Since there are a lot of posts complaining about subjects being brought up again or not let go I thought it would be a perfect time to remind everyone of something to keep in mind when reading on any message board. Not a lecture just a tip on interpretation.
Not everyone is reading along as things happen. When people are catching up often posts are made in response to older posts in the thread and without the knowledge that the discussion has moved on from there.
Thanks for this, as a new member and being totally new to message boards in general it is sometimes quite hard to know what to do, and to post in an existing board is actually quite daunting
For a very long time I would not post at all until I was caught up reading the thread because I didn't want to disrupt discussion with old points. But this meant that I ended up not posting at all.
Then I tried just being very diligent about saying up front that I was not caught up and just wanted to comment, etc. But as time goes on that gets old and tiresome and I tend to forget.
Rule of thumb for me is that when a subject is suddenly raised again I try to just assume that the poster is just catching up and is unaware the topic has moved on. Saves me a lot of irritation.
Another clue is if they are responding to a post take a look at when that post was made and if it is from much earlier then again they just aren't caught up.
I find that most of the time the seemingly unending discussions are the result of not everyone being on the same page at the same time.
This point is ESPECIALLY relevant on this board because of the fact that we have MANY active contributors from different timezones all over the world. Everyone SHOULD have the opportunity to discuss whatever is going on but that means that those who are in it from the beginning need to recognize that others may still have things to say.
My New Years resolution is to resolve to be a compassionate poster and realize that not everyone has a chance to read all the back posts. Some people have to just jump in and post even if they don't have time to catch up because otherwise we wouldn't get to hear from them at all and that would be unfair.
DISCLAIMER: I have been participating in message boards since the very beginning of them both with early USENET and Compuserve so this is really just message board manners but doesn't really get taught the way it used to in the early days.
Though all I can say is Poor Adam - I am thankful people aren't wondering how I would dress or undress for a sauna... :
- I tried to find it, but I had no luck.
