To ask if there’s a case to be made for MNHQ telling people to RTFT

[IvanaPee]

Hear me out!

More and more lately there seems to be a huge amount of posters who don’t RTFT and who don’t even read the OP’s posts.

This irritates the fuck out of me I won’t lie.

But worse, it happens on sensitive threads.

Just the other day there was a surge of posters who couldn’t be arsed reading a thread about the OP’s childhood abuse.

Today, I’ve read a thread where posters were offering answers to the OP two days after the whole thing had been resolved.

It’s asked on here every now and again why people don’t RTFT and there are always shouts of “it’s too long” or “I’m answering the question asked in the OP”.

Well, if it’s too long to read why post?

And pages and pages after the OP people don’t think there’s the slightest possibility that a thread has moved on??

The whole MNHQ thing stepping in is no doubt ridiculous but ugh, I wish there was a rule where you’re not allowed to post without bloody well reading!!!

To me it seems so disrespectful to the OP.

And the people who announce that they haven’t read it, then plough in anyway as though announcing it has justified it!

I can’t be the only one who thinks this should fucking stop! Can I??

Because I said in my OP that expecting HQ to step in is obviously ridiculous as you’ll see. If you read it

I read your Op it's quite clear youre still asking for it. I can alnost hear the foot stomping

Indeed @Sparklingbrook! much the same with a parking thread or any sort of Bridezilla thread. Hide and move on!

Yes Vladmirs, also anything with CF in the title.

It's great to go down the Active list hiding the threads without even opening them.

400 posts and 3 days ago without checking whether it’s in any way relevant any more, or whether the thread has taken an unexpected turn, or whatever, is really not that great.

When I start a thread I expect, as the OP to read all replies. Some answers good. Some bad. Some pointless.

Asking hundreds of people to all read hundreds of posts so that im not slightly inconvenienced by reading a few pointless answers would be ridiculous.

Additionally what you are all saying is that anyone who hasn't got time to read 400 posts shouldn't post as they may be repeating something. But what if they aren't?

If I ask a legal question and get 200 posts that say not much at all I dont want the lawyer who sees it to be put off answering.

as that is an inconsequential thread to start out with.

Why yes! Yes it is! Which is why it MIGHT JUST POSSIBLY be worth checking that a thread is still that inconsequential before throwing in your verdict on the OP!

You don’t even need to read the whole thread, or even all of the OP’s posts. You could just skim the last page or so and get a fairly decent idea if anything’s changed. It will take less time than typing out a reply to the OP.

Some of the problem is caused by every threads about anything and everything appearing in AIBU 'for traffic' and ending up with pages of not v helpful comments.

If I had a legal question I would go to that topic. Fewer replies but better ones.

Tell you what are the worst/best threads:

OP: Today I saved a baby unicorn from being eaten by a tiger. WIBU?

Everyone: You are absolutely wonderful OP!!!

One random poster: YABU! You interfered with the circle of life!!

Sometimes by the time I've typed a comment the thread has moved on quite a long way. However, it does get annoying reading dozens of posts saying the same thing, then the thread gets really long and people are less likely to RTFT so they post what's already been said and the thread gets even longer and.............

What if the tiger was really hungry and had cubs to feed and they could all be saved by this one unicorn?

If a thread is really long and I CBA to read all the OP's posts then I don't post, sometimes you're just too late. It's a bit arrogant IMO to assume that your opinion is so monumental that it needs to be stated 700 posts into a thread. If you weren't there at the start and you haven't read it all just move on.

^When I start a thread I expect, as the OP to read all replies. Some answers good. Some bad. Some pointless.

Asking hundreds of people to all read hundreds of posts so that im not slightly inconvenienced by reading a few pointless answers would be ridiculous.

No one is saying anyone needs to read all the posts of any thread. But I am saying if you have SUPER IMPORTANT THOUGHTS on the OP a long-running thread, that it might be polite to at least read the OP’s followup posts to see if your rare and brilliant wisdom is relevant to where the conversation has gone and in light of new information.

Additionally what you are all saying is that anyone who hasn't got time to read 400 posts shouldn't post as they may be repeating something. But what if they aren't?

Nope. Didn’t say that. Just suggested that not checking for relevance in light of the OP’s posts at a minimum and, say, the last page of posts to check where the conversation is at, is to me pretty rude and arrogant.

However if having done a skim of the thread I see my opinion or answer several times, I do remind myself that it’s not actually important to the thread that it’s me who says it.

The exception would be if OP is asking a very niche question and you happen to have niche knowledge, but that's not what we're talking about is it? It's always something like "Which way do you flip a pancake?" and the thread is full of people saying "Left" and "right" even after the OP has disclosed horrendous domestic abuse or something.

Would a rule against massive dripfeeds help with this?

I haven't read the full thread ... But I do agree it's about time MNHQ had a bit of a tech marathon session to make it easier for the app and phone users to see the OP's additional comments, which I think is where the biggest problem lies, and also for the PC users to have OP comments highlighted rather than have to go into My Mumsnet Settings to organise it for themselves.

Meanwhile of course MNHQ won't even see this unless anyone flags it. Because they only continuously monitor Site Stuff and rely on user reports for monitoring the rest of the boards.

I was about to mention dripfeeds Greenlegobox, there has been a spate of this lately usually when the OP is not liking the replies.

It just baffles me that people would rather argue against taking two seconds to get the gist of a thread than actually do it.

As PP have said; read the OP. Or just the last page.

Don’t come swooping in with your ALL POWERFUL OPINION. It’s so arrogant.

Well, arrogant on the serious threads. On the lighter ones you just look thick as two planks!

And yes, there’s been a big upturn in this the last few weeks which is why I posted the thread.

The thread that people can ignore if they’ve already read a thread on the same subject recently.

And no, it doesn’t affect me. No, it’s not ruining my life. Just clearing that up. :)

Just for balance I haven't seen any years old Zombie threads resurrected for ages, So that's good.

The drip feeding is a double edged sword isn’t it? I agree with the general point. But there’s also an increase in posters cramming in as much info as possible to their OP to avoid accusations of drip feeding and then getting complaints that their post is too long, or posters seizing on a detail and demanding to know why the OP mentioned it because it makes her look ageist/snobbish/judgey/MIL hating.

Yes true, but sometimes the OP is full of irrelevant facts instead of the ones that make a difference to the replies.
Maybe we could request bullet points.

Maybe we could request bullet points.

I’m in.

As a previous poster mentioned, this could probably be solved by doing what babycentre does by having all of the op’s responses in a drop down box underneath their original post so people can see their replies. That way they are able to see if questions asked by others have already been answered.

Something I do notice is that I’ll get an email from MN about different posts but the posts will be from the day before or some that were featured in yesterday’s email so I can see how some people may just check it out and groan at the 20+ pages of comments, read a few pages, see a few posters arguing for a good amount of those pages and just skip towards the end.

I can't work out how many posts a thread has when I open it because text to speech doesn't seem able to find how many pages there are AND iit doesn't read the date and time either. Yesterday I responded to a thread, then found out it was a few days old leaving me feeling guilty and stupid. Perhaps MN can find a solution as I'm not the only blind person here?

They seem to be generally behind when it comes to tech stuff compared to some other forums.

I agree. Mn should add a feature that shows all OPs posts in one go, so That we don't have to scroll through pages and pages looking for green etc

I accidently left an outdated reply earlier not realsing the thread was old(ish) and had moved on
but i apologised when I realised at least :/