AIBU to wish posters would read the thread before replying?

[plomh]

It disheartens me when posters don’t read the facts or info the OP mentions in the OP or other posts.

Read the thread before commenting.

What’s your budget?

LTB

@Anewregime 😂

Many things are disheartening, it's a tough old world.

Are you ND?

Disheartens you, really? Don’t you mean irritates or annoys? A bit dramatic.

Was it ever thus. Cancel the cheque.

It’s bloody irritating. But if we’re asking people to read the OP, we should also stop OPs drip feeding information that substantially changes the original position.

Read the date the thread was started. Note how many posts are on the thread. Read all the OP's posts. Check if there are hundreds of posts after the OP's last post. Then reply if it still seems like there's a point.

It’s a chat forum not a job

Do whatever the heck you like. Read the title and jump right in if you wish. You might make a tit of yourself but… it is online and anonymous so really - who gives a fig.

Some mumsnetters users really do seem to regard mumsnetting as a profession.

fair enough to read the op's posts but anything else is just opinion and not vital

25+ years ago, when I first started participating in online discussion forums, somebody posted something that has stayed with me. She said only add your post to the discussion if you’re expressing a new idea, don’t repeat the same points other people have made. I wish MNers would follow this advice. Though it would mean that most threads would be considerably shorter than they are now. 😅

Goodness. On one hand, I understand why people are being a little prickly (nobody liked being "policed").

On the other hand... what's the point of commenting before you understand the facts and have read the OPs post(s) properly? It's just a waste of time (and in some cases, downright insensitive).

There have been threads with updates in the title from MNHQ such as "read OPs last post" because (for e.g.) OP was concerned about a loved one who died since they started the thread and some posters weren't checking before responding (causing needless upset).

Some threads are like 500 posts long before you get to them though, who on earth has the time to read through the whole thread? I try to read OP’s posts first but again, occasionally the OP will have posted about 35 times.

I wish folk would stop lecturing others about how they should post. Oh well I just did this.

I'm with you @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g especially not bothering to post if there are already 200 responses, what's the point. And the thread date - absolutely. I was going to comment on one yesterday and found out it was several years old and someone had reactivated it.

It annoys me when you read the op, then read the first reply and in their desperation to be first to respond you can tell they haven’t read the post at all and are just responding to the title.

Reading comprehension on here is shockingly bad at times. I know I’ve read a number of responses that all refer to a specific detail and thought “I don’t remember that”, so go back and re-read to find that sure enough, the person replying has just completely invented facts to fit the advice they want to give. Or people ask questions that you can clearly see the answer to if you were to just read the bloody op!

There are also people who seem to make assumptions, presumably based on their own situation. The amount of times I’ve read people refer to the OP’s husband when the op only mentioned a partner and not their sex or said they’re married is ridiculous. Then there’s the assumption that everyone that posts is a woman from England (I say England, not the UK, as people will often forget that laws in different parts of the uk can be different) and that they’re in a heterosexual relationship. I’ve even seen where an op says in the first line of their post that they are a woman in a sane sex relationship and still the first responder talks about the OP’s husband…

I am a little more forgiving over someone responding to the OP and not having seen a subsequent comment where they drip feed something crucial. Sometimes you can tell from an OP that they’re being cagey or that some info is missing so you know to check - but sometimes people will take it on face value. All relevant details really should be in the OP! For example - a poster will come on complaining their boyfriend is messaging their ex a lot and doing things to help them, giving them lifts, etc and they aren’t happy about it. You get people replying saying he’s clearly still into her, she should leave etc and then 5 pages in she suddenly mentions that the ex is 8 months pregnant with his child and that the lifts are to hospital appointments relating to the pregnancy, and the messages are purely about that etc. It completely changes the situation, but the OP gave no hint to it originally so they’d have a bunch of responses telling them they aren’t unreasonable.

I do get what you mean by disheartening. It’s more about the level of reading comprehension because it seems to reflect wider society. Very few seem to have the patience anymore to sit and read something carefully anymore - people want their information in a 30 second video clip and then move on.

Agree - I often wonder what motivates posters to go to the effort of writing a response that just repeats what the last 25 posters said.

But if it's that long and so many updates you don't want to read, why bother commenting at all?

All relevant details really should be in the OP!

But there are times when, as a PP said, the OP is posting about an ill person who then dies, but posters are still recommending A&E.

Or she admits she’s being U and says she’ll stop, but posters still castigate her.

Or posters advise something like ‘Go & talk to your neighbour about this’ & the OP does that, comes back & says either ‘Yes, it’s all fine now’ or ‘She told me to fuck off’ but new posters keep saying ‘Go & talk to your neighbour.’

In all those cases the posters look lazy & stupid. And saying ‘I haven’t read all the OP’s posts but….’ doesn’t help. If you’re too busy to read all the OP’s posts you’re too busy to post.

If you don’t want to read the whole thread, fair enough. But why bother to add to the thread then? If there are already 500 posts, it’s highly likely that someone else has already made the exact same point.

My pet hate is someone posts a really good point (new eg a relevant law, a specific questions) and posters then all start making the same point without acknowledging the first poster. I don’t mean general obvious advice, I mean when someone says something specific.

Sometimes you just want to go off on a tangent, give food for thought.

It is an anonymous chat forum that will include many completely made up threads. Not everyone takes it that seriously.

Indeed. Many people are here for entertainment purposes.

Yes Sir!