother-catching-up/612560 "2012-02-11T23:11:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-visit-a-message-board-for-awhile-do-you-bother-catching-up/612560/1 "2012-02-11T23:11:14Z")
This is a general question for all message boards. Sometimes life gets busy and there’s just not time to check message boards for a few days or even weeks. When you finally do return are you anxious to read everything you missed or do you only read that days postings? I never read beyond the first page of postings. I figure the topics beyond that are “talked out”. Threads seem to have a limited life. Besides, I don’t have the patience to read much more than a couple dozen threads a day. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-visit-a-message-board-for-awhile-do-you-bother-catching-up/612560/2 "2012-02-12T00:50:45Z")
I don’t. Except in the Pit on this board. I buy some popcorn before catching up on some of those threads. ---
**Author:** ![Covered\_In\_Bees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-visit-a-message-board-for-awhile-do-you-bother-catching-up/612560/3 "2012-02-12T01:13:35Z")
I read whatever I would have normally seen that day. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-visit-a-message-board-for-awhile-do-you-bother-catching-up/612560/4 "2012-02-12T01:31:05Z")
Message boards are ephemeral and trivial. No need to read too much backstory. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-visit-a-message-board-for-awhile-do-you-bother-catching-up/612560/5 "2012-02-12T10:03:03Z")
No. I’ll just read whatever takes my fancy. ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-visit-a-message-board-for-awhile-do-you-bother-catching-up/612560/6 "2012-02-12T17:24:10Z")
Depends upon how much time until my next task or whatever. Here I open “new posts” and scan down the replies column. I usually don’t look at threads with more than nine replies. If I am killing time before doing something else and the clock is ticking down on me I may lower my views to threads with five or less replies. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-visit-a-message-board-for-awhile-do-you-bother-catching-up/612560/7 "2012-02-13T13:12:28Z")
I stop at two pages, usually. But not to catch up–just to see if there’s anything interesting to talk about. I don’t care if I’m up to date with any board, but I do care if I might have missed something I would have enjoyed. I generally will go ahead and post in any thread that is a couple months old or less. If the topic is dead, I won’t get any replies. But, quite often, there’s at least one person who wants to continue the converation.