I have had a tendency since my earliest days on social media where I will get halfway or more through a response, and end up just cancelling it. Sometimes I feel like I’m just being to over the top with snark or otherwise don’t want to be that kind of person, but a lot of the time I’ll decide I just really don’t care enough to finish it. Sometimes I just know it’ll be an argument and I know what the person is going to say, and just have no interest in continuing the discussion. I did it on Reddit, I did it on bulletin boards, I even did it in my teens and twenties on Usenet - and I’ll probably go on doing it for as long as I continue using this medium. I probably do it a bit more than half the time. I know that lemmy benefits from more content and I have had some great discussions, but sometimes it’s just not worth it for me.
How about you? Do you hit publish or cancel more often?
Ok, so well I made this several weeks ago and well, you know…
This, definitely.
I’d say a third of the time. I catch myself writing and revealing too much.
My Lemmy app keeps a receipt every time I bail. So far it says I’ve bailed 56 times. Lmao.
Quite often.
I start organizing my thoughts by writing them down. Then I’ll realize it’s going to be impossible for me to succinctly yet accurately convey my point.
If what I’ve written is too long or too convoluted, I don’t bother posting it, as the intended audience is usually the least likely to actually read it. If what I’ve written has too many caveats or too many points of contention, I don’t bother posting it because I generally don’t have much interest in connecting with pedants or those being intentionally obtuse/ignorant/etc.
Honestly, my experience has been that this place is mostly just a slightly different iteration of the same shit as the alternative it is modeled after when it comes to discourse. And I have minimal interest engaging in much of that. So, definitely more likely to lurk and/or to bail on a response than to actually post here.
I can relate to this so much. I’m active in tech support communities and sometimes there’s so many scenarios involved that being concise, accurate and still trying to sound human is quite difficult.
I’ve been trying to shift my perspective in treating replies as the start of a conversation, where a shorter post with less information or caveats makes more sense to start from so you can narrow down the direction of the comment thread later.
I realize my feelings might be highly specific to support/question threads, but your words really resonated with me regardless.
I’ve been trying to shift my perspective in treating replies as the start of a conversation, where a shorter post with less information or caveats makes more sense to start from so you can narrow down the direction of the comment thread later.
This is how you do it, put the most important details and fill in the rest if it comes up. The more words in a row the less anyone is going to read them.
I do that often. Sometimes I stop and touch grass and realize I’m being stupid. Other times I realize I’m just wasting time, or just repeating what someone else said. Like yeah, my opinion matches up with someone else’s, but it isn’t helping the discussion any. Or other times I just need to chill from a heated discussion.
But usually the biggest one is when autocorrect is fucking with me and I just don’t have the patience to go back and fix just about every word I just swiped. I figure, if it’s that bad, then it just wasn’t worth posting.
For me personally it’s when discussing controversial topics, I know I’m right but I’m too lazy to get into an argument to elaborate on my points in detail.
It’s hard for me to self evaluation how often I’m right but if I’m asserting something with confidence I hold myself to rigorous proof.
If I’m just chatting about beliefs it’s a bit different but if I’m asserting something as fact I try not to say anything I can’t show the receipts for to check myself for misinformation.
If this process is too much work I just say nothing.
40% I’d estimate, I tend to write very long and in depth comments and will realize either I dont care enough about the subject to finish my statement or argument point, or I’m likely being baited by someone who doesnt care about having a genuine exchange of ideas and just wants to be “right”.
im so glad you asked this question. i cant tell you how many times i-
actually never mind
I even do this in real life. I do this thing where I say my whole next phrase between my teeth and only then I say it out loud and almost 50% of the time I don’t repeat it out loud.
More often than not, I hit publish, but I definitely hit cancel sometimes. Sometimes it’s because it’s not worth arguing, but sometimes, I realize I don’t really have anything worthwhile to contribute and should probably just stfu
I write a response. Reread to make sure it’s exactly what i usually write, first 25% on topic, rest completely off. Then i delete 75% and hit post lol
“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
I’d say I post about 1/30 responses I make.
Do you write a lot of responses, or just do a low amount of bailing?
All the
I still catch myself in the process of replying to someone who is Wrong On The Internet, but for the most part I just let it go. It still bothers me, but I’ve accepted that nothing I say on a webforum is going to change any hearts or minds. Nowadays I mostly post to try and give people a cheap laugh.
I used to do it a lot.
Typically this would be responding to someone being provocative.
I decided that they were angry people just trying to make other people angry.
So now I write articles mocking them.
I am much more relaxed now.I… nevermind…
