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Greetings earthlings (and others, I'm sure there's a few others around here)
While I haven't even properly introduced myself, I'd like to add my .04 to
this thread at this time!
> Very often, I will just highlight someone's creation as a non-verbal stamp
> of admiration. If I don't reply, it very often means that what I thought
> about the issue has already been said, and I don't want to come across
> as redundant.
Speaking as someone who has posted MOC's and seen little if any
response, I would say - Reply. Even if it's just "Wow, that's pretty
cool" it makes a difference. Simply highlighting/spotlighting the
message isn't always obvious to the author. To someone who's timidly
offering their MOC for public review, it's never "just noise", IMHO.
Speaking as someone who has just started posting recently (and only
begun LOOKING at Lugnet in the past few months), there have been
many times I wanted to say "Hey, that's pretty cool" or "Dang, that's sweet!"
but was not registered to post. Wanting to just say "That looks cool"
is not enough to make me want to read through the posting rules, etc etc.
So, for the lurkers out there, of which I was one, many times we look
and admire and enjoy what has been done, yet have no voice to give
any feedback.
> But I want to hear what others think about the issue - when does one post
> and when does one hold off? Because I'm a member, I don't deal with the
> e-mail reply problem, and I understand that this might keep others from
> posting. But what else?
Even members have to deal with the e-mail reply problem, if they don't
use the web interface to post. I typically use the web interface to
start a thread, but since I use the newsreader mode to stay current in
the various groups, it's usually easier to use that for followup -
which means I have to deal with the e-mail thing. I think most people
(if I am anything to go by) are just too busy or lazy to reply.
Even AFTER registering to post, I still often could not reply. Why?
I registered with my HOME E-Mail address, though I more often READ from
work. For people asking questions, this meant that I shouldn't bother, someone
else will answer before I get home to go through the E-Mail response thingy.
I think the extra steps do make the "busy or lazy" aspect show up Tenfold more
then they would without it. I have even made posts from work which I declined
to post when I got home, as by then I felt I was just making "filler noise".
I have never liked the "me too" aspect of posts.
Personally, my posting habits, without this discussion, would most likely be
like Pawel's, though maybe even not so much rule #1. I would probably NOT
post a "Hey, that's cool" response to every pic. posted. I WOULD post for
any one which really did impress me, or one where I could actually offer
constructive
criticism (or at least what I though was constructive criticism ;) ).
As for the points Bill made about "To someone who's timidly
offering their MOC for public review, it's never "just noise", IMHO." and
"I think that if more people post "gee what a cool MOC" messages, more
people will be encouraged to post their MOC's, and that can't be a bad
thing." are TOTALLY true though. While I most likely would NOT respond
to every post with a "gee that's cool", I know that if _I_ posted something,
I would feel that much better about it if people DID post that. Of course,
after
a discussion like this, I would forever wonder if people really DID like it,
or if
they were just being polite. That is the reason I would normally post when
I am truly
impressed, not all the time.
Also, I would like to hit on some of Eric's points. Now remember, these
are views of someone just coming into a new community, as I am not an old
LUGNET'er.
1. When a person makes a post about a MOC give some feedback!
I think that was covered. I know I would like Feedback, though I am one
that would
probably only give feedback on certain points.
3. When you make a post about a MOC and someone replies to the post you
oughta reply with a thank you! If you take a look in .Mecha almost all of us
have a double line going straight down the thread: reply to the original
post and a thank you for the reply in return. Think of it like if you were
standing right in front of someone and you said hey! good job and they look
right at you and say nothing.
That does seem like common courtesy, though seeing a "Thank You" to every
compliment is something that I've never liked. I could agree half way though.
If a few people all comment, thank them all at once, and if maybe respond to
all the points made in one single reply?
5. One thing that always bugs me is that when someone makes a MOC and
another person jumps in to excercise their opinion about some point in the
thread that has nothing to do with the MOC or evan aknowlegding the original
message.
I can half agree with that. It is perfectly natural for topics in a thread
to wander.
It has happened since, well, forever! I do think it is good to change a
topic when
the thread leaves what it started as though. This is good for 2 reasons.
First, the
person who started the thread can see that those posts are not really
related to what
(s)he started, and can at least know not to expect anything wonderful about
their
post (build up the expectations and shatter them with a totally off topic),
and people
reading the thread can stick to reading the part they want. More on point
2, it helps
for LONG threads especially, as if a topic has wandered for 30 posts, someone
trying to piece together something from the beginning can know when and where
to STOP, instead of sifting through 20 off topic posts and finding nothing
out that
they wanted.
7. I don't know this for sure but it seems like certain groups don't post
outside their own forums, it seems like if the post isn't in thier group it
doesn't matter to them. Of course there is the issue of the quantity of
threads and it being difficult to reply to them all, however, I still see
close nit groups with no care for others outside of their own forums.
I barely have time to stop by and keep up with what's happening in the Castle
area. I also have NO experience with things such as Trains or Technic. I can
certainly understand why others only post in their areas. Heck, I would never
have seen Erik's post if it wasn't in a thread linked from the Castle forum!
Also, I am reading via a News-Reader. In the News Reader, Castle and
Castle-World are 2 different groups! I would hate to see what subscribing to
even more groups would be like :)
8. Having a "contest" between groups to see how many posts that group is up
on another is silly, of course group pride runs strong and that's cool, but
again different groups can come off as exclusionary when they don't seem to
pay attention to the groups around it. (ahh this point is kinda
flakey...nevermind)
Very true, and all you end up with anyway are a few people repeating themselves
and tons of "Me Too" posts!
Anyway, noone even knows who I am, so consider me an opinionated outsider :)
All this proves is that while I'm at work, I can type whole essay's about
Lego and
newsgroup postings, hehe.
plucky
p.s. - This reply would have been scrapped if I hadn't spent so long writing
it because of a couple reasons...
1) My news reader has my NAME in it, while I registered with the "News Name"
of plucky... therefore, I couldn't post via my news reader here at work (I'm
assuming thats the problem, I am going to write about figuring that out
after this)
2) My web browser remembers my HOME registered info, as thats where I
registered first. I had to nuke my cookies to be able to put the WORK
related info in. If I used my HOME one, I would not be able to post the
message until I get back from a weekend in the woods, Sunday evening! And
does the average user know anything about deleting cookies, more less what
they are (other then for eating?)
Just a couple points on why postings may be lower then most people remember
from their past experience!
3) After writing points 1 and 2, I got
Results:
Your message was not accepted
Response from the news server:
441 New Users Start Here: http://news.lugnet.com/news/post/setup/
Which is, again "User error", as I put in my real name again, instead of
plucky, through the Web Interface. I'll have to take what I learned in my
"Human Interface" class and blame everything on the interface, not myself :)
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Posting
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| (...) [...] (...) Speaking as someone who has posted MOC's and seen little if any response, I would say - Reply. Even if it's just "Wow, that's pretty cool" it makes a difference. Simply highlighting/spotlighting the message isn't always obvious to (...) (23 years ago, 2-Nov-01, to lugnet.castle, lugnet.general)
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