Ways to Make People Ignore/Dismiss Your Posts

UrQuan

I see a lot of posts and threads on the forums that, frankly, I just automatically dismiss, and I'm sure lots of other people do too. I thought it might be interesting (and possibly useful) to gather a list of things that inspire people to ignore or dismiss posts rather than bother with actually reading them and considering the content.

So here's my list of what makes me ignore and/or dismiss a post out of hand. Please note: I'm not going to claim that I have never been guilty of any of these bad posting habits myself - I try not to do any of these things, but I'm not going to pretend that I'm always successful in that.

• A TITLE THAT'S ALL IN CAPS - I'm not reading your thread. Sorry, but if you wanted me to read it you shouldn't have yelled and given me the impression that you're throwing a tantrum. It's OK to use caps here and there to emphasize a word or two, but come on people, haven't you learned by now that caps is not in fact cruise control for cool?

• A super ambiguous title that could mean anything - I'm not falling for your click-bait. You named your thread something like "Really?" when you could have actually given it a title that serves the primary purpose of the title: to give people an idea of what they will be reading about. No, you shall not be rewarded with thread views for your trickery.

• Accusing ZOS of hating X or Y - this just makes you look like a petulant child. If you have a problem with some decisions ZOS has made, maybe try to express your disagreement like an adult instead of "ZOS, y u hate us?" Decisions companies make regarding games that they make are virtually never based on hating one thing or another. Odds are there was some logical reasoning that went into the decision you don't like. It may have been flawed reasoning, and you may disagree with it, but jumping to the conclusion that ZOS hates X instead of considering what the reasoning might be makes you look petty, not ZOS.

• Writing a massive post as a wall of text, instead of breaking it up into paragraphs - this one just hurts my eyes. I don't judge you as a person if you do this (heck, I'm more likely to be guilty of this one personally than probably anything else on this list - it's an easy trap to fall into), and sometimes I'll make the effort to read through the whole thing anyway if the first few sentences seem promising, but most of the time I just won't bother.

• Using a dismissive and/or insulting term to characterize a group of people - this includes a range of things, from calling PVE players carebears, to calling PVP players psychopaths, to calling grinders cheaters. If that's how you're going to make your arguments, then I can only assume that you aren't clever enough to have a valid point, and I'm going automatically dismiss anything you have to say as the rantings of a hateful person.

• Lack of understanding that your point of view isn't more important than someone else's point of view - just because you like one thing doesn't mean that someone else has to, or that they aren't allowed to like something entirely different. I don't care what your mommy and daddy told you: you are not the centre of the universe.

• Blatantly biased polls - if you're framing a poll's question and/or answers in such a way that you're clearly just pushing your agenda to try to prove that everyone agrees with you instead of honestly looking for people's opinions, then you're just engaging in mental masturbation (to steal a phrase from my high school math teacher).

• Replying in a thread without bothering to read the posts above yours - well, if you couldn't be bothered to actually read the rest of the thread, I'll be happy to return the favour by ignoring your post. Or I'll use the power of quotes to show how stupid your post was in the context of the thread. I'll make exceptions in the cases of excessively long threads. Ain't no-one got time for that!

• Refusing to address any arguments that have been made that counter your own position - this just tells me that you can't address those arguments, and that your position is invalid. So until and unless you address the counter points to your position, I'm dismissing what you have to say as being invalid.

• Trying to turn every thread into a complaint about your pet issue - go off and talk about whatever has you annoyed in a thread that's actually on that topic.

That ended up being a longer list than I originally intended, but I've probably left some stuff off.

Now your turn everyone: what types of posts/threads do you just ignore or dismiss out of hand, and why? Is this post one of them?

Edit: I've gone back and edited the format a bit to try make myself less guilty of the "wall of text" issue that I mention in the list, and that I admit is often a problem for me

Lenikus

...Wow. I definetely did not read that.
gud job, OP

UrQuan

Lenikus wrote: »

...Wow. I definetely did not read that.
gud job, OP

lol, it was the wall of text, wasn't it?

