originally posted by: 4891morfih
Wow you people really need to provide more than a sentence and a few links in a thread.
Lazy.
Just lazy.
By the way...who really cares?
Ah, but therein lies the conundrum.
If you work really hard and try to make a really good thread, full of excellent well researched information or deep philosophical questions and
revelations - the odds are highly against you getting much attention.
Granted, there are a few instances where a good thread succeeds, but there are many more instances where it fails because 2 or 3 line OPs, pointless
drivel, political nonsense, or mindless bickering overshadows it.
In my personal experience timing is also an important factor.
Here's what I've learned - that you need to pick that perfect moment where a lot of people are online and will be online in the next 24 hours - and
there isn't any major media frenzies going on (which you need to gamble that there will not be during the next entire day) - and post it in that short
window in order to grab attention and hold it.
One major issue we need to accept (because there's no way around it), is that over half of the readership will have a very short attention span and
they will not be capable of much complex thinking for very long. It is tiresome, TLDR, etc. This is the ADD ADHD generation after all.
You have to blow their mind quickly and decisively, and you cannot challenge them too much. Of course, some members will thoroughly enjoy an in depth
well devised thread, but most simply aren't in the mood for that very often. Most people are actually in the mood to read something for a few minutes
and then respond with their opinions and ideas quickly, they crave interactivity.
I almost never admit this, but I am also of the belief that some threads (of which half of these are jam-packed with gibberish under the guise of
well-researched data, but in reality are worthless) are artificially padded with false flags and stars - to make it "look like" 300 people read it and
liked it - when in reality that's somewhat unlikely. How this artificial padding is achieved is anyone's guess, but I do know that there are certain
individuals who are enterprising enough to go tell their buddies on other social media (like FB, twitter, etc) "hey come flag my thread" and those
people will just flag it without even really reading it just to help their buddy. Which is fair-play I suppose, but I am not fortunate enough to have
an army of friends to utilize that procedure.
There are many great threads buried in these forums (especially on things like UFO cases, hidden history, etc) that got lost in the shuffle because
either they were posted at the wrong time frames, their intro section or title was not built very well, their formatting wasn't so great, or they were
simply too academic in nature.
As I said before, I think perhaps half of all great threads get flushed without being really noticed.
But if you really want to get attention here - you can simply post a few lines in your OP and emotionally shock or outrage others creating a false
dichotomy of debate. That type of thing is worthless in the end though, because it amounts to nothing. A form of this is to scour the news
stations/websites and refresh it often and then be the first one to post a major news event - this also will get your thread to the top and generate
tons of discussion/debate.
I'm not into that because I feel that it will detract from my real work here, and that's to educate people. I don't post threads often here, but when
I do, I aim to teach people something important that they either keep forgetting and need a reminder or they just never thought about or knew much
about before.
I admit that often my own motivation to create a great thread wanes as all of the complex factors involved here make it exceedingly difficult to
produce a success, though it is still possible, even with some of the most challenging subjects and complex information.
And yes, like you, I am often annoyed that the pointless lazy OP threads inundate our board day to day. But that comes with the territory in
user-generated social media where anyone can post a new thread. We just have to deal with it and do our best to work within that system.
edit
on 8/6/2019 by muzzleflash because: (no reason given)
edit on 8/6/2019 by muzzleflash because: (no reason given)