I’m relatively new to this board but often get the idea that there many inside jokes among the veteran members that maybe I just don’t “get”.
I’ll see a poster, usually by a prolific poster, make a reply in a thread with the text “Nevermind”, “nm”, or “never mind”. Why not just self delete? Is the “nevermind” post a statement in it’s own right?
I know it works conversationally…in person, what with body language, facial expressions, pauses etc, but seems kind of passive-aggressive online.
I’m just wonder if it really is “a thing” on SMDB.
There isn’t really a “self delete.” The new discourse allows you to “delete” a post that will then be there for the next 100 years. Not really a fan of that.
What often happens is that someone types something, and then, after posting, finds that their point had already been made, that the point that they were making was off-topic or not appropriate for the forum, or was against a moderator instruction.
So, rather than “delete” the post, which leaves a pretty ugly scar in the thread (IMHO, anyway), they edit to say “nevermind”, used to be a bunch more nm’s before we were required to have 5 characters.
On the old board if you posted a comment you could kind of delete it by reposting “nm”. apparently now you can actually delete your comment, but I guess most people rather post “nevermind”.
Another reason is if you accidentally post a response too early and you don’t have enough time to write the rest of it, but it comes off really weird when it’s truncated.
I’ve also done it when I wander in and post to a thread without realizing it’s ten years old.
So there are a lot of possible reasons that have nothing to do with passive aggression.
That’s my usual. I write something, post it, then start my rewriting then realize I’ll just make a hash out of it before my 5 minute editing window runs out.
Rather than leave a half-of-a-trainwreck post I copy the whole thing offline and replace the body with “nevermind” (used to be nm. on the old board.)
Maybe I come back later to post a fresh version and maybe I don’t.
