So I was reading threads in The Lounge today Options

[*mipadi*]

In an unprecedented move, my university canceled classes today, so I came to chill at CreateBlog a bit. I started reading some of the threads in The Lounge, and I noticed that almost all of them open with a potentially interesting story, then culminate in some lame question related tangentially to the story. Following this initial post is a long list of stupid one-phrase answers to these questions.

So my question is, are you the kind of person who can just post something interesting and leave it at that, or do you feel a need to follow up every anecdote with a solicitation for the egocentric thoughts of the readers?

[Jeng]

I'm one of the people who can just post something interesting and leave it at that, sometimes it's not interesting, but I leave my reply.

[*disco infiltrator*]

I feel like I'm cheating the public of Createblog without having some sort of direct question that they can respond to. I don't feel as if there will be discussion if there's nothing to answer.

[Retrogressive]

I thought it was more of a Createblog rule so that threads didn't repeat themselves? I don't post many threads, so I'm not sure what my personal answer would be.

[*kryogenix*]

I f**king hate cB now. It's completely full of 13 year old girls whose interests include puppies, gilmore girls and grey's anatomy. It f**king ses me off because I have an account here, and I'm slowly realizing that cB is not the place for people whose IQ's have three digits and are capable of writing whole paragraphs without any abbreviations, spelling errors or emoticons. then they come and leave comments on my site like "you seem really nice, and I think being gay is OK. maybe we could be xanga buddies and like leave eachother comments." this is the sort of thing that makes me want to shoot myself, but I don't say anything on my blog because I'm desperate for the validation of readership, any readership.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people misspell the simplest of words. I'm talking about things like "alot", or "masterbate", or even mixing up "their", "there", and "they're".

I also hate when people type in big long sentences without any sort of punctuation or capitalization whatsoever and just keep going and going and dont add paragraphs and just keep typing in one big long continuous sentence like this its so stupid i just want to punch them in the face

I also hate whenever someone makes a mistake, and I correct them, they say "whatever". Whatever yourself you dumbf**k, I'm just trying to help you. But if you want to come off as being completely ignorant and unintelligent in front of other people, then go right ahead.

I also hate teenies and emos. I really can't tell which is worse.

On the one hand, teenies are so f**king annoying because they always type "lol" at the end of every sentence, and type stupid things like "luv u lotz *MWAH*" and have gross misspellings (see above) and whatnot. They also have ridiculous nonsensical MSN names.

On the other hand, emos are pretty bad too, because all they talk about is how they're so alone, they have no friends, wah wah wah, "nobody understands what it's like", an listen to bullshit music like Simple Plan and Taking Back Sunday. They too have very long MSN names, usually quoting the lyrics from some pathetic emo song, which talks about dying alone or some shit like that. GIMME A f**kin' BREAK. If you're that depressed, stop bitching about it to everyone, go to the convenience store, buy a box cutter, and slit yer goddamn wrists already. Nobody wants to hear about your problems. I have a problem with a lot of people. Especially the ones who think they run this join. Specifically, there are a couple of guys who were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighborhood. I got in one little fight and my mom got scared and said "you’re moving with your auntie and uncle in bel-air." I whistled for a cab and when it came near the license plate said "fresh" and it had a dice in the mirror. If anything I could say that this cab was rare, but I thought now forget it, yo home to bel-air! I pulled up to a house about seven or eight and I yelled to the cabby "yo, home smell you later!" Looked at my kingdom, I was finally there, to settle my throne as the prince of bel-air.

ps this post was a joke

[smoke]

I think the questions are there to generate discussion. Without them, I'm sure it would lead to random off topic replies and probably go nowhere.

[*Libertie*]

You know, when I come on the forums each day I ALWAYS start off by checking my post history to make sure I haven't "abandoned" any topics. I'm curious to see if anyone responded me or if there's more interesting discussion going on in the thread. I can't see going in, making a response, and never coming back - if everyone does that, what's the point in posting? That's a clear signal that nobody's gonna read your posts, and that seems like a pretty pathetic waste of time to me.

Also, I'm not at all clever and I never have anything intersting to say, so I guess I'm a "post my thought and leave it at that" type of person.

