Re very long opening posts

[Carbosug]

Does anyone else find these very off putting and just lose patience after the first paragraph and click off the thread.
I don't remember so many War and Peace style posts when I joined MN ten years ago.

I prefer long opening posts to constant drip feeding through the whole thread!

It depends on the subject for me.

However, on a busy thread I do tend to skip the war and peace replies from some MNetters.

I really like a long OP, as long as it justifies it. I want something to read while I'm eating my lunch/breakfast so my heart lifts when someone starts 'sorry this is going to be a long one'. I don't get much out of someone just asking a one-liner question and then some simple back ad forths. Much better to have some proper stories and then people digging in with their own anecdotes, advice and debate. Sure there'll be places where brevity makes sense, but places like AIBU are more akin to the old problem pages or letters in magazines so I think a decent-sized OP is often justified. The only times I dislike it is a whole 'he said/she said' tedious detail on a very minor matter. But otherwise YABU.

I don't mind a long opening post if it has paragraphs, I really hate it when it is just a wall of text that I can't follow properly and I immediately click off the page when I see that.

Saying that I do think posters should be more concise i.e. "my ex and I have a 2 year old son. Our break-up was amicable" rather than " I met Brad on 23/01/2017 and we had a whirlwind romance. We went for dates under the stars at Bognor Regis and took long walks through Billingsgate Market to breathe in the delicious fresh fishy smell. It happened so soon but I became pregnant with out beloved and much wanted son who is now 2 years, 5 months, 22 days and 52 seconds old. One day we decided actually neither of us like the beach or fish and we broke up with heavy hearts"

They're usually tedious with lots of unneeded 'so I said to him could he not do that and then I went upstairs for a bath and when I came down he was still doing it so I said...then he said.. so then I text him this this from the bedroom...then he text...'

I hate them and usually hop on to another thread pronto. Usually they are incredibly tedious tbh.

Longish because they include all the relevant facts and avoid a massive dripfeed - fine.
Long because they include tedious irrelevant detail - can't be bothered to read.

I find them tedious, but unfortunately people are so quick to jump on drip-feeds that I can see why posters try and get everything that might possibly be relevant into their OP.

I also skip war-and-peace replies!

What makes me laugh is the rambling ones that start with "I took the DC to McDonalds (it was a one-off treat. I had to travel from A to B quickly and little Emily hadn't eaten for almost 15 minutes. Normally she'll have a lunch of Stilton, Provoleta, Reggianito with 47 different kinds of veg, washed down with pure water produced from the tears wept by cherubs".

"I got a flat tyre and DH refused to pick us up".

Ok

Sorry PolPotNoodle
TLDR!😂😂

It's a balance, isn't it? An OP which says "AIBU to hate my MIL?" is pointless. However, 1500 words going through how that person behaved on each time you met them and with lots of superfluous details is equally pointless because people won't read it.

I agree with other, it's the unnecessary detail that is ridiculous. One quite s few weeks ago mentioned they had been to McDonald's and then rambled on that they dont normally go there but it was a treat and poor Dd or whoever had a bad time.
I really had to stop myself typing ' nobody cares that you went to McDonald's!! Stop justifying it! Millions of people go to McDonald's, you are allowed to!!'

@PolPotNoodle

Please continue, I must know what happened to Brad!

I think it’s because people are scared of having “drip feed” shouted at them. Or they know if they mentioned their house was dirty someone will say “yabu for having a dirty house” so they have to give the background on their cleaning routine. And and and...

@notacooldad

Are you new here? Because I have seen posters DESTROYED for admitting to feeding a child McD’s! She was probably trying to hold the rabid quinoa mums at bay.

I don't mind if a) there are paragraph breaks; b) it's pretty concise with only the relevant details; and c) the grammar and punctuation is correct! Some people are better writers than others - I've given up on a number of posts which had me trying to figure out who was who what with all the pronouns (but then I had that problem with Wolf Hall).

Yes I suppose the drip feed accusation is part of the reason.

But as others have said it's all the unnecessary background. Instead of saying MIL is very bossy and my husband is no support, you get chapter and verse:
'so she's always criticising my housekeeping, and once she took ds out of the pram and said his outfit was too warm and dh never stuck up for me and I just went upstairs and cried and when I came down they were eating ham sandwiches and they hadn't made one for me and mil knew I was saving that ham for a salad for my parents coming over and I said to dh "she knew I was saving that ham for a salad for my parents coming over" and he just laughed'

that make me want to bang my head off the wall.

As I have the attention span of of gnat I’d forget what I read at the beginning once I got to the end iyswim.

I click off and don’t bother .... sorry long post writers.

I really had to stop myself typing ' nobody cares that you went to McDonald's!! Stop justifying it! Millions of people go to McDonald's, you are allowed to!!'

I can't say I've ever actually stopped myself from typing that

You can always spot a male poster from the ridiculously long opening paragraph.

As long as it has paragraphs and vague punctuation, I don't mind. It doesn't have to be perfect, just as long as I can see some breaks. I also pretty often just skip to the end and ignore most of it.

But if it's like and then I says to him like what are you on about and he goes Im pissed off about lets call them person A and Im like but person A never said that about you he said that he likes you but your just not really mates or whatever and then my MIL turns up and shes like whats going on anyway dont judge me but what the actual fuck.

Then, like Duncan Bannatyne, I'm out.

Saves them being pounced on with the inevitable, pathetic ‘drop, drip, drip.’

It annoys me that they appear at the top of every page. I wish people would write a short comment in the first comment box then all the info in the next.

Saves them being pounced on with the inevitable, pathetic ‘drop, drip, drip.’
Not when they put in every second of events leading up to the point. The worse one I saw gave a vivid description of her meal and added the word 'yummy' like she was 5 years old! It had no relevance to the story!

Are you new here? Because I have seen posters DESTROYED for admitting to feeding a child McD’s! She was probably trying to hold the rabid quinoa mums at bay.
Ha! not new, I've been around since 2007 but I am getting grumpier with stuff!!

Re paragraph breaks. The amount of times I've written a comment and put paragraphs in, then posted and looked back at it and it's just one big wall of text! Highly annoying!