Had a rather… unique… experience using the forums attached to the Internet Movie Database. For those unfamiliar with these each movie or actor listing has forums attached, giving each in effect its own message board. Most of these are taken up by “oh I love/hate this actress,” and comments on the movie.
I while back I had posted on one of these requesting information (okay spoilers) about a movie. I got a fair number of smartass answers, none giving me real information. Not wanting to start a flame war I just kept quiet on these. Then somone posted a new thread on the movie's forum giving the information that I wanted. I posted a reply saying "thank you, that is just the information I wanted"
The person posted a reply "Hey nobody asked you to read my post, or waste your time answering, nobody pressed your buzzer"
I was floored. As anyone who has read my posts on the board would know, I am not always the greatest comunicator, but here I was honestly trying to be nice and thank somone for giving me information and they come back with "nobody pressed your buzzer!"
Am I missing something, did I miss an update on the laws of common courtesy. Is saying "thank you" now considered an insult?
You should keep in mind that the average age for many of the posters on the IMDB forums is about 3 years old. :rolleyes:
Ok, I might be exaggerating slightly. But not much…
Rude and illiterate only begin to describe the posts I’ve seen over there, so I don’t even bother with them. I love the rest of the site, but the forums I tend to steer clear of.
Don’t take it to heart… You got your answer, be happy.
IMDB’s forums aren’t very well-moderated. They’re more of an afterthought than anything else, and I’m honestly surprised that they exist at all. IMDB isn’t really a place that encourages random “hanging out” and audience participation like the SDMB or Ain’t It Cool News.
My WAG is that the person who posted those comments is either:
A) a child, or
B) an adult with child-like sensibilities
Either way, not something to concern yourself with. The internet might have given us all a lot of things, but one of the drawbacks is the removal of any semblance of need for good behavior.
Sounds to me like the poster thought you were being sarcastic and read your reply as something like “Thanks a lot, you just spoiled it for me.” There’s so much sniping and snarkiness over there, he probably didn’t realize you were being sincere.
Another possibility is that the guy (or girl) was not replying to your post but instead one that came before your’s. Did the thread have any smart-ass remarks immediately before your “thank you” post?
In any case, I wouldn’t let it bother me too much. From what limited experience I’ve had with the IMDB forums, they seem to be troll caves–not as big a troll cave as the Talkback at Ain’t It Cool, but still a troll cave.
I thought about that. Perhaps she did not read my thread sking for spoilers on the same board, but since I had posted specifically asking for spoilers, and her thread had :Spoiler: in the title, anyone paying attention would hopefully know that I was indeed giving out a sincire thank you.
As I am here. Thank you tremorviolet, and everyone else for proving to me that the people on SOME boards know how to act in a courteous manner!
It’s pretty obvious what happened: You yourself received a lot of smart-ass replies.
The person with the new thread is probably used to the snotty, smart-ass tone over there and read your “Thank you, that is just the information I wanted” note as a stand alone reply in the vein of “Oh thank you for posting this, I was dying to know that information (dripping sarcasm)”
Probably the poster wasn’t aware that you actually had a thread of your own asking for that very same information.
Doh! I still had this thread open with just 2 replies to it when I answered. In the meantime people have already posted with the same conclusion. I guess I really should hit “preview” more often…
We REALLY don’t want any board flame wars, thank you. For a long time, our policy has been “if you have a beef with another board, keep it on that board, if you have a beef about chat, keep it in chat, if you have a beef in your real offline relationship with another Doper, keep it offline”. So I’m closing this thread.
