How often to you bail on a half-written post or response?

I have had a tendency since my earliest days on social media where I will get halfway or more through a response, and end up just cancelling it. Sometimes I feel like I’m just being to over the top with snark or otherwise don’t want to be that kind of person, but a lot of the time I’ll decide I just really don’t care enough to finish it. Sometimes I just know it’ll be an argument and I know what the person is going to say, and just have no interest in continuing the discussion. I did it on Reddit, I did it on bulletin boards, I even did it in my teens and twenties on Usenet - and I’ll probably go on doing it for as long as I continue using this medium. I probably do it a bit more than half the time. I know that lemmy benefits from more content and I have had some great discussions, but sometimes it’s just not worth it for me.

How about you? Do you hit publish or cancel more often?

Paorzz,

About four words in

olafurp,

Every now and then I write a well thought out post, make sure my grammar is good and that my point is clear and that there is no context missing. Then I sometimes rewrite a 100 word section because I thought my thoughts were too jumbled up in hindsight.

Then I realise I don’t care enough to finish it.

To answer your question, my ratio is around 80% send 20% delete.

thorbot,

Fairly often. I’ll get a sentence out and then

PRUSSIA_x86,

fuck it never mind

gatelike,

fook this nvm

numberfour002,

Quite often.

I start organizing my thoughts by writing them down. Then I’ll realize it’s going to be impossible for me to succinctly yet accurately convey my point.

If what I’ve written is too long or too convoluted, I don’t bother posting it, as the intended audience is usually the least likely to actually read it. If what I’ve written has too many caveats or too many points of contention, I don’t bother posting it because I generally don’t have much interest in connecting with pedants or those being intentionally obtuse/ignorant/etc.

Honestly, my experience has been that this place is mostly just a slightly different iteration of the same shit as the alternative it is modeled after when it comes to discourse. And I have minimal interest engaging in much of that. So, definitely more likely to lurk and/or to bail on a response than to actually post here.

Donut,

I can relate to this so much. I’m active in tech support communities and sometimes there’s so many scenarios involved that being concise, accurate and still trying to sound human is quite difficult.

I’ve been trying to shift my perspective in treating replies as the start of a conversation, where a shorter post with less information or caveats makes more sense to start from so you can narrow down the direction of the comment thread later.

I realize my feelings might be highly specific to support/question threads, but your words really resonated with me regardless.

chicken,

I’ve been trying to shift my perspective in treating replies as the start of a conversation, where a shorter post with less information or caveats makes more sense to start from so you can narrow down the direction of the comment thread later.

This is how you do it, put the most important details and fill in the rest if it comes up. The more words in a row the less anyone is going to read them.

Jaeger,

I find people online tend to have a lot more passion for arguing than I do so I often rethink posting any responses I come up with.

chicken,

This is what I hate the most about the practice of using a very “scorched earth” style of rhetoric focused on shaming and berating and making things uncomfortable for opponents. There’s probably a lot of people with objections but they just don’t feel like dealing with that stuff so they don’t say anything.

nl4real,

A great deal. I also don’t like to get in internet arguments a lot for the same a reasons.

WoahWoah,

I wish more people on Lemmy and everywhere else were like you.

hamsammy,

I’d say I post about 1/30 responses I make.

Kiwi_Girl,
@Kiwi_Girl@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Do you write a lot of responses, or just do a low amount of bailing?

uriel238,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

One in five, I’ll guess. I am prone to TMI, not as much intimate sharing as wanting to write about things that are too far remotely related.

I’m also prone to seguing into a rant as I have much to say I wish were said more often. Sometimes I edit those out. Sometimes I mark them as rants.

And then I am prone to mobile keyboard fatigue, and will wear out if a short explanation won’t do. I get back to it at a proper keyboard less often than I don’t.

LilB0kChoy,

Probably 50/50. Mostly because I don’t care enough to get in an argument or have to defend what I say.

Simple throwaway comments, observations, generic opinion stuff I’ll just drop it and move on.

Anything I’m really knowledgeable in though, I’ll start and then cancel because there’s always someone who wants to challenge and argue and it’s just exhausting.

b3an,
@b3an@lemmy.world avatar

Sometimes I react emotionally. Resting a reply is the catharsis to release, and usually by the end I’ve lost my steam by letting it out. 🍵🫖

ChefTyler1980,

Constantly.

intensely_human,

I cancel maybe 10% of the time

nomecks,

Far less than on the other site. I’ve been trying to commit in order to grow the Fediverse, even if I’ve got a few garbage hot takes. I will say, my shit comments seem to get way more responses than my good ones.

Land_Strider,

Similar situation with me. Although I don’t complete my comments just to help Fediverse have more in it, because I don’t think the shit stuff even I wouldn’t like to be a part of it. Not saying you do it, cuz shit differs.

The times I hit cancel are usually when I can’t conclude my arguments satisfactorily. Sometimes my argument isn’t as contributive to the discussion, whether by sounding stretched or irrelevant, or by simply sounding incorrect or incoherent in the end. I bet a lot of people realize this as well when they put their thoughts into words and hit cancel. Nevertheless, it is a commendable action to both try to form the argument and send it to trash when you realize it isn’t reasonable in forms of communication.

Mostly the reason I complete my comments and hit submit is that Fediverse feels way less toxic, has a lot wider views, actually discusses a lot different takes, and generally less hivemind about upvotes/downvotes, although they matter less here.

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