The Inability to Hear Another Point of View

[sam_gordon]

Among friends they have the background to make such a statement. Seems odd to tell a stranger that based on one question as you have no idea the history or what they do for their children. Making inane suggestions like that is a great way to put your foot in your mouth.

This goes back to what I said earlier: some people just like to hear themselves talk. No one is forcing anyone to reply to every thread here. Use the back button if you don’t have relevant information for the question asked.

The other thing that hasn't be brought up is sometimes things get said not necessarily for the OP, but for folks who read the thread in the future.

 

[fla4fun]

Sometimes things go sideways and it is frustrating. For example, Sally posts a thread asking for opinions on which dog to get and says specifically she is looking at a golden retriever or a yellow lab and wants to know which she should get. She may even have two dogs in mind and adds details about each dog (age, disposition, current conditions, etc....)

Then people come on and tell her that she should get a goldfish and give all the reasons they dont' have a dog. And others join in with their own version of something NOT really answering the original question OR making huge leaping assumptions based on their own lives that is completely irrelevant to the OP.

Message boards can be weird.

I once asked about which laptop to purchase for my son going to college and the responses I got were crazy......here are some of the "recommendations" that had nothing to do with specific laptops.

• He's an ADULT now mom, time to cut the apron strings and let him get a job and buy his own computer!
• I hope you aren't buying a laptop and paying for his college! When I was in college (insert story of walking uphill in the snow both ways or some such drivel)
• Do NOT buy X or Y computer, their company policies are garbage and I would never purchase from them! (can't remember the reason, may have been labor laws or something)
• Let HIM figure it out Mom.....lay off!
• Please tell me he isn't doing to X college! That is a horrible college for all the reasons I am going to explicitly state here (and then you find out his niece got expelled from this "terrible" college.). Sigh.

The thing is, I didn't ask for parenting advice, I didn't even ask for opinions on my son's college. I simply wanted to know which computer they would recommend of the 3 options I was given BY THE UNIVERSITY!

So, yeah, sometimes we aren't interested in the "differing opinions" because it is irrelevant to the question asked.

This sounds like it would have been a good post to attach a survey. You could have glanced at the survey results and then done a search on the thread for the top pick to just get the comments about that computer.

I think there are generally two types of questions, those who want information about a specific thing (hotel, tour, etc.) and those asking for general information (suggest an offsite hotel, review my itinerary and give feedback). If a person wants information about a specific thing, I try to keep my reply as specific as possible, but if they are asking for suggestions or feedback, my reply is going to ramble a bit. I can understand why some people don’t want to read hundreds of posts just to find out whether the laundry at AoA is by the feature pool or a quiet pool.