About one out of ten of the posts I type in here, I wind up highlighting, deleting, and clicking back to “Straight Dope Message Board”.
There are generally three reasons for this:
[ol]
[li]I realize that what I am saying is stupid. (Yes, just imagine what I’m deleting when you look at what I do post!)[/li]
[li]I find it impossible to phrase what I’m trying to say in words that will make sense to anyone that’s not me.[/li]
[li]Y’know, why am I arguing with this moron?[/li][/ol]
And, about two seconds ago, I had the urge to swipe this one, and delete it.
The ones I delete tend to be the ones where I realize that my main reason for posting was just to talk about myself, and not actually contribute to the discussion.
Good one, that didn’t cross my mind, though I actually had someone say to me in email recently that she didn’t feel she knew too much about me from my posts. So maybe I don’t delete those 'cause I never write them.
My posts that never make it on the board are the ones that I think of while I’m at work or driving and by the time I get online the thoughts have vaporized.
A lot of mine get started but not finished. Unless you consider a bunch of 456789)(&^YUI(OPLKJnbGYU()_{;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;O*&^%TGHJKL to be ‘finished’. My cats seem to know when I’m posting here, and they try to get in on the conversation.
I’m posting this now just in case, in the future, one of them figures out how to hit the ‘Post Quick Reply’ button before I can close out the page.
I’m the opposite. About 9 out of 10 posts that I write – sometimes with extensive research – get erased before being posted.
My most common reason for erasing is irrelevance. In a long thread, someone will make an interesting point that has nothing to do with the OP, and I will fixate on it and write up an extensive post, only to realize that no one really cares and the thread has moved on.
Too personal is another reason – my sister posts here and could read my posts, and I also always envision a future employer figuring out my screen name and checking out my posts.
I also sometimes write up a post only to find that someone has said the exact same thing while I was working on it.
In my work as a writer, I am used to reading, re-reading and then re-reading again before passing something on. I do the same thing here, and almost always find a reason not to post.
Now I’m going to hit submit without previewing even once, just to avoid deleting this one as well.
Everything said in this thread has applied to me at one time or another. I like this thread. It would have been a shame if a fleeting moment of self-doubt had caused Frank to whisk it from existence before its deserved nascency. Sometimes I’ll start a post or thread and then suddenly realize that I am asking the most incomprehensibly stupid question in the history of the observable universe and I’ll shitcan it out a fear of unbearable and humiliating ridicule. Other times I’ll hammer out a sentence or two and then realize that there’s no way that I can express what I’m really trying to ask without writing the Great American Novel. And I’d say that about three-fourths of all my joke posts never see fruition because I spontaneously acknowledge that it’s a stupid joke and nobody but me is going to think it’s funny.
Sometimes I’ll delete a post because I realize that by continuing to post in a thread, it’s giving the false impression that I care way more passionately about a topic than I really do.
I write a lot of responses in my head when I take my daily walk, but by the time I get back to the thread someone else has usually already made my point and with much prettier words than I could ever hope to come up with.
I’m nowhere near as smart as most of the people here, so I rarely do more than a me too. But sometimes I just can’t resist.
One of the reasons that I don’t post everything I think of is that I realize that many of my posts would just be snide jokes. A lot of offhand comments that I make in person are snide jokes. People I know in person understand that. They sometimes laugh at them. Sometimes they just sigh and roll their eyes. I realized long ago, indeed well before I started posting to the SDMB, that you can’t treat a message board like it’s the office water cooler. Not everybody is going to understand your clever references. People can’t see your facial expressions and body language, so they won’t know whether you’re serious or not. You have to be more careful online than in person that other people will understand your intent in what you say.
Despite my prolific posting, I do the same thing, for the same reasons. Though I admit that number 3 is much rarer. That’s a decision I make before I start.
I have one other reason that I can think of right now. I will delete a post if I think I come off as too angry. But, in that case, after I delete it, I try again. I only give up completely if #1 or #2 eventually kicks in.
I’m really more a fan of the idea that saying something in a different way might get the point across, even if my way is inferior. But I try to limit it to when it appears that there are still people who don’t get it.
