Re long opening posts

[Arbesque]

Anyone else find they just click off threads when they see a long expanse of green? I realise some posters are anxious to pre empt accusations of drip feeding or the obnoxious behaviour of some posters who deliberately misunderstand an op so they can kick the boot in.

But some opening posts read like a never ending saga.

I tend to just skim read them. I mostly get bored half way through if there's a lot of unnecessary detail and click away.

I figure there's enough people on here willing to plough through them without my sage advice.

Sorry OP, I can't comment as you haven't given us enough information?

Are you a SAHM, step parent or man? If so you're wrong.

I give up. I don’t think it is the length but the structure that makes them unreadable. The OPs often don’t get to the point until the end. At which point you would have to reread to see why any of the information provided was relevant. It often isn’t.

It is best to skip to the end to try to see what they are trying to ask and then you can usually make better sense of them. TBF they are so badly written it is a sign they are probably real.

The medium sized ones padded out with a lot of emotive and flowery context scream a troll with a sad belief in their creative writing skills. Trolls generally learn the right level of information to include depending on the situation.

Drip feeders are usually trying to validate a position they have taken and withhold and change context to get that validation.

Some platforms take one's carefully crafted and paragraphed post and just jam all the text into one huge wall, so annoying. Not all walls of text are created deliberately.

Quoting the OP drives me crazy! That’s not what the quote function is for!!

Quoting a comment so that your reference or reply to it makes sense is fine, of course, but there is NEVER any need to quote the OP as everyone already knows that’s what’s being discussed.

JUST STOP IT.

Need to go lie down in a darkened room now...

Particularly annoying is when this long, long story is deliberately vague about the sex of the partner. I don't give a flying fuck about gay relationships, so skipping around the sex of the partner is so irritating. Mnetters are grown up and don't judge. And yes, I can't be bothered to read war and peace about how DHs friend picked up peas with their knife, which is often what it boils down to.

A very long OP usually either:

• puts me in sympathy with the other person involved, because the OP is usually overcomplicating the story as much as they're overcomplicating the real life situation.

• relates a tale where the other party is so way, WAY unreasonable (often abusive) that it's all coming out at once.

I can handle a long story. But when it's just a sea of text, with no paragraphs, or line breaks, I can't.
Or if someone has just written it in an angry fury, and it's littered with grammatical and spelling errors. Nope.

Oh I like a long OP. When I see "this is long, sorry", I settle my substantial bum further into the settee with a happy sigh. (Even if there aren't paragraphs, I'll stick with it!)

But then I'm a giant massive blether myself, so that suits me just fine.

To me a drip feed is when the poster adds some crucial bit of information, the crucial bit of information only being necessary when a poster isn't t getting the responses they want and they're trying to turn that around.
Disclosing information as and when it arises during the thread, would mimic the normal flow conversation imo. Dumping a load of information and expecting people to spend time digesting it all isn't and I cba to read them either.

Usually men asking about why the (ex) partner who was in their life doesn't want them despite them being a top bloke seems to need several unnecessary paragraphs to get to the point.........

I always want to reply to those men, you probably bored her to death with all your waffle.

If there is not enough information on the opening post and bits added on later, you'Il always get someone screaming "drip feed" so there really is a no win situation. However confusing posts with multiple people, she said, he said, bore me stupid.

Surely some short OPs are annoying as they are vague and uninformative and some long OPs are annoying as they're just waffle?
On the other hand, some short OPs are pithy and useful and other long OPs are the result of an OP finally getting the opportunity to get it all out.

It's just context.

I don’t think it’s as benign as ‘waffle’ when men do this.

It’s a deliberate incursion into a women’s space - digital manspreading - “I can make you listen to me for as long as I want. I’m the most important thing on this website.”

Hate it.

Oh I like a long OP. When I see "this is long, sorry", I settle my substantial bum further into the settee with a happy sigh.

Me too! Often I'm reading during lunch so I don't wanna have to keep finding a new thread if the OP is too short and there's no developments in the thread.

I hate it when the OP never comes back though.

But then the OP gets accused of drip feeding if they don’t explain everything. You can’t win.

I totally agree. Omitting to mention, until half way through a thread about not being offered a seat on the bus, that you have a hidden disability is drip feeding.
Adding, as the thread meanders on, that you once fainted on a bus, is not.
But it seems to be one of those terms, like passive aggressive, that posters latch onto and throw around all over the place without fully understanding what it means.

I know exactly what passive aggressive means. You're attacking and judging a group of people through this medium. Talking about people, not directly to them, with criticism is passive aggressive. The AIBU section is there to help others, yet you are using it to judge those others. Nice.

😀

I've been very brief and concise in the past (under a different username), and posted only the main query with as brief an overview of the background as possible, and had a string of responses along the following lines:

• "impossible to say: what are your working hours? How old is your other child?" /

• "we need more context, OP - is this usual for your relationship? What's he like at other times?" etc etc......

And so, I dutifully add in the additional relevant info that I've been asked for, and it's "well, that was a quite the monumental drip feed, OP!"

Can't win 🤷‍♀️

😂

I meant to add that, I now write war and peace in my OP, to avoid this scenario of being asked for extra info and then accused of drip feeding 😂

Yes. Basically this!

As I said, people using 'drip feed' willy nilly, often in the wrong context. Answering questions is not drip feeding unless it contains some massively relevant information that totally changes the context of the aibu.

am i the only one who loves a good drip feed? especially when it goes

OP: AIBU
Everyone: YABVU
OP: aha - drip feed which changes everything
Everyone: <eyeroll> ARGHHH DRIP FEEDDDDDD
me: oh, didn't see that coming