a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by lil
lil  ·  4187 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How people read online: Why you won’t finish this article.

and then there's the thoughts that come up while reading people's comments that do not even make it to the reply box -- so for example, this morning I was thinking about your comment which I read last night.

Step 1 - hey I'm noticing myself thinking about b_b's comment

Step 2 - and my thought was ...

Step 3 - write it... but wait, this isn't what I was actually thinking... this is a meta-response, as they say in litcrit -- a response about responding (I have a feeling humanodon knows of what I speak), I start to write and then get distracted in a McLuhanesque way, the medium being the message

Step 4 - Delete response, it wasn't what I was thinking anyway.

ha ha, I won't incur the wrath of b_b... in fact my thought this morning was this: when I visit Hubski during the day, I first look for "text" -- what's on someone's mind today? Then I look for something with several comments: what are people saying today? My question to you: are you aware of a process or do you just skim down the headings? Note: when I open a newspaper, I often go to the letters to the editor first. The reason is this: EVERYTHING written anywhere is subjective, including the headlines, the choice of headlines, and so on. At least in the letters and op-ed columns they admit their subjectivity. Does that make sense? thenewgreen do you have a process in your skimming of your feed?

So you are right. Now I'll hit reply.





thenewgreen  ·  4187 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I go to "chatter" a lot and I go to the first global page quite a bit to see new posts with no votes. If there's an interesting post that doesn't have a comment and I feel like I have something to say or wish to give it acknowledgment beyond a "share," I will comment. Sometimes, literally just to say "wow, that was amazing" or something similar, which doesn't necessarily spark amazing conversation but sometimes I genuinely think something is amazing and have to say so.

I look in chatter for conversations that are happening and will only join in if I have something to ad. If I read something that I have a question about, I'll post that. I tend to shout-out to people when I know they'll have an answer to a question that someone else has posed. For example. I also will leave links to past posts/comments in my comments. I spend a lot of time here and have a catalog of past posts and conversations kicking around in my head and I like for others to see some of the cool things that have happened in the past. For example, remember when I posted the link to caio's post My name is Harvey Pekar to your post?

So I skim the feed both for things I want to read, conversations I'd like to join and places where I can link to past posts/comments that may be relevant.

It's fun. Lots of fun.