Posters bogged down in minor/irrelevant detail

[StillCoughingandLaughing]

I know it’s not a big issue (although someone will probably still reply to say ‘Is that really all you’ve got to worry about?’), but is anyone else being driven mad by how often threads get completely derailed by a minor detail - to the point you get more questions and comments about that than the actual issue?

I don’t want to make this into a TAAT, but a couple of examples:

There was a woman whose husband had claimed she was being rude because she’d had a glass of wine while cooking and hadn’t come to find him in a different room on the other side of the house to offer him one. The OP happened to mention that the wine had been open for about three days - basically to emphasise that they weren’t big drinkers. Cue post after post about ‘You leave wine open for three days?!’ ‘That wine will be undrinkable!’ ‘Actually wine is okay for about a week once opened’. ‘No, it says on the bottle drink within three days, and even that’s too long IMO’. It doesn’t matter!!! Answer the bloody question!!

An older one I found the other day - a dieting woman desperately wanted a treat day at Burger King. Instead her husband made her a bacon and egg sandwich so that he wouldn’t have to go out again. Again, genuine answers to the question bogged down with ‘Why didn’t you just get the BK while you were out shopping?’ ‘Didn’t you smell the bacon cooking?’ ‘What were you doing while he was making the sandwich? Didn’t you wonder where he was?’ It. Doesn’t. MATTER!!!!

Why?! Why can’t people answer a simple question without picking over minor bits of the carcass? At worst, I feel it’s low-level, disguised troll hunting. People don’t want to say outright ‘You’re a liar and I don’t believe you’ for fear of getting their posts deleted or being banned - so instead, they find fault with a minor detail, hoping to imply that this tiny discrepancy means the entire post is an invention. I suppose ‘Why did it take you 30 minutes to walk back and collect the bag you’d forgotten when you said it only took you 20 minutes to get home? ’ leaves much more room for ambiguity than ‘This is the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard in my life’...

I’ll go for the non ironic answer. I agree with you OP. It’s so passive aggressive. And I really hate when the grammar police come out. I get that bad grammar is annoying but it’s just a bit mean. When people use Ddog or Dcat, it grinds my gears to the point that I’ll stop reading the thread, but I’d never dream of point out my own foible to a poster.

*pointing 😳

Me too Floral

I don't understand why they do that Sparklingbrook, the amount of people asking for relationship advise on AIBU seems to have increased, I can only imagine there have been a lot of new members since lockdown.

Hahaha I actually have a friend like this who grasps onto minutae detail, and will ask a random question mid-sentence. I love her to bits but when she does this it's very annoying.

@DrDavidBanner

Me too Floral

I don't understand why they do that Sparklingbrook, the amount of people asking for relationship advise on AIBU seems to have increased, I can only imagine there have been a lot of new members since lockdown.

Yes, I have noticed that as well. Everything in AIBU, I wonder whether some people know there are specific topics or that the AIBU Topic is a bit of a joke?

I got posts saying "Yeah, right, course it was" for a very minor detail on a thread of mine a few weeks ago. They were clearly insinuating that since I'd made that up (I hadn't), then the whole thread was made up too.

Thank you @Time40

@StrippedFridge

I cannot abide it when two posters get into a random back and forth argument for pages and pages over a misunderstanding of what one of them meant. Often with several flounces but then coming back for more because they absolutely must have the last word. It always seems to be on the threads where the OP desperately needs help.

I hate that, takes up pages of crap that nobody else wants to see. It's embarrassing for the 2 knobheads involved. Even on light-hearted threads, you get a pair of knobheads going at it.

Also the Covid ones, no need.

You do know not all of us live in England? Our Burger King has been locked down since1893.

Did you write the OP from your phone?

What was the question again.

I get annoyed when a humorous, interesting or informative thread gets bogged down with people arguing over minor details. Any thread which includes a post saying ‘I didn’t know X was pronounced this way’ is guaranteed to have endless posts with people arguing that their accent is the only correct one and therefore banal MUST rhyme with canal.

You need to use paragraphs better.

That drives me mad too OoohTheStatsDontLie

The other two I’ve noticed since March have been berating the OP for sticking their head out during a pandemic and any casual mention of a teacher on a thread brings with it accusations of the threads purpose being for teacher bashing.

Thank goodness for the Hide Thread function.

@NurseButtercup

Hahaha I actually have a friend like this who grasps onto minutae detail, and will ask a random question mid-sentence. I love her to bits but when she does this it's very annoying.

Me too! I think that's one of the issues there are more of these people about that we realise - and they all love MN!

I like it and loathe it. It's really funny sometimes and makes the thread better but other times it distracts from people really focusing on the OPs actual question.

I opened this thread because I'd just experienced this on the previous thread I was reading - OP has a DS in trouble at school with sub teacher. She wanted to discuss the merits of students being punished without being able to 'give their side of things'. And half the posts latched onto a debate about whether teachers off sick with Covid need to provide work for the class for the substitute to supervise.

In normal conversation you go off at a tangent, and different things get discussed. Even the wine thread if I was describing that with my group of friends one would probably go hang on a minute-wine in the fridge for 3 weeks Sparkling?' and we would laugh.

Just skip past the posts you don't think add any value to the thread?

Ugh, the way some posters latch on to the smallest detail you'd think this place was a massive police interrogation rather than a chat forum 🙄 I've been here on and off (with various usernames) for years but every now and then I need a break from the relentless fuckwittery for a few weeks. You really have to mind your Ps and Qs in this place, dotting every i and crossing every t or you get jumped on 😬

I had the summer off from MN, I think it's exactly the same as it's ever been. It's a Talk Forum, not an emergency service.

Somebody once questioned a post of mine on the basis that I had mentioned picking blackberries that same day and her blackberries weren't ripe yet

YANBU

Should there have been a space after the slash in your thread title?

Never sure about slash-spaces.

The one that gets me is when someone asks for help about maintenance. Immediately there will be someone saying they got by on a fiver from their ex, and that the OP is greedy if she makes a fuss.

@Anycrispsleft

Somebody once questioned a post of mine on the basis that I had mentioned picking blackberries that same day and her blackberries weren't ripe yet

That really is next-level troll hunting (not suggesting you're a troll, btw).

There wouldn't be anyone on MN if irrelevant points, non answers, keyboard Hitlers, and meandering airheads all ceased posting.....