S’like, so yer surfin’ the SDMB and you see a thread topic that really grabs your eye. Only it’s got like 90 messages or sumthin, but you click onit anyways, because yer interested. So you start reading and as you go, you get mini replies in your head, but you don’t want to reply before you’re finished reading because:
a) the context of the thread will have moved on and your reply most likely will be ‘out of the blue’ and kind of outdated
b) You don’t want to repeat something that someone already posted… why make a point that’s already been made?
So you read the whole post and by the time you get to the end you’ve either
a) forgotten your replies
b) got a reply that will take 4 hours to cut/paste into a thoughtful, organized post. (All over a thread: “Which are better? Hard or soft toothbrush bristles…” or something like that.)
And you can’t just start reading on the last page or the last few posts because then you really haven’t got a clue what went on before, and your reply will most like be trivial or make it perfectly obvious that you cheated and didn’t read the whole thread.
In times like this, I refer to the old wise thingy, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to post and remove all doubt.”
Still it’s a little frustrating. How do y’all deal with it?
