I've been lurking around Sigforum ever since I bought a Satin Nickel P229 in 2002. I recently made an account to view a member's email address for something he was selling in the classified section. I've witnessed the evolution of many lightning rod threads here... Keggers, >>>ARE YOU SMOKING F****** DOPE<<< (how is Cliffy, palehorse or Bennyboatshoes doing? anyone?), Trump is a First Rate Assclown, etc. In reading some of the more recent lightning rods I'm amazed at how many people either don't read, don't know how to comprehend English text or just don't care and put in their 2 cents without reading anything at all.

I remember a time when a member posted something worthy of being acknowledged, others would "+1" the post or the applicable part of the post. It was eventually frowned upon for several reasons, the one I recall is that it cluttered up the thread. In reading threads now, I constantly see replies quoting replies quoting replies to the point where I might have developed minor carpal tunnel scrolling through paragraphs of ignorant (defined as: lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated) posts and replies because one person thinks the other's point, perspective or opinion is ignorant. If a +1 created clutter, I don't know what to call this nuclear shitfuck of seemingly endless replies to replies to replies.

I don't mean to come off as disrespectful or ungrateful. I mention it because I do read every post in a thread and when I constantly re-read opinions that doesn't warrant a second reading, let alone a third or fourth, it's frustrating. On the same token, I think it's disrespectful to enter into a thread without reading it in its entirety. It's almost as if something that many of the participants in a discussion have disagreed on has finally come to some sort of acceptance about a point or perspective, then you have some jerkoff who barges in and says something that's already been said about whatever it was and then everyone's back to square one.

I encourage sharing new perspectives and arguing a point with respect and courtesy. After all it's an effective way to expand the mind and understand the perspective of others. However, if a post doesn't introduce a new perspective or perhaps more to my point: if a post is regurgitating old, tired information, what purpose does it serve besides stirring emotions and starting another wave of banter that's been said many more times than necessary?

Case and point: I started a thread a while back about shooting bullets underwater. If you feel so inclined and it's still around, go and count how many times people referenced Mythbusters thinking they've answered the question (which they clearly didn't read along with the rest of the thread). By the way, that was a non-heated topic so take a United Airlines thread or <insert political/taboo thread here> and add jet fuel (no pun intended) to the constant rehashing of points already made.

I do enjoy most of the posts I read here on Sigforum. Even in disagreement I find takeaways and learn new things that I wouldn't have if I skipped part or most of the discussion. Para does one hell of a job as owner/moderator and I'm grateful to be a part of this community. For that reason I wanted to share my observation and I'm confident that there are others who have seen and felt the change as well.

You're not the only one who has noticed, and although I wouldn't say it's new, it's certainly the worst that I have seen it.

+1

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
You're not the only one who has noticed, and although I wouldn't say it's new, it's certainly the worst that I have seen it.

Far from new.

I even made a SENDEC reference last night.

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
+1

What he said

I like the ones where the responder doesn't even read the full title or first post in a thread and responds like 4 pages deep with a point that was literally covered in the title and first post.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
You're not the only one who has noticed, and although I wouldn't say it's new, it's certainly the worst that I have seen it.

Far from new.

I even made a SENDEC reference last night.

Shouldn't this be in Whats yer deal?

It does seem a bit more shrill around here than I'm accustomed to.
Many posters seem eager to assume the worst motives rather than taking a more charitable view, if someone posts something that could be a shot at them, their intelligence, or education.

I wish it was just due to the seeming recent influx of new people, but it's not. Longtime members are just as liable.

You can't always blame changes in a community on immigrants, it seems

Ducking and running,

Bruce

I agree - I keep my change in my pocket too.

I use other forums which employ different capabilities which manage some of things you talk about.

I'm sure these features cost $$$ so I don't expect a private forum owner to pony up to pay for these "conveniences".

Some of the the capabilities include "likes" which minimize the +1 stuff, and the other is limited quote nesting, meaning that you typically only get one level of quote.

I think this forum relies upon personal responsibility and some just abuse it.

I just thought some folks use the quote button as their normal reply button maybe they don't know how to edit out all the internal replies they are replying to lest the reply be reduced to a single reply vs multiple replies to whit I reply, stop... please stop...

DISCLAIMER: I only read the thread title.

If there was a link in the OP to an outside source, I certainly didn't click it to verify that I believed said source to be credible and believable.

I haven't read any of the posts above mine, but now, let me tell you all what I think...

I think that mobile technology is to blame. In the past people would be at home or at work on their computer taking time to read through threads and such. Now a lot of posting is done on our phones when on the go. Sometimes I pop on for a min or two and quickly look through a thread and don't have the time to read 18 pages of material.

quote:

Originally posted by Dusty78:
I think that mobile technology is to blame. In the past people would be at home or at work on their computer taking time to read through threads and such. Now a lot of posting is done on our phones when on the go. Sometimes I pop on for a min or two and quickly look through a thread and don't have the time to read 18 pages of material.

