[HPFGU-Feedback] Re: Not reading all posts in a thread

[Amanda Geist]

> SnapesSlytherin at a... wrote
>
> >>> Is there any way that this can be stopped?  Like, a reminder once
> a month or something?  I only mention this because it just happened
> today with the "Wizard to Ghost" thread.  I quoted a page and then a
> few posts later a different person quoted the same thing I did,
> obviously not having read what I wrote.  This could just be a pet
> peeve of mine though.<<<

If it's any consolation--and I doubt it is--this is not new. This has been
happening forever on the list. It has less to do with size, and more to do
with human, internet, and geographic nature.

Human nature? People "read down" their inbox and respond as they go; if they
have a great thought, they post it; then they go further down and realize
someone else had the same great thought. Theirs is already gone. It happens.
It happened to me, as a participant in threads *and* the offending sender,
more times than I can count. Also, it is often irresistible to be "on
record" with something, even *if* someone else has said it. And thirdly,
since "me, too" posts are discouraged, a restatement of what was already
said is employed as a way to second and confirm what someone has said.

Internet nature? Email delays, the questionable reliability of Yahoomort,
etc., can all conspire to delay responses. Often the first response arrives
after subsequent ones have been made. Not everyone receives or reads their
email or checks the site in the same real time, and honestly timely,
genuinely original responses, which say the exact same thing, can be posted
by different people in complete ignorance of the other messages.

Geographic nature? Feeds on the others; different time zones only add to the
other factors. We have a quite far-flung group, and in addition to not all
accessing messages in real time, we're not even all *awake* at the same
times.

I doubt it is something we can change. I have had to get used to it, in the
same way that I have gotten used to seeing the same subjects and threads
appear many times. I either read them, or I don't. I either comment, or I
don't.  When I read them, I have sometimes found differences of "take" even
on the same quote or aspect. So there are compensations. But in many ways,
the list is lots of people shouting in the same room; there's some
inevitable repetition.

~Amanda, for herself, just me, no official opinion