I am so much more important than you

I'm active on a number of discussion forums, and I lurk on a bunch of others. There will often be discussions where a lot of people weigh in on a particular topic. As one might expect, different people join the discussion at different times depending on their availability, when they have a chance to read the topic, etc. Sometimes, conversation can go very quickly, so the thread can have a lot of responses in a short period of time. Now, I can certainly understand that reading through a whole bunch of responses takes a while. My solution tends to be to wait until I have a chance to read through all the responses to see if there's anything I want to add to the discussion. On occasion, I'll see one particular response that gets my attention, and I'll just respond to that one issue, or on a rare occasion, I will post a response without having read the rest of the thread.

That apparently is not how lots of other people seem to work. On so many occasions, people seem to feel the need to announce that they haven't read any of the other responses, but here's what they think. To me, that's basically announcing with a bullhorn that you can't be bothered with what anyone else has to say, and you can't bother to spend the time to actually read through a thread before participating in it, but what you have to say is just so incredibly important that it's vital you post it now, so that others can share in the wisdom of your words. Maybe it's not always meant to convey that, but it's what I get. I really don't understand the reason for announcing that you've ignored everything everyone else has to say. If you're going to join in a conversation, shouldn't you be courteous enough to know what's been going on in the conversation? Some people seem to announce that they haven't read anything else as a way to thwart those who might point out that what they've said has already been said. Well, if it's a factual point, then it's really stupid for someone to answer when they don't know if it's already been answered, and I do think it's stupid when someone asks a factual question, and 3 or more people post a response. Ummm, unless the previous responses were wrong or incomplete, there's really no need to answer again. If it's a matter of opinion, then I'm not sure it matters that they're expressing the same opinion that's already been expressed. Everyone is entitled to post an opinion. If only one post per stance is allowed, there wouldn't be much discussion, would there? Different people might share the same opinion, but their expression of that opinion is undoubtedly different.

I have started to call out people who do the "I'm not reading what y'all wrote" declaration. On occasion, people have come back with the response that the thread is billions of pages long, and they don't have time to read all that, and how could I possibly expect them to? When a thread has reached that kind of length, the conversation has run quite a course and probably had a number of tangents as well. They're now posting a response to the original post, so they're basically trying to re-start the entire conversation. They're entitled to still post their opinion, but if the conversation has mostly run its course, I would expect their response to take that into account. On a few occasions, there have been ambiguous parts to the original post, which get clarified as conversation progresses and it turns out the original post wasn't worded correctly. And then someone brand new comes in and calls out those ambiguities - without any consideration or knowledge that those points have already been clarified. And yes, I *do* think you should at least skim the entire conversation before participating. There are times I've done that and found lots of points I would personally address - to find that others have already thoroughly addressed those points, and there's really nothing else I can possibly add to the conversation without simply repeating what they've said. In that case, there's really nothing for me to say. I don't need to post something just for the sake of posting it. But, then I'm not as important as some people.