7th September 2018 - Text based communication

Today's Topic - 7th September 2018

Submitted by @Mushrooms

One huge benefit of text-based internet communications is often their permanency, you can post something and someone can reply to it 12 hours later. However, not everyone seems to use it in that way, and I notice especially in here that people are more willing to just start new conversations instead of build on pre-existing ones they could easily find by backreading.

I'm wondering two things in regards to this phenomena:
1. Have you observed it? And if so, what's your take on it?
2. For those who've noticed it, especially those of you who're older, do you think it's a generation thing? I personally notice lots of younger people especially have this habit, whereas older people like myself tend to backread.

Bonus: If you're like me and you do prefer to backread to find conversation threads or you primarily communicate under the assumption that what you've said will get picked up on by someone backreading, what's your threshold for server traffic on being able to do that? Do you avoid larger servers or channels simply because of the challenge they pose for backreading or do you only bother with it in smaller, less active channels and engage in the more casual mode of conversation in larger servers/channels?
Silen07/09/2018
Personally, I find it extremely hard to continue a conversation from something like 12h ago, simply because on a big server like this, drawn out conversations are hard to track and by the time I reply everyone's moved on from the topic already. This is especially the case in terms of #general where a topic usually doesn't last longer than 20-30minutes and by replying to something that was said half an hour ago it feels like I'm either disrupting the current conversation or making others backtrack again to remind themselves what was already said. However, when talking to only a couple of people at a time (private server/group chat) I find it much easier to keep long conversations going simply because you're not asked to ignore the on-going topics or divide your concentration between the old ones and the new ones. While having the ability to continue older conversations is convenient, I still find it more appealing to talk in the present-time so to speak, where you're not making a conversation about a game last 3 days. Talking on the spot also gives you less time to think through your answers, which might seem bad, but I think it makes it a more genuine conversation rather than a really well thought out essay paragraph that someone wrote from the 5th time. While arguments are important to get across, I find it more important to remain yourself and not constricted to think every single possibility through while simply chatting.
Side note: Simply looking at this channel, while it's meant to be a place to discuss things, most people simply give out their page of opinions and move on, instead of building on the previous comments. While not always the case, it sure feels like the majority of topics get ''discussed'' this way. It's not bad or anything, but the phenomena itself it clearly visible, although that might also because the rules encourage posting extremely long messages that, at least to me, seem more like an essay war rather than a simple conversation. Basically, it's a debate and anyone might find it hard to keep such a thing going when all they want is a simple and concise chat about a topic.
Mad Pigeon07/09/2018
@Silen You see, if we had any contridictions or opposing points that would be worth discussing it would be one thing, but even familiarizing yourself with other opinions is useful. This is a way to know each other better
I don't like considering myself old - Pigeon, 24 years old, but I have noticed it. I'll go answering those questions backwards:
Bonus: I prefer to backread conversation threads and I do avoid big threads as they overwhelm me. I didn't think of this "backreading" habit as a reson for it before now, but it makes much more sense to me now. I thought everyone does that and it boggled my mind why would you be in so many chats at the same time.
2: I don't know if this is a generation thing. I don't discuss this with my younger friends. I see however a similarity to the way people treat their news feed and what it teaches us to do. I wanted to make a plugin to browse my news feed in chronological order, old posts first, starting with the post I've read or the very next one. So I think it's not primarily a generation thing, but rather an environment thing first and generation thing as a result.
1: Oh, I've definitely noticed that. ))
Mushrooms07/09/2018
admittedly I don't browse general chat, but it was something I noticed even in house chat where the pace of a conversation is slow, if I say something and a few hours pass, someone else will just straight-up ignore it before changing the topic a lot of the time. My assumption is they're doing it because even if a post is right above theirs, it might've been posted 6 hours ago and maybe they feel like it's old news.

but that's just a personal frustration about trying to start a topic and getting shut down so whatever. :shrug:

I actually never read general because you can't have meaningful conversations in a chat that large, backreading is necessary for interesting topics to have any kind of development. At the same time though, as Silen pointed out, having a chat where people are encouraged to write essays for the sake of it makes backreading difficult when you just end up skimming filler.

I'm gonna apologize for that rule since it's basically my fault it exists btw. I can and will make longer posts, and originally my initial grievance was that it'd be nice if I had time to make them before the conversation in general shifted away from what I was talking about and then I just end up getting ignored because general has the attention span of a gnat. The end result was a channel with the opposite extreme, I actually wonder if the rule wasn't put in place just to teach me a lesson or something, but really all it did was make me feel like the initial gripe wasn't understood so whoops I guess.
Mad Pigeon07/09/2018
Which rule are you referring to?
And anyways I don't htink any of the rules were made to rub it in to anyone, this is a friendly kind community and it's admined in the same way
Silen07/09/2018
No need to beat yourself over such a rule, if it was heavily disliked, people wouldn't participate in these discourses, which is obviously not the case. General fulfills the needs of those like me, who prefer short conversations and discourse fulfills the needs of those who prefer longer more thought out argumental chats. I think it's less about it being a generation thing and more about what kind of conversations they prefer. I tend to talk little with people, so backtracking a log of few hours worth of chatting is hard for me, I jump in and out of conversations when I feel like it, yet I'm 22 and I can't call myself that young to be extremely impulsive. Whether it's the time or simply the mood, I stick to general most of the time.
@Mad Pigeon It's the ''use 2k characters to the limit, short messages are a waste of time'' rule.
8 September 2018
Xenken08/09/2018
1: Yes, and I think its the cumulative results of factors like little time, the desire for old-pacing, and avoiding retreading old ground on topics that could go on forever. I do personally know a few times when I've tried to backread and bring old conversations back, and whoever I was responding to questioned me as if they had forgotten about the topic before I did. That made me feel bad and kinda shrink away from the practice, and I've seen that happen to others too.

Bonus: I basically do it everywhere, although that might not be optimal? I don't know.

On the rule: It forces commitment, and I really, really like that. That's borderline necessary in conversations on sensitive topics. At the same time, I can struggle with it. I'm still learning how to write and type faster and I usually get to make up the difference by being more concise. In The Discourse I have to learn to try to avoid doing too much of that while also trying not to fill my post with useless fluff.

More importantly, I agree with Silen in the suspicion that it also really limits proper public responses to other ideas. After all, for any extra effort increase to make posts, the effort increase to filter through, incorporate and respond to other posts in making your own could be twice as much or more. I would love it if the channel felt like a debate, but it only really feels like half of one: The ratio of ideas put forth to responses in this chat is maybe 10 to 1? Problem is, I don't see a way to fix that without also getting rid of the commitment barrier that makes this chat such an asset.