Banky71

I feel I have mastered the art of people ignoring and not reading my posts! *bows*

Trayzard

When i am not interessed in the topic i won't read the thread. Simple.

Lenikus

UrQuan wrote: »

Lenikus wrote: »

...Wow. I definetely did not read that.
gud job, OP

lol, it was the wall of text, wasn't it?

Yuppers.
Most people are only in the forums because of luch break / heavy lag / bf/gf/wife/husband/SignificantOtter/children on Netflix, sheer boredom, or some other dumb reason, they are not here to read and/or help to community, just here for the funny pictures in forums, and the occasional burn and dev posts.

CGPsaint

I judge threads by their titles. It saves me a boatload of time when I'm trolling the forums.

dday3six

Bravo...you got a bit about walls of text ironically in a wall of text

Yakidafi

I will follow thy commandments to be a good tool

Dekkameron

UrQuan wrote: »

Lenikus wrote: »

...Wow. I definetely did not read that.
gud job, OP

lol, it was the wall of text, wasn't it?

You should've sarcastically wrote it without punctuation and put the title in caps

UrQuan

Trayzard wrote: »

When i am not interessed in the topic i won't read the thread. Simple.

Well that too, but I figured that went without saying because it's not something that people can specifically avoid doing - it's not that you ignored the thread because of the OP's approach to it, you just ignored it because it didn't interest you.

dday3six wrote: »

Bravo...you got a bit about walls of text ironically in a wall of text

Well, I did say I'm often guilty of that one myself... lol

I had hoped that the bullets would do a better job of breaking it up than they did in the end though.

starkerealm

UrQuan wrote: »

Lenikus wrote: »

...Wow. I definetely did not read that.
gud job, OP

lol, it was the wall of text, wasn't it?

Maybe, this part?

UrQuan wrote: »

• Writing a massive post as a wall of text, instead of breaking it up into paragraphs - this one just hurts my eyes. I don't judge you as a person if you do this (heck, I'm more likely to be guilty of this one personally than probably anything else on this list - it's an easy trap to fall into), and sometimes I'll make the effort to read through the whole thing anyway if the first few sentences seem promising, but most of the time I just won't bother.

But, joking aside, the list format does kinda get a little hard to read when you're using it for full lines of text instead of bullet points. I mean, I know it's the autoformating you've got, but it is still a little hard on the eyes.

UrQuan

Dekkameron wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Lenikus wrote: »

...Wow. I definetely did not read that.
gud job, OP

lol, it was the wall of text, wasn't it?

You should've sarcastically wrote it without punctuation and put the title in caps

Honestly, I considered doing something like that...

I forgot about a lack of punctuation though! That's another one that should be on my list...

BabeestorGor

Agree with all of that, especially points 5 & 6.
Theres a reason why a lot of people never visit or only lurk on forums and abusive, intolerant posters are a big part of it.

starkerealm

UrQuan wrote: »

Dekkameron wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Lenikus wrote: »

...Wow. I definetely did not read that.
gud job, OP

lol, it was the wall of text, wasn't it?

You should've sarcastically wrote it without punctuation and put the title in caps

Honestly, I considered doing something like that...

I forgot about a lack of punctuation though! That's another one that should be on my list...

Lack of punctuation, lack of capitalization, use of 7331speek, and abbreviating "you" as "u", are all good ways to get me fuming at a post.

...no, I'm not thinking of a specific user, why do you ask?

anitajoneb17_ESO

You forgot the "write something I can read" aspect.

Like "OMG, WTF, they nerfed WB again, without buffing the AOE while BJ was the only valid counter-CC possible strat !!"

(Just imagining this one out of the blue but you see what I mean. PvPers seem particularly concerned by the excess of game-slang and dark acronyms).

starkerealm

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

You forgot the "write something I can read" aspect.

Like "OMG, WTF, they nerfed WB again, without buffing the AOE while BJ was the only valid counter-CC possible strat !!"

(Just imagining this one out of the blue but you see what I mean. PvPers seem particularly concerned by the excess of game-slang and dark acronyms).