[multifaceted]

I f**king hate cB now. It's completely full of 13 year old girls whose interests include puppies, gilmore girls and grey's anatomy. It f**king ses me off because I have an account here, and I'm slowly realizing that cB is not the place for people whose IQ's have three digits and are capable of writing whole paragraphs without any abbreviations, spelling errors or emoticons. then they come and leave comments on my site like "you seem really nice, and I think being gay is OK. maybe we could be xanga buddies and like leave eachother comments." this is the sort of thing that makes me want to shoot myself, but I don't say anything on my blog because I'm desperate for the validation of readership, any readership.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people misspell the simplest of words. I'm talking about things like "alot", or "masterbate", or even mixing up "their", "there", and "they're".

I also hate when people type in big long sentences without any sort of punctuation or capitalization whatsoever and just keep going and going and dont add paragraphs and just keep typing in one big long continuous sentence like this its so stupid i just want to punch them in the face

I also hate whenever someone makes a mistake, and I correct them, they say "whatever". Whatever yourself you dumbf**k, I'm just trying to help you. But if you want to come off as being completely ignorant and unintelligent in front of other people, then go right ahead.

I also hate teenies and emos. I really can't tell which is worse.

On the one hand, teenies are so f**king annoying because they always type "lol" at the end of every sentence, and type stupid things like "luv u lotz *MWAH*" and have gross misspellings (see above) and whatnot. They also have ridiculous nonsensical MSN names.

On the other hand, emos are pretty bad too, because all they talk about is how they're so alone, they have no friends, wah wah wah, "nobody understands what it's like", an listen to bullshit music like Simple Plan and Taking Back Sunday. They too have very long MSN names, usually quoting the lyrics from some pathetic emo song, which talks about dying alone or some shit like that. GIMME A f**kin' BREAK. If you're that depressed, stop bitching about it to everyone, go to the convenience store, buy a box cutter, and slit yer goddamn wrists already. Nobody wants to hear about your problems. I have a problem with a lot of people. Especially the ones who think they run this join. Specifically, there are a couple of guys who were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighborhood. I got in one little fight and my mom got scared and said "you’re moving with your auntie and uncle in bel-air." I whistled for a cab and when it came near the license plate said "fresh" and it had a dice in the mirror. If anything I could say that this cab was rare, but I thought now forget it, yo home to bel-air! I pulled up to a house about seven or eight and I yelled to the cabby "yo, home smell you later!" Looked at my kingdom, I was finally there, to settle my throne as the prince of bel-air.

ps this post was a joke

Hahaha. I like the fact that you cleverly added the theme song lyrics of "The Fresh Price of Bel-air."

I usually post in a topic and leave. I do have a tendency to forget which topics I have posted in, so I use the little >> link right after the topic's name to see whether or not I have responded to it.

[*mipadi*]

I think the questions are there to generate discussion. Without them, I'm sure it would lead to random off topic replies and probably go nowhere.

I disagree. People on other forums post little anecdotes or musings all the time. People on CB can't really be no egocentric that they are only interested in a topic when they can talk about themselves, can they?

[Smoogrish]

I feel like I'm cheating the public of Createblog without having some sort of direct question that they can respond to. I don't feel as if there will be discussion if there's nothing to answer.

People won't answer if you don't give them a specific question to answer to, you're right.

[*Intercourse.*]

If I leave a story, I suppose I need to ask some kind of question at the end of it. I just feel like it can help them generate a reply and stay on topic better.

I agree with Sammi's post though.

[*mipadi*]

People won't answer if you don't give them a specific question to answer to, you're right.

So you're not motivated to read or respond to a thread unless it gives you the opportunity to talk about yourself?

I wasn't entirely clear in my first post, but I'm not talking about an interesting post that ends with something like "So what do you think about this?" I'm talking about the endless topics that follow a format like this example:

Today I went to school. Some mean girl slapped me, so I slapped her back. Have you ever slapped anyone in school?

Which is then, of course, followed by about forty people saying some variation of "Yes, I have" or "No, I haven't" or maybe telling a quick but rather boring story.

That seems neither interesting nor engaging. It's just one-phrase responses under the guise of an actual "discussion", but there's never any discussion going on. No one ever actually responds to another post or uses a post to branch to another aspect of the discussion.

A chain of responses to a single narrow question is not a discussion. (Which brings up the point as to why we expect a discussion to follow a single, narrow course—which is quite boring and doesn't add anything new—but that's a different story altogether.)

[*My Cinderella.*]

Whenever I start topics like those, I usually just state an example, ask the questions and then ask them why. I guess I just hope for interesting posts to lead on the topic.

[HakunaMatata]

I wasn't entirely clear in my first post, but I'm not talking about an interesting post that ends with something like "So what do you think about this?" I'm talking about the endless topics that follow a format like this example:

Today I went to school. Some mean girl slapped me, so I slapped her back. Have you ever slapped anyone in school?

