Conclusion: people read the topic, not the content of the post.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

So, at one in the morning, I posted the following

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6220809&mesg_id=6220809

In the post itself I ask (what I consider to be) a reasonably sensible (in the sense that "the answer is non-obvious, at least to me") question: "Is there anyone who supported the invasion of Iraq but not the invasion of Afghanistan".

However, in the title, I got the question the wrong way round, and asked a question to which the answer was clearly "yes, lots and lots of people, including me".

Pretty much without exception, the responses to the post have answered the obvious question in the title, rather than the sensible one in the body of the text.

I feel there are two morals to this story:

1) Don't post at 1 in the morning, or at least be careful if you do.

2) Be aware when posting that most people will already be preparing there answer before they've read anything but the title, and they'll probably only skim the contents of the post.

[havocmom]

1. So, you made a mistake

and so did others, in your view.

Non-event. Your OP was confusing. Why berate readers for being confused?

[moggie]

2. tl;dr

j/k

It's not just DU, of course. Take a look at the comment threads at newspaper sites, for example. It's not uncommon for the yellower press to sucker you in with with an outrageous headline and first para, only for the rest of the article to undermine that hook. You may need to read to the end to find that the headline was bullshit, but in the resulting comment threads you'll typically find numerous responses from people who evidently didn't read that far. Attention spans seem remarkably short nowadays.

[WI_DEM]

3. Don't be so tough on yourself--we all make mistakes.

[lukasahero]

4. You've been here 5 years and you're just figuring this out? ;)

Seriously - c'est de rigueur. Posts have too many words. :evilgrin:

[timeforpeace]

5. Understand what you mean, not what you say? Got it!

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. Actually, that's something else I might try to start a thread on some time.

Essentially, as far as I can see, there are - broadly speaking - two models of discussion on the internet: there's the collaborative model, where the goal is to work out what the person you are talking to meant from what they said, and as such it is sufficient that your meaning can be correctly deduced from your words, and there is the competitive model, where the goal is to prove to the person you are talking to that you are right and they are wrong, and hence it is necessary to express yourself sufficiently precisely that it is *impossible* to interpret your meaning *incorrectly*.

I think that the former approach to discussion is much more productive and relaxing, but that the latter is much more prevalent at DU (I am as guilty of it as anyone; one of the reasons I post here is to practice logic-chopping).