Shift in forum posting style over time

[MrPopo]

Also, correct spacing between paragraphs.

[Ziggy]

I often feel frustrated that I put a lot of effort into things that just seem to go unnoticed, save for an increased view count.

The lack of any replies to a wall of text post, or even a one sentence post for that matter, is a hard pill to swallow. Is it human nature to think the worst? Being ignored or not feeling excepted by a group is tough.

J T, in your case, I wouldn't fret too much. Sure, there's probably some people that tl;dr it just because of how long it was. There were probably some people that saw it was long but were only looking for a quick bite at the time. Maybe they had the best intentions to pull your post back up when they had more time, but forgot or the thread was bumped down (out of site, out of mind). And maybe some people read it, enjoyed it, but felt they had nothing to contribute. The lack of a response isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I'll be honest, I've done points 2 and 3 to your posts (and not just you) before. I'll often come across posts on the forum here that are just too long for me to read at the time I stumbled upon them. I'll often browse the forum while I have a few minutes at work. There's been a lot of times that I find a post that's just too long for me to read, but sounds interesting, and I make a mental note to read it later. Plenty of times I forget about that post after the rest of the work day.

I've definitely read some of your posts, J T, as well as others, that I just didn't have anything to add to. I try to avoid leaving BS generic, Twitter-like comments just for the sake of posting a reply. But I know what it feels like to start a new thread and get crickets. It sucks.

And how many words makes a wall of text anyway? Someone from Twitter would probably define just about every post in this thread as a wall of text. I wouldn't consider any of them to be. Of course, format (mostly width) will make it vary, but I wouldn't call anything a wall of text until I have to scroll the mouse wheel more than once to read it.

[Key-Glyph]

What a great conversation we're having here!

I like J T's point about the technology you carry influencing how you communicate, which dovetailed with Isiola's point about mobile devices. I've been experiencing this first-hand lately. We've had neither smartphone nor tablet until this year, so until now I was always purposely settled in my office at my computer while browsing Racketboy, committed to spending at least a semi-lengthy stretch of time reading and responding to posts. I was in the mindset to put effort and attention into the forum even before I'd sat down; then I'd deliberately log in to scratch that itch.

Now that we have a tablet, I find myself browsing the forum in situations where I can't, and am aware that I can't, absorb or respond to post content in a meaningful way. Just earlier today I was laid out on the couch, so sick I could barely scroll through the website properly, and I thought to myself, "Oh, I really want to respond to this conversation on posting style; I gotta remember to do that later when I'm able to get into my office." Sometimes I remember to do this, but often I don't. Sometimes I remember but fail to jump aboard in a timely fashion, and the thread has passed me by.

The problem with this is that the convenience of the tablet makes me more likely to browse Racketboy, yet simultaneously less likely to respond. The more I read through the forum on the couch, the less often I get interactive with it. I was just thinking today that I should try to put the breaks on this because it's just not my preferred style.

The other thing that was touched on by Exhuminator and MrPopo that I think is a huge influence, perhaps most of all, is the convention of "liking" and favoriting posts. Sure, those are mostly there to cater ads and content to you, but the function it serves on the surface for the general user is to allow them to use other people's content to speak their own thoughts. Folks who don't want, or don't have the time, to craft original meaningful posts now have an easy way to redirect you to what they would have said themselves. Often times such people may feel that they couldn't have said it better than that other person, or don't want to be redundant. Why clutter the space and "waste" everyone's time with reiteration? But what this means is that they are not digesting information and then exercising their ability to craft their own written response or narrative from it. Like lots of other skills, I think writing and critical thinking can weaken over time from this kind of inactivity. (It also reinforces the mistaken notion that new voices won't usually add something of value to the discourse, which bothers me a lot.)

But I also agree that this isn't generational. Back when LiveJournal was huge, gigantic posts and thoughtful response chains were the norm. That wasn't really all that long ago, and (I think) was hugely a Millennial thing. And conversely, the worst written communication I ever saw was during an internship at a large corporation. The pressure for constant communication and the demands of managers led to tons of hurried smartphone-typing between and during meetings, and I was completely shocked by the lack of structure and decorum. I had assumed expensive for-profit companies would be much fancier about appearances than that.

[J T]

Thanks Ziggy. I'm not fretting much. I generally feel valued on the forums here. It's only occassionaly that I feel like I put effort into something that went unnoticed on this forum.

Key-Glyph, I had some of the same issues with my tablet, but I got a bluetooth keyboard that also serves as a case. This was the perfect solution for me. It protects my tablet screen when I store it, and makes it easy to type when I need to.

[jmbarnes101]

I don't use any of those social things so if I'm doing something like that it's because I'm posting via my phone which isn't very conducive to writing out long messages. I generally try to keep my posts short.

[Xeogred]

FB just rolled out an update where you now don't even see the context/details of things that are trending in the side bar. Literally just the title (clickbait?) and "x are talking about this". So they've "simplified it" as they put it in their update.

What idiot thought this was good.

God forbid, that was too much reading in the first place! Gotta twitterize everything!

[Exhuminator]

I haven't used Facebook in years and years. To me, Facebook seems like this distant memory of a strange time in my internet life, like MySpace is if I recall it. I'm always surprised when people say "I saw this on my Facebook", like I just think it's weird people still use it. I can tell you one thing, none of the teenagers I know use Facebook. It's definitely not attractive to the younger generation.

[Xeogred]

Yeah, it's the parents social media as I've heard.

I was going to make a topic or post about this elsewhere, but I really do need to find something better to do with idle time. The issue is that FB loads on my phone at work far faster than anything else and the web, so I instinctively keep using it. I was getting more into politics this year but that was a disaster, so I've once again shuffled out and stopped following anyone and anything that feeds me that crap. My wall is back to mostly gaming related stuff. But I'm still kind of sick of it and it just makes me increasingly dislike former acquaintances and such.

I guess in a weird way, I am admitting it's a weird problem.

I don't really like playing games much on my phone though, but maybe I can find something fun again. I played a lot of some Puzzle Bobble clone years ago, maybe I should get back into that lol.

[TSTR]

fuk u its muh bodee i do wat i want

[darsparx]

FB just rolled out an update where you now don't even see the context/details of things that are trending in the side bar. Literally just the title (clickbait?) and "x are talking about this". So they've "simplified it" as they put it in their update.

What idiot thought this was good.

God forbid, that was too much reading in the first place! Gotta twitterize everything!

Admittedly you have to actually hover over it to get the details....annoying but it's there without having to actually click on it. Though the things that are trending are bizarre to me...just the sheer fact people are focusing on some of that stupid crap is hilarious. There's litterally a bit about "#trumpcup" in there....I really wish people would grow up XD