Amongst some tools I bought was a box end wrench with a long handle that was bent at all weird. I posted it on a Facebook group for old cars that I am a member of asking what it was. Within a few seconds somebody posted that it was a distributor wrench and the next 3 posts described how to use it. It is bent/angled to reach under the distributor to loosen or tighten the hold down bolt for the clamp. Makes sense and I will keep it in case I need it and thanked the 4 posters for the information. I now have 14 more replies (maybe more by now) saying “distributor wrench” and some describing (again) how to use it.
Noticed the same thing in a “Remember When” page about my hometown. Picture posted of a storefront with a big G for the display window. Right away several people posted “Gill’s Jewelry” and when they were in business and when they closed, who is in that store now and how the glass “G” was replaced with a normal store front window after it broke. Now there are 30+ post basically saying “Gill’s Jewelry” repeating the previous posters. Except for one who said it was some furniture store and then people (7 so far) pointing out the “G” and the store they said it was wasn’t even on the same block.
Why do these people repeat the same answer over and over? Is there a term these people are called, other than annoying?
The historic photos and memories groups are rife with this. Like @Elmer_J.Fudd said, people just don’t bother reading the other comments before submitting their own. I suppose it’s the same mentality of only reading headlines and not the article. Then you have to point out to the people “hey, this was already answered two days ago.” You also forgot to mention that for the 30+ people correctly identifying Gill’s Jewelry, there’s just as many people saying “my mom’s best friend’s cousin’s college roommate worked at a jewelry store only two blocks away in the summer of 1964.”
There is also the need for some to demonstrate how clever they are.
I subscribe to an FB group on my type of car. It is a pretty well-behaved and helpful group, but when someone, who may have just acquired a secondhand one asks a question, they will often get several similar answers.
Of course, we have the opposite problem with the same questions cropping up over and over again.
And Facebook makes this easy since it collapses comments. For group stuff, it often makes it seem like only the people you know have posted. It’s set up for people not to read what has been said, because that gets more engagement. People don’t notice that they there are other comments they missed, and I’m not even convinced they’re always actually there.
I’ll admit I’m not going to read thousands of posts before commenting on some image that showed up on my wall from a friend. I’m going to most likely reply to my friend or the person they were replying to, or make my own top level reply. It would be like reading an entire Reddit post before commenting–it’s set up for you not to do that, unlike here.
That said, some of the logic that happens here applies, too. People may say basically the same thing, but think they have a slightly different angle to it. They may have started their post before another post, and think there’s still something of value in in it.
And then there are situations where the point is to get different people’s opinion, so agreement is intentional. The assumption is that no one is expecting a single answer, but wants what is more like a poll.
I’ve been looking at bed sheets (what a minefield!) on Wayfair. Many ask the same question that’s been previously answered. I know this can easily be done if there’s many questions to sort through, but total of less than 10 questions and the same question twice by different posters? All dutifully answered just the same. It must be frustrating to those employees providing answers when, had the poster with the question bothered to read the product description they’d have found the answer in front of them. Maybe they don’t have the previous questions in front of them.
Same thing for Amazon. I’ve had emails from Amazon requesting that I respond to a question. There you don’t typically get to see other questions unless you go looking.
Just this week I had an entry in the January mini-rant about Amazon customers who get an email from Amazon, Maybe you can answer [question] about [product] for something they’ve bought. All too many of them answer, “I don’t know.”
At least your guys have the answer – just the same one over and over again.
I don’t use TwitFace. I do know they send out emails and/or txt messages and/or FB app “bleeps” when someone posts something you’re somehow following.
Do any of those things include a direct “reply” link/button? I bet they do. And if so, someone catching up on their feed will be clicking that to reply directly to the OP with no way to know the conversation has long since moved on.
IOW, I suspect the design of the FB interface, actively soliciting replies as it does, serves to improve the quantity of replies even as it reduces their quality and relevance. Which makes complete sense given their revenue model.
So nobody’s gonna mention how some people don’t read other replies before replying?
Edit: That is, BTW, the most infuriating form of the phenomenon, IMO; “So nobody’s gonna mention… [the thing that literally hundreds of people already said]”
There are several in particular here who are notorious for this. They get online every 3 or 4 days and try to catch up with what they’ve missed, and start lengthy replies to the early posts in a thread that’s several hundred posts long already. Like clockwork. It’s not like they can’t click on the icon that shows the responses to the posts.
