D&D General Poll: Should a poster be expected to read (or at least skim) all posts before posting in a thread?

[Thomas Shey]

Eh, based on my experience, you're right in using a conditional for reading the OP. The question isn't whether people read the thread ... it's whether they bother to read the OP.

I'd say a large number of people post based on the title of the thread, a large number of people post based on the last few posts, and you're lucky if someone, you know, bothers to read the OP and the thread.

Well, honestly with thread drift, sometimes the OP has become largely irrelevant to the way the mass of the thread went. People can be put out about that but its still the case.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think the title thing is usually only an issue when the OP decides to pick a misleading title, to be honest.

Trouble is, I've seen quite a few times (here and elsewhere) where the OP posts a really clear, short, direct title, asking for something that people are excited to answer or talk about, then has a mumble-y vague meandering post in the actual thread when they, in the middle or paragraph or w/e, ask for stuff from people that's totally out of line with the title (or significantly deviant from it at least).

Then what you see is people do respond to the title, not to the obscure conditionals specified in the middle of a paragraph by the OP. And the usually the OP could easily have had a more correct title.

It's like, if your title doesn't exactly describe what you want, bullet points and bold people, that's what you need if you want answers. Better yet don't have a misleading title though.

You can also get all kinds of "begging the question" titles where the actual topic does not assume what the poster seems to think it assumes in the title. Arguably that's what happened in the Railroading thread.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Well, honestly with thread drift, sometimes the OP has become largely irrelevant to the way the mass of the thread went. People can be put out about that but its still the case.

The best OPs are largely irrelevant regardless of thread drift.

Relevance is the hobgoblin of small minds; "close enough" works for horseshoes, hand grenades, and comments on the internet.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If you spend your time arguing with someone about the title that you would have written ... then what are you really doing? Are you adding any value, or just arguing?

If I have a better title ... then I'll use it on my own post. If I'm arguing with someone about their post's title, then I clearly have take a wrong turn.

Oh I agree.

I don't think there's a whole lot of point arguing about titles, but equally, this applies to the people who put inaccurate titles, and then spend time trying to (completely ineffectually) "police" their thread when it turns out no-one is posting what they wanted.

It is worth pointing out an inaccurate or awful title at least once, though, because what I've seen here is that some posters just don't even realize that putting a totally different title and and thread topic is, well, a recipe for a thread about the title subject or even something entirely different lol. Like people genuinely haven't got it. And usually they're in the thread - which is often quite lively and interesting otherwise, trying to argue that people are "Doing it wrong!!!!". It's like no, sorry, not how it works. Telling them once does add value, yes. Continuing the argument could add value if they didn't get it, but if they just disagree, it doesn't (of course good luck to all of us reliably determining if someone doesn't get it or just disagrees).

I think you'd struggle to find many examples of me arguing that the title of a thread is wrong, rather I have argued that belated and ineffectual attempts to police threads because the title didn't match the OP are wrong, which is kind of the inverse of that.

I.e. we're all happily discussing the real subject of the thread, and the OP comes along and says "I want this thread to be about X!!!" and it's like, well, too late for that buddy, maybe you should have said "This is a thread about gardening in RPGs!" not "Tell me your stories of mighty battles and victories!", lol. He's the one not contributing there frankly. You don't own a thread. Eric does. Or rather Morrus. You just start it.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

You don't own a thread. Eric does. Or rather Morrus. You just start it.

On that, I agree 143% (given my innumeracy). There is nothing worse that thread policing. Assuming it's not a "+" thread.

"Ak-shually, this thread is about cultivating rutabagas in Eberron; I cannot believe that you are discussing the sale of rutabagas in Eberron! Get back on topic NOW!"

That said, there is also nothing productive with arguing over the title of a thread. That's the type of meta-argument (arguing about arguing) that isn't productive. As soon as people start invoking "begging the question" or other tired internet tropes they've already missed the point.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

On that, I agree 143% (given my innumeracy). There is nothing worse that thread policing. Assuming it's not a "+" thread.

"Ak-shually, this thread is about cultivating rutabagas in Eberron; I cannot believe that you are discussing the sale of rutabagas in Eberron! Get back on topic NOW!"

That said, there is also nothing productive with arguing over the title of a thread. That's the type of meta-argument (arguing about arguing) that isn't productive. As soon as people start invoking "begging the question" or other tired internet tropes they've already missed the point.

TIL I don't actually know what "begging the question" really means lol. And the wikipedia page on it has not helped me a great deal lol. Growing up everyone I knew used it to mean "raising the question" (so back to the '80s in the UK), and I still see that, but it seems like it's not being used that way here and wasn't in the in the original Latin.

Random Ruin fact: I once got suspended from a forum for three days (not this one in any form) because I didn't know peculiar American-specific usage of a phrase lol. I can't remember what it was sadly, but the mod used this extreme colloquialism to tell people to stop discussing something (which is like, the third meaning of it when I looked it up later with like "American slang" and "C. 1940" or something on it, and one I'd never come across), and I just had no idea what they were talking about because one of the more conventional meanings made sense in context! The internet!!!!! Hooray!!!!

 

[Thomas Shey]

That said, there is also nothing productive with arguing over the title of a thread. That's the type of meta-argument (arguing about arguing) that isn't productive. As soon as people start invoking "begging the question" or other tired internet tropes they've already missed the point.

Sorry, but no. When someone goes into a thread framing it such that they expect a particular answer, calling them on that first thing is absolutely legitimate; anything else basically is allowing others to do a dog-and-pony show, not have a discussion.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Sorry, but no. When someone goes into a thread framing it such that they expect a particular answer, calling them on that first thing is absolutely legitimate; anything else basically is allowing others to do a dog-and-pony show, not have a discussion.

If you think you have been given a special mission, and that mission is "calling them {other posters} on that first thing," then ...

Well, have fun with those windmills. I will not be joining you.

 

[Thomas Shey]

TIL I don't actually know what "begging the question" really means lol. And the wikipedia page on it has not helped me a great deal lol. Growing up everyone I knew used it to mean "raising the question" (so back to the '80s in the UK), and I still see that, but it seems like it's not being used that way here and wasn't in the in the original Latin.

Begging the question is when you enter a discussion either by assuming the answer right out the gate, or by assuming a premise that biases the permitted answers. Sometimes that's okay if presented properly (the easiest way is "assuming X..." which tells everyone right out that you're trying to get a discussion within a constrained range in the second case above; the first one is almost never okay if a discussion is actually what's wanted), but that's rarely what happens.

As an example, you'll get people who enter threads relating to sandboxes and linear games with extremely strong and often rigid views on what's appropriate to do, and if allowed to do so in an first post of an avowedly general thread on the topic, allowing begging the question is essentially permitting them to ask "have you stopped beating your wife?" Arguing the premise should be the very first thing you're doing in most cases. This is different from "Assuming you find a sandbox game a good thing, what's some good techniques for it?" That can still run afoul of definitions ("sandbox" isn't so precisely defined that you're not going to get people arguing with a given technique actually is appropriate for it, but that's unavoidable, and doesn't set up the discussion to run into the rocks right out the gate).

 

[Thomas Shey]

If you think you have been given a special mission, and that mission is "calling them {other posters} on that first thing," then ...

Well, have fun with those windmills. I will not be joining you.

If I'm going to participate in the discussion, I absolutely do.