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I bounce around forums all over the net on any subject you could possibly think of when I have a minute. There are a few things common to every forum and I was just thinking about this one behavior. There are always users who seem to look for another user's previous threads/replies before addressing the current one, often even referencing the other ones to make a point or shape their (or another's) opinion of the current one.
For those of you who do that, why?
When I'm on a forum and reading a thread, I don't really pay attention to the users, just what they're saying in that thread and also to make sure if I'm replying to them that it's the right person. Beyond that, the thread is like Vegas. What happens there stays there. I don't even remember the people in it when I jump to another one because their identity doesn't seem as important to me as what they're saying.
I've never felt compelled to go look through a users posting history with the exception of twice. Once was because I had a stalker who kept following me from thread to thread and I went to their history to snapshot it to prove it. Another was when someone specifically said to refer to their other posts about the subject so I went to go look for them and then stopped because I lose interest quickly lol.
Beyond that, I don't feel like I need to know what you've said in the past (or even to know anything about you) to discuss the topic at hand presently. An idea is an idea. Even if the subject is you, I still don't feel like I need to go hunting for a back story outside of the thread we're in now. You'll give it to me if you want.
So it always strikes me as odd when someone say starts a thread titled, "Is it amoral to kill insects?" and another user hops in and says something like, "Judging from some of your other posts, I'd say you don't care about morality *links to other posts*" or "I don't get why you're asking about this when your other posts say that you live somewhere there aren't any insects!"
Even if someone is lying about something or contradicted something they said before, why does it really matter if the topic isn't about them anyway but about a concept? It's like starting a thread about interesting things in the Bible and someone pointing out that you mentioned being agnostic in another thread. And?
Do you do it to discredit the person's thread or thoughts, to force their thread to be considered only in a particular context, just to be thorough, or maybe you just happen to remember the user saying something related and felt it would be useful to bring it up? I don't feel any which way about it, I just think it's an interesting habit that kind of relates to people generally not separating thoughts from the people who have them so I was curious about the motivation behind it.
So, you never remember who someone is? Other people do notice a pattern in their fellow posters. It is especially noticeable when a particular poster is always obnoxious.
Like, hey, exactly like you noticed that an obnoxious poster was following you around.
Patterns as the above user said. If this person has a history of posting the same kinda of comments or starting the same kinda of threads, particular if they have to do with certain issues, it lets me know what their preoccupation is and I get an insight into their psychological state as well. Some posts are simply attention seeking ones. Knowing the users history prevents me from feeding into it.
I don't take part in that behavior because I find it a bit confrontational, but I do tend to remember users who've made obnoxious posts or have a tendency of whining. I only remember so that I can avoid clicking on their threads and skip over their posts in others' threads.
I don't. I care about the many people who read the forum, who can be seriously misled by the contents of posts that are either factually wrong or draw illogical conclusions from facts. There are enough misled people already (as many posts prove), and it behooves me try to keep that number from growing. Every fallacy continues to compound itself in the mind of the believer, until set right.
Sometimes, I am wrong myself, and I depend on subsequent posts to repair that, as well. I challenge those posters to present evidence that I am wrong, not just screech biased platitudes at me.
I forgot I posted this, I thought I was just thinking about it lol Anyway, me knowing my stalker is not what I'm talking about. That person was following me into every thread directly confronting me, never even addressing whatever thread we were in, just trolling me, always the first person to respond to new threads I created. I learned who they were from them stalking me, speaking directly to me, sending me messages.
They made their posting history relevant to me because it was all about me in the first place. So no, it's not the same thing. I otherwise wouldn't have paid any attention to or remembered who they were and that includes people who are generally obnoxious.
If I see someone being a jerk in a thread, I can't say I've ever remembered who they were once I left that thread and went into another one let alone bring up something external. So I was curious about some of the reasons people do. What you guys are saying makes a ton of sense, like wanting to know if it's something you should take seriously or not.
It wasn't about whether or not users are noticeable but how we relate someone's previous thoughts to their current one. Side note, even now, I'm replying to you but I don't have any idea what your user names are. I didn't look at them because it wasn't necessary. I just read through the text without looking towards the left side of the screen.
Sometimes if I want to reply to someone specifically, I'll scroll to see what their name is and write it but usually I'll just say, "To the person who said xyz". It's a habit I developed because of the theme I mentioned - society having difficulty separating ideas from the people who have them.
I've seen people completely dismiss something interesting and rational just because the person who said or wrote it happened to say or write something they didn't like before or that they felt was contradictory. People who can never get over a trait they remember someone mentioning they have, allowing that to skew their judgment of every single thing that person says.
I never want to be that person. The one who can't value what's being said or take what's being said for what it is because I'm too focused on the one saying it. So I don't really pay attention to the one saying it and I guess it stuck lol
Ideas don't exist in a vacuum. Neither do people. A low level sense of community starts to develop on a forum where people post often and at length, and you do start to recognize handles, posting patterns, someone with a big obvious chip on their shoulder, etc.
The response given to someone in the dating section on pursuing a girl is going to be different if I know that he usually posts about how women who were raped were asking for it, that he hates women, that he has never had a functional relationship, etc. And that example isn't really that extreme, as we have posters like this.
I've seen people completely dismiss something interesting and rational just because the person who said or wrote it happened to say or write something they didn't like before or that they felt was contradictory. People who can never get over a trait they remember someone mentioning they have, allowing that to skew their judgment of every single thing that person says.
I never want to be that person. The one who can't value what's being said or take what's being said for what it is because I'm too focused on the one saying it. So I don't really pay attention to the one saying it and I guess it stuck lol
You are that person. You created a thread to get back at someone that has been bothering you.
I bounce around forums all over the net on any subject you could possibly think of when I have a minute. There are a few things common to every forum and I was just thinking about this one behavior. There are always users who seem to look for another user's previous threads/replies before addressing the current one, often even referencing the other ones to make a point or shape their (or another's) opinion of the current one.
For those of you who do that, why?
They do it because they are trolls who want to bash the OP and pursuant to that end look up anything at all in their past posts they can use against them. If they find nothing specific they can use they just imply something nasty from their past posts and bash away. These people are deeply self-loathing and need to bash others in a hopeless effort to feel better about themselves, and it works for a few minutes, but that's all, then they go back to scouring the web forums for someone else to bash.
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