to ask why is it frowned upon to remember things some posters' say

[fluckered]

without actually doing a search, why is it not ok to perhaps ask a poster who previously posted for example "I have twin boys both starting school son" who then asks for advice on how to adopt for example as they don't have children .... "hang on a second, I thought you said last week you have twin boys". why is this frowned upon? people are accused of doing advanced searches when some people actually have a good memory or remember a thread as it resounded more for them than others ... and are asked "eh, what has that to do with this thread". am genuinely asking. wouldn't be for someone following a poster around and tearing shite out of everything they post ... but why cant a poster's posting history be questioned if there are obvious inconsistencies?!

Ha! i suppose i am limited in my imagination. I just can't see what you'd get out of fibbing to strangers on the internet.

Who knows, I have been here since 2006 (I remember when all this was fields...)

People make shit up.

Which is OK, until they get their stories tangled.

I used to get frustrated with people who just repeat the same mistakes again and again and again and seem helpless to change anything. I don't anymore, it isn't worth the energy.

People are either asking for advice or validation, very rarely both.

And some people are just attention seeking for whatever reason.

I can't see the point in dragging up things from years ago (and I've been around for eight years so could in theory go back a way if my memory supported it) but when you have a couple of 'lively' discussions with the same distinctive OP in your 'threads I'm on' and they appear to be contradictory it is a bit hard not to notice, and having noticed not to comment on it.

Not nice when everyone piles in though, and perhaps that's more the problem. I didn't know that those Zeebruger threads were all made up - what a lot of energy to use on bullshitting! I suppose it must have got a bit addictive. There have been some really odd posters at times here (do people remember the washing themed person, those were fun!)

I don't recall the Zeebruger ones.

There was a poster who I 'knew' for years and it was like a slow motion train wreck, she just couldn't see that she was the variable - years and years and years of the same frustration.

Morloth

It is still on the boards

There were people on the thread crying and people reading it who knew people who'd died. People were getting really emotionally involved and investing in it. Taken as a whole it reads like a bad Victorian Melodrama.

Ah, actually quite well written.

Best to be a cynic.

TheWickedBitch - I have realised someone was lying on here - it is possible. For example, if someone said, "I'm a teacher and teach 5 year olds..." in an effort to win an argument, then within a week or two is saying, "I work shifts and I'm on nights at the moment" then you might assume that both those statements aren't true, mightn't you?

I have something important to say - if you put chocolate in the fridge (like I'm having to at the moment, there was a melty lindt incident last week) and it tastes of nothing, you're eating the wrong chocolate

Wrong chocolate. Isn't that an oxymoron?

nice chocolate (e.g. Lindt dark chocolate with caramelised hazlenuts) doesn't go all horrible in the fridge.

Crap chocolate - Cadbury's/Galaxy - does.

That is exactly the bar of Swiss choc I gave away. A big one.

Exit, that's so tragic

Had to send DD for a unexpected sleepover and it was all I had to hand to send with her.

And my dad is keeping his huge bag of bite size toblerones to himself.

How can I have been to Switzerland and have no chocolate

I'm too tired to lie. It's far too much effort when you have a non-sleeping baby. For the same reason I'm unlikely to remember what people have written previously. I'm very impressed by people who do remember - TSC seems to have an eidetic memory, so if she says something happened I tend to believe her.

Sadly I've become very cynical about a lot of stuff on MN. I used to take a 'benefit of the doubt' approach, but have realised that if it is a troll I will still have expended time and energy on someone who is at best, a fantasist and at worst an emotional vampire. Sweaty-palmed wankers are generally easy to spot for even the most gullible so I don't count them.

Lindt does a really nice salted caramel chocolate at the moment. I have some of that in the fridge not for long. It can take refrigeration. Try, try...

if someone said, "I'm a teacher and teach 5 year olds..." in an effort to win an argument, then within a week or two is saying, "I work shifts and I'm on nights at the moment" then you might assume that both those statements aren't true

You might, or then again they may be in a similar position to a friend of mine (not a MNer) who works PT in a school but has had to get a second, unrelated job in the longer holidays because their DP has lost his job. If the "within a week or two" coincided with the start of the summer holidays, for instance, then in my friend's case both of those statements could be true (well, she teaches older than 5yos but the general principle is sound).

I'm being slightly disingenuous as I appreciate this is an unlikely, albeit not impossible, interpretation of that specific example but it does highlight the dangers of assuming 'liar' or 'troll'.

No, that was an example, but not the real situation. The two jobs she mentioned just weren't compatible. Both were designed to allow her to win points.

I think its because sometimes something you post about is quoted back on another thread and taken out of context or used in a particularly nasty way to make another point.

I don't think it matters if 'points' is all she won, but it matters when people are getting upset and feeling put down.

I've occasionally seen people make claims where I can tell, and anyone who knew the topic well could tell, that they are at best rather exaggerating what they know, and at worst making stuff up. And that's fine, so long as it's not a topic where someone is invested in it, or where someone is actually taking serious advice.

I know we all know you can't trust people on the net, but trolls/liars prey on the people who are a bit new to all this or who've got sucked in, don't they?

It's the double standard for 'remembering' that I find difficult. I commented on something a while back and got a right slap down from someone who said that 'in so-and-so's circumstances' I should be more sensitive. And I felt a right twit, as I should have done, because I didn't know her circumstances and they were awful, and if I'd known I wouldn't have posted as I did.

So quite obviously, most people do remember stuff.

It is better to stick to what the OP is saying and leave it at that, generally, but there's always a few exceptions.

Wow, don't know where that came from TheWickedBitch.

I said that the example wasn't a teacher. It didn't bother me that the woman was lying; why would it? I just noticed it, that's all.

I'm far more bothered about the way you've just spoken to me than I am that a woman was lying about her job to gain points in an argument.

Posters are real on here, you know. It's not just words on a screen. When you speak to someone nastily, then yes, it has an impact.

I agree with imperial, I think it can matter a lot. Especially as you can often see that other people are emotionally invested, even if you're not yourself.

Imperial, I have been a teacher and worked night shifts in a factory suring the holidays.