To think that Forum Foggers are a pain in the @rse

[estrogone]

Over and over again, I see threads where the OP is really clear about an issue or event.

Then what I call the foggers come along and almost deliberately misunderstand the OP - I don't know why they do it. They go off on a tangent and no matter how hard the OP tries to steer things back to the OP - the thread is all fogged up with irrelevant and sometimes bizarre posts.

AIBU to think it's happening more and more and to be really irritated by people who deliberately misread just so they can make a point?

God yes! There was a recent thread where a woman was upset because her friends left the restaurant after the starters that was completely derailed by people like this because she had a few typos in the op. Hundreds of posts even after she had clarified the post.

It’s not deliberate.

i used to be a teacher and humans are just not good at processing written information. After every test or exam, the most common feedback I’d give students was if you want to improve, read the question. Twice. Then read it again slowly.

so many students answered the question in their head not the one that had been actually asked.

I suspect forum posts are the same.

(to be fair, when replying I often have to check the post again to remind myself of details)

That's interesting, I have always thought it was deliberate, maybe even an incel disrupters tactic. Often it is bullying as it centres around finding something small in the OP's post to critisize their character over. It really annoys me.

But re. your post, teachers always called me careless for misreading the question in exams, ditto one of my kids, although in exam situation there is a time pressure element. I'd never connected that with the MN disrupters.
Food for thought.

It is deliberate.

There are regular posters I see here on AIBU who revel in taking carefully worded, seemingly polite digs at an OP.

It is a legacy of the myriad of players who over the years have said that AIBU is a “nest of vipers” and that people should be prepared for “robust” answers

What that ethos has attracted are people who just want to argue with the OP for any reason whatever. They sense vulnerability in the first post so they have a little crack at something to see if it will kick off a bit in the comments.

I’m not saying that the comprehension and reading point you made is invalid, there may be a few posters who do this.

However when I see regular posters deliberately targeting a particular sentence in the OP to gaslight and confuse the person, it’s clear this is a cleverly formatted sport in which someone can ensure they’re never banned or contravene the rules of the forum, but they can disrupt the OP as much as possible to see if it “kicks off”.

This ^

a recent alligator in a thread totally derailed a thread, it was a typo for Alsatian

There are some really rude, bored people who frequent this site and who get off on harassing, belittling and making keyboard warrior type comments to people.

They pick others up on grammar, punctuation, phrasing etc and follow particular people from thread to thread to annoy and derail and, frankly, it's so immature.

An ignore/block function would be very useful.

This is really interesting - I do give the benefit of the doubt that comprehension issues are at play. I agree that sometimes it is down to this. Sadly I think more often it's just posters being nitpicky and sometimes incendiary for the sake of it.

I agree.

I think some op’s see what’s happening though and stop engaging with the disruptor posts.

That might have been funny though? I didn’t see that one but some of the funniest MN threads have evolved like that.

There will be those who just miss the point entirely due to failing to read properly - we see this all the time in life

Then there is that small percentage who are just out to harass and get a real kick from it and they do it by homing in on a minor point or getting on a high horse.

my personal hatred are the ones whose immediate solution to any relationship issue is ‘kick him out’ or ‘get divorced’ as if it’s always the best and only thing to do

Makes me hesitant to post on any thread. I am sure somebody will be along shortly to tell me that I am a hideous human being for curtailing freedom of speech.

Some people just aren’t very bright. Or they’re reading quickly and their comprehension isn’t good. Or they’re reading with a lot else going on in the background.

It was a typo for German Shepard, not Alsatian. No idea how that typo came about.

It may have been funny the first time it was pointed out, or even the first 10 times. But after the OP had acknowledged the typo, added a pinned correction to the OP and asked for advice about the actual issue, then mentioning the typo wasn’t funny any more for the next 100 times, especially people posting solely about the typo and not also offering advice.

OP, not sure if you’re on TikTok but I’ve noticed that on there, creators often make errors eg typos in captions, mispronouncing words in videos, calling a product by the wrong name etc which then results in an onslaught of corrections in the comments, along with others pointing out that these creators do it on purpose for engagement- i.e. the more comments they get, they more they get paid for that video! It’s a form of click bait. The creators know that people just can’t help themselves but to correct things.

Autocorrect has much to answer for! Some very funny, good-natured threads have taken off because of a great typo. Not what the OP means, though and I agree some people are like a dog with a bone. Boring to read for the rest of us, unpleasant for the OP.

And some derail a thread by picking on a totally inconsequential sentence in the OP's first post and pulling it apart. 'You went wild swimming? Why did you do that before a restaurant meal? Where did you get changed?' Whether it's an intentional derail or a bear-of-little-brain moment it has the same affect on the thread. Yawn.

It took me a couple of minutes to cotton on that the OP didn't really live somewhere that people were releasing alligators onto the street. I thought she must live in Florida or something. I was surprised people were answering without mentioning the alligators

I agree OP

Except that the OP was clearly very upset and concerned about the welfare of their child, who was being put into a dangerous situation by their other parent whenever in their care. The "jokes" weren't even remotely funny because of that alone.

No it was a typo for Alsatian, but the guy then said GSD (same thing). I was flummoxed at first!

It’s annoying when a post is clear but sometimes what is clear to me isn’t to another person. Sometimes I pick up message A in good faith when a poster later clarifies they mean message B.

I think a lot of posters overlay their own experience or situation and combined with failing to actually read the OPs post jump straight in. The recent post on surrogacy had a poster utterly ignoring the OPs point because she thought people were having a dig at baby care units.

It’s exacerbated by the enormous number of posters who don’t bother to read anything but the OP, even on a multipage thread, so don’t respond to any further posts from the OP or any ongoing discussion and just post the same ‘surely you mean 10AM, not PM, OP?’ for the 100th time.

The former 100%. I've just been irritated on another thread where a woman is having issues with her mum - why are you on here wasting time just tell her comes one of the helpful replies. I think it's a lack of empathy/emotional intelligence. Same as not being able to read between the lines of the problem, when the problem posted isn't the problem it's a symptom which the op can't see as they are in the midst of it but is obvious to anyone else reading.

People aren’t very good at reading and comprehending unfortunately. And they don’t read updates by the op, just comment on the original after things have been clarified. Always read the updates before posting, people!

There are some really negative and oppositional types who seem to really enjoy winding people up. I’ve seen where posters who don’t read and/or comprehend (intentionally??) the original post as the poster intended it to be understood so they don’t really get where the poster is coming from and then respond in a harsh judgey way attacking the poster. Then when they are told they have it wrong, they insist on arguing with the op on why THEY are the one who is wrong!! This really derails the thread and other posters then start weighing in on the debate based on the misunderstood argument and the poor op ends up having to defend themselves from all sides. Also there’s a lot of twisting of words and victim blaming goes on here which is really unhelpful to someone looking for support. It’s like some posters view everything they read as a personal attack and are always trying to catch posters out or something! Newsflash the post is not about you!!

I just think a toxic message from someone is inevitable on most posts especially if it's on AIBU which often divides opinion. Not that I think it's very nice but I don't think I've ever gone on a AIBU thread and it all be pleasant and respectful.

Its part of the reason I have never posted on AIBU because I know at least 1 person will say something nasty but likely way more than that.

You're literally opening up your problem to the Internet which is full of every type of human, including people who are toxic, argumentative, insecure, bullying, bitter.