How long before you tire of a thread here?

[payn]

Is there a way to find out who participated in a given thread on EN World and how often?

I hope not. I can see some folks tossing that at people as an insult. Getting into post count fights instead of discussing the topic at hand. There is already enough difficulty doing so.

 

[Theory of Games]

Most threads here are pretty good. What happens is branching, where the point of conversation shifts in another direction and a few people go that way, then another branch in another direction, then the original conversation is still going. SO often you can post early in a thread (my MO), but when you return to it hours later, there are three different conversations going on. Which, I actually think is good and bad, but if I can't find anything interesting in any of those conversations

 

[Theory of Games]

Oh yeah - and if I get bloodied by a Mod, I tend to wander off

 

[Ryujin]

I hope not. I can see some folks tossing that at people as an insult. Getting into post count fights instead of discussing the topic at hand. There is already enough difficulty doing so.

Yeah, there are always people who use things like when they joined a group/forum, or number of posts, to lord it over other members. I've seen it more than once and been the target a few times, as well. Some of the things that I've seen, first hand, in my years on fora:

• You know nothing about this site. I've been here since the beginning! (To the site owner, who had a separate non-admin account).
• You weren't there, so you can't know what we went through. (Said by a person guilty of "stolen valour". to the aide-de-camp of the general in the given situation. The target looked up the original poster and, surprise, he was on the other side of the world during the incident))
• Clearly, you don't have a clue about riding a motorcycle. Look at this online reference. (Referencing the website that I created.)

There are many more, but those are the ones that stand out the most.

 

[Autumnal]

That reminds me of the time on Usenet a guy ranted about how women can’t right proper (=hard) sf, and used a book by Catherine Asaro as an example. She replied that it’s Dr. Catherine Asaro and that the bit he was complaining about was speculation directly related to her dissertation and subsequent publications, which she cited.

For some reason, the guy didn’t return to the thread.

Rebecca Solnit has a collection of essays titled Men Explain Things To Me, which is alternately hilarious and infuriating. Guys can of course also be jerks to each other, it’s just that epic mansplaining and comebacks are often gendered. No Get Away From Jerks card is intended or implied.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Really depends a lot on the subject, and often the particular people involved.

For example, creative stuff like helping people brainstorm for their campaigns usually keeps my interest for quite a while but rules discussions mostly only last a couple or a handful of pages - I generally clock out once the participants either A) reach a general consensus or at least all post their opinions, or B) wander off into stupidness.

As someone else mentioned, the wide-angle topic threads like Didn't Post In The Other Thread and the threads about nothing in particular like the Hive are the places where I tend to live for years before fading out.

 

[Nikosandros]

I tend to tire pretty quickly, since there is a tendency for reiterating points over and over and entrenching in one's positions.

 

[Corinnguard]

I am sure @Morrus could pull that info, but we would have to literally count the posts and posters, I think.

That would be pretty time consuming given the page length of certain threads on this site.

 

[Larnievc]

Sometimes I see the same threads over and over for days and weeks. They keep popping up after I thought it was beaten enough. Some I find stay relevant like the one about memes and the other about people dying. Others I find that I stop looking at them after a point. It might not be a post count or page count but could be once the thread dissolves into something else.

For simplicity sake, maybe a general post count since I know many use 10 post/page and others have 20/page.

I find that after 100 posts I wander away from most of the threads, like 80% of them. What is your limit?

The first ever forum I went on back in 05 had a limit to 200 posts before a thread was locked to focus the discussion and not wander off topic.

 

[Clint_L]

My limit is determined by:

A) have I started being an ass (like, more than normal)? If yes, time to leave. ("Look around the room and spot the d*ckhead. If you can't spot them, it's you.")
B) is it basically the same handful of folks arguing with each other now?
C) am I just repeating myself? Are others?
D) am I wrong, and just arguing out of pride?
E) does it feel angry?