That's a good point. I'm on my computer in my office most of the time or on a laptop at home. I don't post from my phone very often for that very reason. I'm sure a lot of people only have mobile options available.

quote:

I even made a SENDEC reference last night.

Funny that you mentioned him. I ran across this when I was going through my photobucket the other day.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:...
I even made a SENDEC reference last night.

I caught that.

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:

quote:

Originally posted by Dusty78:
I think that mobile technology is to blame. In the past people would be at home or at work on their computer taking time to read through threads and such. Now a lot of posting is done on our phones when on the go. Sometimes I pop on for a min or two and quickly look through a thread and don't have the time to read 18 pages of material.

That's a good point. I'm on my computer in my office most of the time or on a laptop at home. I don't post from my phone very often for that very reason. I'm sure a lot of people only have mobile options available.

You're on to something with mobile devices. I try to minimize my quote nesting, but it's hard to edit on my phone.

Do people post while obviously not getting the gist of the thread even? Yes.

Do people submit posts that simply echo prior stances? yes.

quote:

I mention it because I do read every post in a thread and when I constantly re-read opinions that doesn't warrant a second reading, let alone a third or fourth, it's frustrating. On the same token, I think it's disrespectful to enter into a thread without reading it in its entirety. It's almost as if something that many of the participants in a discussion have disagreed on has finally come to some sort of acceptance about a point or perspective, then you have some jerkoff who barges in and says something that's already been said about whatever it was and then everyone's back to square one.

It depends. You posted 4 times as far as I can see on the Donald Trump thread: Oct 8, Oct 28, then twice on Nov 9.

On Oct 8, your post was on the 623rd page. Are you telling me you read the whole thread first (all 623 pages) before making your first post? And are you saying your post doesn't echo any of the previous thoughts posted in the first 622 pages before yours?

And when you posted the third time on Oct 28 when you posted a meme on page 801, are you saying you read at least all the posts in the 178 intervening pages since your previous post? And are you saying your meme expresses a different thought from the posts in the previous 800 pages?

I ask the questions above because:

1) If you really did read every post in that thread before each of your posts, then I suppose I should commend you and I can state I can never live up to your expectations in that respect.

If you didn't read every post in that thread, then it's simply to what degree people feel comfortable to read previous posts before contributing. But if you haven't read every post in that thread, you simply cannot expect that other people should do the same. Certainly, in actual practice and real life conversations, the number of people who actually allow the other person to finish talking before beginning to formulate their response is very low; the divorce statistics is simply one of many supporting evidence.

2) The second reason I asked my questions is because of the point you say you are making:

quote:

However, if a post doesn't introduce a new perspective or perhaps more to my point: if a post is regurgitating old, tired information, what purpose does it serve besides stirring emotions and starting another wave of banter that's been said many more times than necessary?

Odds are with 623 pages before your first post, I'm willing to bet that your posts in that thread didn't introduce a new perspective and simply "regurgitated" previously posted information.

For me, I can skim over a lot of posts and I haven't missed anything. For the ones that are repeats, I actually can use that to make my brain notice that the information may warrant a closer look.

One of my biggest pet peeves is for the 2nd post in a thread to quote a long 1st post in it's entirety, especially if the 1st post was itself a quote of a 15 paragraph long news article. Frustrating. It's like they think we are all too stupid to remember what we were talking about between posts 1 and 2 so they have to remind us all.

I am quite sure some people do not know the difference between the quote and the reply button, and they just use the quote button all the time.

If I want to respond to 1 or 2 sentences in a long quote, I will use the quote button and then edit down with ....."quote"..... so folks know specifically the sentence I am addressing.

I was actually going to reply "Have you seen the Mythbusters episode?" about the underwater bullets thing, because it was so funny how annoyed you seemed to be getting, or perhaps a "Lighten Up Francis!"
Sometimes my humour is a teensy bit on the 'dry' side. Like 0% Vermouth.
Having shot a lot of various guns off of a variety of ships, boats and shorelines, into oceans, canals, and waterways both navigable and unnavigable, in my experience bullets either skip or stop right away.
You would probably be perfectly safe 2 feet under water, 18 inches probably. But I have no evidence on this, I have not performed any empirical testing of shooting animal carcasses or human corpses at various depths/salinities of water with various rifles/pistols/bullets/ranges.
40+ years of experience of shooting into water tells me skip or stop. But that was not the answer you wanted and it seemed like you were being kind of pedantic about it so I just refrained, so as not to offend anyone's delicate sensibilities, which I very often do. Parse that.