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Otto's Journal: Reading the 'backlog'
Otto Fisch ("Stop analysing Strava.... and cut your hedge") Started conversation Dec 2, 2011
Interesting (to me, at least) question of netiquette... is it acceptable to just post in a thread without having read the "backlog"?
I know we've got some huge mega-threads on the site that have been running since before the dawn of time. In such cases, it's probably fair enough. Similarly with other huge threads that aren't so old.
But isn't saying "I've not read the backlog" and then posting a bit like saying... "I don't care what anyone else thinks, but here's what I reckon". Discourteous? I think so. While I'm not sure I'd expect a new contributor to go through and take detailed notes, I think a brief skim-read is really the minimum required. I'm not even sure that "backlog" is a particularly respectful phrase. It is a 'log' of posts that to 'back', but generally the term 'backlog' does not have positive connotations.
Every time I read:
"I haven't read the backlog, but..."
I feel like responding with.
"Well, I have read all the contributions so far, except yours"
I won't, though.
To be clear...
(1) This post isn't aimed at anyone in particular - a lot of people do/have done this
(2) Responding to this with a post that begins "I haven't read the backlog" probably counts as irony, but is - alas - rather predictable. And don't pretend you weren't considering it.
Otto's Journal: Reading the 'backlog'
I swear I wasn't considering it 
(but there's not much of a backlog admittedly).
I think the practice ranges from cheeky to discourteous. Some people can get away with it depending on what they're saying and how and why. But I agree just turning up and ignoring what everyone else has said is rude.
Sometimes people just reply to the OP, which is a somewhat different thing I think.
Otto's Journal: Reading the 'backlog'
Otto Fisch ("Stop analysing Strava.... and cut your hedge") Posted Dec 4, 2011
I guess that's true. If the OP is something like "what's your experience of X", then it's probably not so bad. But even then, given topic drift, I think it can be discourteous.
Something I'm trying to do more often is name check other people's contributions and make links between what they've said and what I'm saying. It's easiest to do this when disagreeing, but I'm trying to do it more often when agreeing.
I'm also trying to stop feeding trolls, unless there's a wider point to be made.
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Otto's Journal: Reading the 'backlog'
- 1: Otto Fisch ("Stop analysing Strava.... and cut your hedge") (Dec 2, 2011)
- 2: kea ~ Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded but very well read blue and white website (Dec 2, 2011)
- 3: Otto Fisch ("Stop analysing Strava.... and cut your hedge") (Dec 4, 2011)
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