Yeah, you do not want to know what I read that as.

vamp_emily

I don't mind if this person never reads my posts.

Molag_Crow

Interesting points and such. I personally don't give my topics a lot of thought, as I usually create them at the time of the thought, I guess... that's probably why they never go anywhere.

I agree with you though, but I'd still continue to... be the way I am when it comes to topic creation!

starkerealm

UrQuan wrote: »

Edit: I've gone back and edited the format a bit to try make myself less guilty of the "wall of text" issue that I mention in the list, and that I admit is often a problem for me

Well, you get an awesome from me for that. But... wow the tags are a mess now. I guess there is no real winning on that front.

Sithisvoid

Tl, Dr?

UrQuan

starkerealm wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Edit: I've gone back and edited the format a bit to try make myself less guilty of the "wall of text" issue that I mention in the list, and that I admit is often a problem for me

Well, you get an awesome from me for that. But... wow the tags are a mess now. I guess there is no real winning on that front.

Yeah, pretty much... Oh well - it's a good illustration that for many different reasons we can all be guilty of some of these

Uriel_Nocturne

Love the post, OP.

For me it's the arguments that involve:

PvE players = Crybabies/Carebears
PvP = Psychopaths/Gankers/Griefers
Grinding/Farming = Cheating

Any of these and I immediately disregard the person's post as if it had never been made. Once a participant in a conversation/discussion/argument resorts to any/all of these three, it becomes readily apparent that they've either already lost the argument, or they're just too immature to compose an actual rebuttal.

It also just annoys the crap out of me.

Edit = Correcting auto-correct...

starkerealm

Sithisvoid wrote: »

Tl, Dr?

Yeah, a TL:DR is a great way for me to ignore someone's post entirely. I mean, if you're going to take the time to think it out, and type it all up... and still say, "yeah, but it's not actually worth reading what I thought so here's a quick abstract." Then... why am I reading something you don't even believe in.

Not you, Sithis, but, you know, the indefinite author of said hypothetical post.

UrQuan wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Edit: I've gone back and edited the format a bit to try make myself less guilty of the "wall of text" issue that I mention in the list, and that I admit is often a problem for me

Well, you get an awesome from me for that. But... wow the tags are a mess now. I guess there is no real winning on that front.

Yeah, pretty much... Oh well - it's a good illustration that for many different reasons we can all be guilty of some of these

Tags are truly the bane of a forum poster's life.

SugaComa

How many people clicked this thread as they thought it would be a sarcastic title, I know I did

Zuuman

All true stuff, brilliant. Sadly tho, haters gonna hate and trolls gonna trollolol.... And this thread will most definitly fall into oblivion because it's not filled with hate and sentences of less than 4 words..

Thalmor-Nordmaster

I care not about the posts. Some of the best ones never make it past the mods.For myself I despise censorship and I despise those that condone it. That does not mean nor do I mean to infer some things should not be discussed in open forums. Things of national security (NATSEC) , personnel security (PERSEC) and so forth should not be discussed outside of a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). The controlling the narrative is the road to censorship.Freedom of expression should not be infringed. It is that freedom which lends in large part to creativity and the arts.

To the OP I agree with you on posts.

My next peeve is the using of the the statement " I feel" in a logical discussion. Many here make that mistake and so does Mr.Wrobel and Dev's/Mod's Feel is an emotional context.

The Irony of this forum is a Code of Conduct which discusses a game which has a focus on Racism.

Acrolas

I just assume everything in the forum was written by a flesh atronach, because gamers, apparently, are all evil necromancers bent on destruction.

Xendyn

Bravely done. I wish I could Agree And Awesome you.
I would add constantly negative, rabid ranting, foaming at the mouth posters as well. They do provide some amusement tho.
A sense of humor is a plus.

Alucardo

Woops, you missed one. Don't worry, I found it!

• Publicly announce you're better than everyone else by creating an unofficial thread about why people will ignore or dismiss your post

Banky71

Sometimes...not often but sometimes, out of the goodness of my heart I will ignore really awesome threads and posts just so they don't feel left out.