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The wall o' text does make it very hard to focus, and I almost never read it, although I may skim it at times. The vague thread titles are off-putting too. You can hover over the title (on the subforum index, not the main c-d index) and preview the first sentence or two. That can give a clue as to whether you want to read it or not. If I still can't tell from that, I move on.
I skip if I open it and it is just a big block of text. If it is long and actually seems coherent, and is broken into logical paragraphs. I skim to see if I want to read more, but more often than not I end up skipping it altogether.
Sometimes these can be the most interesting posts of all! The OP is typically overly concerned that everyone understands every single nuance of their lives and their particular problems, so they tend to reveal a lot more information than they might want to about themselves. These posts tend to be full of contradictions, blame, excuses, narcissism, and all sorts of un-self-aware revelations.
Usually, the problems' solutions are right there for everyone to see: Stop being so self-focused, stop caring what people think about you, take responsibility for your actions, respect yourself more and get therapy.
I lurk at another board....The posters are quite blunt with each other. Lengthy posts are often followed by: "Too long. Didn't read."
Still doesn't stop certain posters from their long-windedness. On and on they go....If I like a poster, I might take a stab at their novel. But when people refuse to use paragraphs, forget it. I just don't have the energy.
If it's one long paragraph, it depends on the subject matter. If I am interested in the subject matter, I will click on reply and then break the paragraph up in to smaller paragraphs and then re-read it so I can comprehend it. If I don't care about the subject matter, I figure that out quickly and it doesn't matter if it's a long unbroken paragraph or a few lines.
As for post titles....meh. Some people just aren't good at coming up with titles. I don't hold that against them. I'm not going to read an entry and then not respond to "show them!!!" because they didn't use a title that was up to my standards. It's not always about the title. It's the subject matter, in the post, that matters.
Agree with your last paragraph.
My biggest pet peeve is when people write: "would of" instead of "would have". God that drives me fricken crazy! (Same for "could have" and "should have".)
OP: I believe the long paragraph (wall of words) posters are immune to suggestions. If they cared about composition, there would not be a problem in the first place.
They are not going to become magically reformed now.
I see them as having tunnel vision - they don't ascribe to traditional methods of communication and may be mentally challenged or particularly self-absorbed. There is definitely some kind of issue, as far as I'm concerned. The behavior is not without meaning.
Most of the time yes to both. I dislike small novellas that could have been stated clearly in a single paragraph. Vague titles are a waste of time and space in my opinion.
I at times can be quite long typed though depending on the topic and my response. So it does go both ways.
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