People who open and post in a thread for the sole purpose of shitting in the thread. If you can tell by the title the post concerns something you don’t like - don’t read it! Not everything on the board is going to be to your taste. I don’t watch TV, so I very seldom read the TV threads in Cafe Society. I might open one if it is about a show I thought might be interesting. I don’t open one and post in it simply to say “I hate TV”.
I agree with you Antigen, and I think these types of posts are driven by my pet peeve:
Posters who just can’t resist coming into a thread and making fun of someone who types “thinsg” when they meant “things”.
These posts will usually contain the phrase “Dude, preview is your friend” and will also contain a typo. :rolleyes:
Sorry, but I do enjoy the occasional smiley.
People who ask questions about a subject which is not different at all from all the times it’s been asked before, such as asking for advice on making something low-fat and tasty, unlike all the threads that ask for something fatty and horrid, without giving any of your likes/dislike, or otherwise personalising the question.
These are very good, but I do agree with twickster that Quoting the entire Op, especially a large Op almost always appears silly.
Antigen: I understand your complaint, and I agree with it and I do not think I do what you mentioned, but on the other hand, I think some posters are very defensive about typos as there is a vocal group of posters who are quick to jump on a typo as a reason to dismiss arguments. So I think some posters read their typo and quickly try to correct it, before someone else either harps on it or makes fun of it.
Jim {Who is a very poor speller, relies on spell checkers, and still frequently makes horrid mistakes}
Something that I always wish people would do is to get to the point in the first sentence of an OP. Kind of like a newspaper article that has to get who, what, where, when, why, and how into the first paragraph. If you do this, then I can decide to read or not read your thread by hovering my cursor over your thread title on the forum page, and I don’t have to open the thread, and slow down the board, just to find out if your thread is worth reading. It drives me crazy when people start an OP with “Well I thought I would post this… I have been thinking about asking for a long time, but then my cat got sick and we ran out of Mountain Dew and…”
Yarrrr. Get to the point.
Of course, beginnings like that usually mean that the whole OP will be boring. Just, not always.
“I can’t believe no one’s mentioned XXX!” Or the OP variety, “What? No one’s mentioned XXX yet?”
It’s one thing to bring something new to the thread. It’s quite another to deride previous posters for not thinking it first. And who knows, maybe everybody thinks XXX is too obvious to mention.
I this same vein:
People who correct typos, spelling and grammar when it makes no difference to the discussion. Very rarely someone will completely misuse a word and even then it’s a hard call to make, but there are times I guess it might be okay to politely correct someone.
Oh, and people who like to mention that there have been threads on a subject before and then don’t use that information in any useful way.
Pretty damn sure this applies to me (if not the epitome of me), and I have one thing to say:
Apologies. I have no excuse. It’s intellectual laziness and has no way of being anything but annoying. Sometimes it needs to be pointed out to me for me suddenly see it, then it seems obvious and I feel like an idiot for a while.
Allow me to take this dead horse of mine and bury it. It’s starting to stink.
I hate that too. Give a one or two sentence summary of what’s in the link, and how it’s relevant to the discussion. (It’s often enough that the link provides little or no significant information, or someone else has already posted the link.)
Another pet peeve. Think about the OP for a few seconds at least. Have enough consideration to frame the question carefully, and make sure you ask the question you actually have in mind. If it’s something simple, check Wikipedia or do at least a cursory Google search first.
I really detest that one too. If you hate Shakespeare, rap music, action movies, reality shows, or whatever, posting that information (and nothing more) in a thread where fans are discussing those topics doesn’t make you look smart, it makes you look like an asshole. (Of course, if people are soliciting opinions across the spectrum it’s fine to respond, but even then at least give a reason for your dislike.)
Dissecting a long post point by point. While I’m sure that those who do it think they’re dazzling with brilliance, to me it screams of baffling with bullshit. Here are [post=7635320]two[/post] [post=7718305]examples[/post] in one thread.
As I said above, I just skip them entirely.
This is probably the thing I hate the most. I remember once I used a word incorrectly…the person clearly knew what I meant, but had to throw in “I think you meant this word, since the word you used means blah blah blah.” It was just a jab because we were having a heated discussion, and totally unnecessary. It may make a person feel superior, but it really makes them look like a complete jerk to everyone else.
People who sign their posts. Your username is right there, dummy – we know who you are already! Even stranger to me is when people sign their posts with their real names – if you wanted us to know your real name, why not make that your username?
