I am not going to address anyone directly because I do not want anyone to feel like a jilted lily, but I have noticed something interesting about my own forum reading habits. For one, I read far more than I post. Often I do not even log in to scan through a few topics, and if someone averages about a dozen posts a day, I tend to skip right over anything they write. It did not start that way. At first I just noticed certain posters who write extremely long posts waffling on about their personal lives, their lifestyle habits, and their deeply detailed view of the world, usually containing far more personal information than anyone would ever ask for on an anonymous forum. Then there are the snarky smug types who appear in nearly every popular thread like a mosquito at a picnic, dropping a little off topic jab that is of no use at all and apparently hilarious to them, but no one else. Eventually I started paying attention to the usernames I was automatically scrolling past. A pattern emerged. Many of them are obsessive posters who seem to appear in every popular thread, sometimes firing off three or four replies in rapid succession, arguing, bickering, hijacking, and generally poppycocking their way across the forum. Sometimes it even starts to feel like certain threads have quietly turned into a two man conversation where two of these regulars are going at each other and everyone else is just sitting back and rolling their eyes. Which got me thinking that there might actually be an unwritten forum law at work here. Somewhere around the 10 to 20 posts per day mark, a strange phenomenon occurs where the human brain simply stops reading anything written by that person. In fact, the opposite of what they probably intended starts to happen. The more they post, the less one really notices what they say. It also makes me wonder what the daily routine behind it all looks like. Do these chaps go to bed at night thinking about what threads they will tackle again in the morning? Do they sit down with a coffee at sunup and settle in for another solid eight to ten hour shift of forum duty? And at the end of the day do they lean back in their chair feeling chuffed, like they have really put in a productive day’s work? Do they feel like they are leading fulfilling and satisfying lives and that they have found their true source of happiness? Or are they oblivious to what they are doing? Many do not even seem to reside in Thailand, so I am just trying to get my head around the mindset here. Presumably there is no self loathing and it never occurs to them that they could be doing more productive things with their time. Well, I keep it simple now. If someone shows up everywhere posting like it is a full time occupation, I just skip their posts entirely. It is nothing personal. It is simply an efficiency strategy. Apparently the secret to being read more on a forum is surprisingly simple. Have something useful to say and post less. lol.