*raises hand* I have totally been guilty of this, but I don't see it as a bad thing. Threads that just say a story and expect people to come up with responses die. And yes, a culminating question can lead to a few not-so-elaborate one-phrase responses, but so? As long as it's not complete and utter useful spam, I'll live.

A chain of responses to a single narrow question is not a discussion. (Which brings up the point as to why we expect a discussion to follow a single, narrow course—which is quite boring and doesn't add anything new—but that's a different story altogether.)

However, I do have to agree with you on that. Half of all people will not go back to the thread to have discussion. They post and go. You try your best your best to respond back to people and actually discuss, but when it ends up being between two people, then it just becomes a conversation, and you might as well do that PM. It's difficult to get that third (or fourth or fifth) person to join the actual dicussion.

Edit: Oh, and I've noticed that clubs are usually likely to generate dicussion, too.
Edit numero dos: And didn't you begin this topic with the exact same format?

[Stefanny]

It really depends on the topic I'm typing in. Like this one, I wouldn't get into much depth on my reply. If I'm really intrested in the topic I'm replying in, I'd write a lot about my opinions and back it up with facts and stuff.

If I get a replying post from my topic reply, I'd follow it up with something simple, since I'm not one to like to type too much for a period of time without clicking or pausing.

[*Monochrome.*]

I feel like I'm cheating the public of Createblog without having some sort of direct question that they can respond to. I don't feel as if there will be discussion if there's nothing to answer.

Thats how i feel when i post topics. is that i have to put a question in order to have a disscussion.

but i guess that isnt always nessesarry in order to to have a intresting disscussion.

[viugiufgjhfhjfhg...]

I don't tend to start topics in CB, but depending on where I am posting and what kind of replies I am looking forward to get I might pick one style over another.

However, it is true that the predominant style in some parts of this site is the "survey thread"; where as Mipadi explained, people tend to post about their personal experiences that relate to whatever incident is mentioned in the opening post. The Lounge probably being the best example of such tendency.

Myself, I find it easier to discuss in Feedback, News, Technology and Debate. So if I want to get involved in a debate (or start one myself) I will most likely post in those boards, using a style more favorable to the exchange of opinions than the one I would use, for example, in the Lounge or in Entertainment. Where regardless of how the posting style used, the replies collected don't tend to be moderately extended nor do show too much of an interaction between users.

I think all styles of threads are appropriate if made at the right time, by the way. However it is true some boards lean more towards one extreme whereas other boards do fall right on the diametrically opposed point. Therefore, the best option is possibly to try to adapt to the board's incumbent trend while not giving up on whatever original purpose there is behind the posting.

[*Kathleen*]

I feel like I'm cheating the public of Createblog without having some sort of direct question that they can respond to. I don't feel as if there will be discussion if there's nothing to answer.

Yeah.. I don't know.. I suppose that's just how cBers are. Personally, I know that there aren't many topics in this particular forum structured differently nowadays, but I know I would respond.. if there wasn't.. a question posed at the end. Heh.

ps this post was a joke

[judylicious]

I like the questions
/shrug
and I just leave random replies

[KissMe2408]

I think people tend to do that so it doesn't feel like they are spamming or venting. The question is to ensure a discussion of the subject will follow, and people will add in their own stories as well. I personally don't care either way, as long as the topic itself isn't completely stupid and pointless, then i'm fine.


Ah, and you're lucky classes got cancelled for you. My college NEVER cancels classes, never, ever, ever.

[*mona lisa*]

<- Guilty.

Though, really, I think better discussion would come out of posting just the anecdote without posing a question. That way, you can say anything relevant to the content and responses may not be bound by the question being asked.

Wow, I completely wrote that last sentence improperly.

[gelionie]

I feel like I'm cheating the public of Createblog without having some sort of direct question that they can respond to. I don't feel as if there will be discussion if there's nothing to answer.

Oh I totally agree with that.
Providing a question seems to make people be able to reply to the topic easier.

[Just_Dream]

Hmm... you know, back THEN when I was more active, I actually followed up on threads... well the ones that interested me, at the very least. And there were many.

Now it's like I just post once and that's it. Sometimes I do a follow up, rarely though. But usually, I do go check up on the threads I've posted in, but I don't actually reply if I don't think my reply is necessary since other people tend to say something I would've said, had I followed up, anyway. You know what I mean? :P

So I guess you could say that I've become one of those people who just post once and leave? for a long periods of time? :P