Also, what Twickster said. We’ve already read the post they’re quoting; we don’t need to see the whole thing again. Either quote the pertinent passages or just refer to the post in writing, as I did in the first sentence of this paragraph.
It’s been said many, many times before, but it bugs the crap out of me when an OP complains about a practice, and then someone posts just to perpetrate that very practice. For example,
Why do people have to be told this isn’t funny? It is not funny. It’s predictable and unimaginative and lame.
Replying to a mildly amusing post with, “OMG! You owe me a new monitor! I mean, all my cow-orkers just gaped at me when Mountain Dew spewed out of my nose!” C’mon, guys, it was funny, but this hyperbole gets a little old after a while. And if that was your actual reaction, this may go a long way to explaining your solitary evenings.
Oh, every time you type the drippingly condenscending “Google is your friend,” I want to throttle you.
That is all.
The Yakov Smirnoff responses, “In Soviet Russia…”
Threads that are just reposts of links from Fark. If I want to see funny/wacky/important news links, I’ll go read Fark. They do it better - that’s what they’re for. Now, granted, not all Dopers read Fark, and these threads often actually get quite a few responses, but hey, if it were rational, it wouldn’t be a pet peeve, right?
Posters who complain about profanity
Posts on a thread about is “is (famous person) gay” or “is (famous person) part black” that add “Why does it matter?”
Preach it, Brother!
My pet peeves- asking a GQ where the answer depends heavily on your location, and then your location is given as something cutsey as “halfway to hell in a handbasket”. Trust me, it’s REALLY fucking hard to look up the laws and ordinances for “halfway to hell in a handbasket”. So anyone who does so gets a couple of wrong answers, and a couple of questiosn like “where do you live?”. What’s worse is when the OP then becomes an idiot by either not answering “where do you live” or replying “why, what does it matter?” :mad:
Another pet peeve is using QUOTE blocks to quote an ouside post, then getting us stupidities as “originally posted by George W Bush”. QUOTE blocks are for quoting other posters. :mad:
PoorYorick; once in a while an OP has a question that is so very easily Googled that “Google is your friend” is legit- after all, if you can navigate to the SDMB and post your question, using Google to get some super easily answered question deserves a bit of “drippingly condenscending” replies. Now, I agree- if it takes some amount of Goggle-fu or digging deep into Google-scholar, then “Google is your friend,” is stupid and “drippingly condenscending” *and * just plain wrong.
I have a hard time reading posts that consist of one huge chunk of text without blank lines to separate paragraphs. It is tempting to simply skip such posts.
**As I am one of the primary offenders in your gripe: **
I will explain my case and leave my blessing to continue to be annoyed with me.
I like using my name at the end of my posts. It is how I am use to writing and enough regular posters do it here on the dope that I do not feel it is an odd affection. Jim is my name and I am happy to share that information. Additionally, I realized I do not like the Signature function and turned mine off completely, so I add little thread appropriate asides with my signature. These are for clarification, off target things I wish to add or small attempts at humor. The examples of my doing this are very common. See Below.
Why my username is not Jim has two good reasons, I started a contest to get my username and I mentioned I wanted something with Jim in it. Several of the Boards Jims suggested this was a bad idea as we have over a dozen semi-active Jims on the board. The Vote ended up as my current username* and I started to sign 95% of my posts to share my name. At the same time, I also added a small little bit to my location to indicate I am one of the Tolkien Geeks on the board.
Therefore, while I do expect you to stop being annoyed at my signing my name to my posts, at least you know the reason why I choose to do it.
Jim {BTW: What Exit? is a little joke about people from New Jersey}
- There is a little bit more to the story but it is off this target and boring.
Smilie combinations.
I hate smilies already, and hardly ever use them, but the combos truly irk me. Like :rolleyes: 
= oh you’re such an idiot but wait I was only kidding! or 
= I was a little confused at your post but no I wasn’t, I am quite amused by it enough to make my grin fill most of my head! It just smacks of… well I don’t know what, but something.
I don’t mind when people sign their posts with their name but I am annoyed by people who have a sign-off line like “regards” or “enjoy” especially if those are used in the Pit such as: “You’re an idiot–Regards!” or “Shut up, you.–Enjoy!” It takes up too much space in the context of a one-line post and is just sort of like rubbing it in, like you call someone a bunch of names and tell them to enjoy it.
What about people that sign their posts with their username? Talk about redundant.
No offense intended to anyone who does these things, by the way. Just things that make me :rolleyes: when I see them.