Drip Feeding

[FlynnD93]

AITA for saying GET YOUR QUESTION IN ORDER BEFORE POSTING! even if it’s long winded, get your facts straight.
I’m sat here reading a completely confusing post, users are asking OP questions referring to the confusion, OP then clarifies mid thread which makes complete sense but a lot of users are still answering the original question as not everyone reads the comments and miss the clarification answer, OP is getting frustrated obviously but she did this 🤦🏼‍♀️

I think if you aren't prepared to read all the OPs posts then why bother answering.

I agree, plus I wish people would proofread their OP - or even just the title!

Not sure whether this will get zapped as a TAAT...

The problem with a lot of drip feeds is I often don't believe whatever the massive drip feed is, as I feel the original poster is just trying to throw it out there to justify why they are not being unreasonable.

Same as reverse threads...I never believe they are actually reversed, I just think the poster doesnt like that noone agrees with them so tries to call reverse

So both of those things makes the threads seem absolutely pointless

Hmm. I will formulate my thoughts and update my post accordingly at a later date.

I think if you aren’t prepared to write a post that makes sense in the first place why bother starting the thread.

The problem that I have with the concept of drip feeds is that it's too broad. There is a world of difference between a conversational approach where people ask questions and OP thinks of something relevant that they didn't think of at first and a deliberate goady dripfeed.

Which thread is bothering you OP?

Exactly.

The drip feed is just done cos they want people to be on their side.

Cos otherwise why wouldn't you put that information in the OP if it's actually true

On the flip side, posters moan if the OP is too long.

I give up reading an OP if it's several paragraphs, however well punctuated.

Sometimes yes I'd agree with you, for example this is an example of a drip feed:

Op: My dh complains I do no housework, I just lie in bed all day
Responses: but that's a bit lazy of you
Op: yes but I'm paraplegic

What is not a fair example, is, say, the thread where the op is sad that her friends left a restaurant early; she's clearly explaining the story in a slightly confused way because she's upset and just generally doesn't have the best writing skills (because not everyone does just like not everyone is good at maths). Everyone is saying "ah but you said 2 hours not 1 hour", "well is it your son or your daughter who was car sick?". So boring, I'd been following the thread to find out how it all unfolded with the friend but it descended into the op feebly defending herself for poor communication.

The vast majority of drip feeds don’t come from the OP being unprepared they come from the replies not going the way the OP had hoped.

Yep

To me that's an obvious goady drip feed with the intention of trying to trick people into disability bashing.

The latter example doesn't seem in bad faith at all to me.

When I first joined MN I wrote terrible posts - it took me a while to get my head around it and think about what information the reader might need (especially as I was often upset as mid-break up)

That first drip feed example was me making up something that would "count" as a drip feed! The second one is a real ongoing thread where I think many commenters have been needling the op

The point of MN is to be conversational. Normal conversations, IME, tend to involve a bit of back and forth, where you describe a situation, the other person responds and maybe asks for more details and offers their point of view. You then respond to these. All perfectly fine and normal. Yet on MN if you offer additional details you're accused of drip feeding. And woe betide you defend yourself against accusations (that the replying posters have often made up) - that makes you a terrible person and you shouldn't have even posted in the first place if you didn't want honest replies.

It's because the 'drip feeding' is almost always done later on in the thread when people aren't agreeing with them. And it's something that might make them agree with OP. So it comes across as fake

I think there's more to this... will await OP updates 😉

I think people just need to be more concise. As soon as I read "Apologies for the long post", I just close it down.

It cant be that difficult to get all the salient points in a few short paragraphs.

I've not seen it with paraplegia admittedly but I have seen the equivalent of this where a person poses a question that will inevitably result in answers like, yes the adult is a lazy fucker or that child sounds like a badly behaved little shit and then reveal a disability as a kind of gotcha. At best I think it's done in bad faith and at worst it's flat out trolling.

I think very long posts are often because they don't want to be accused of drip feeding later, so they put in every little detail they think someone will ask for.