Ok, this one's a bit of a long shot.

January 7, 2007 5:01 PM

Ok, this one's a bit of a long shot. A while back, somebody posted a comment to a MeFi thread that contained a textfile the effect of "12 Reasons Why Nobody Responded to Your Post." I believe that this textfile was pretty old and came from either the Usenet or Listserv community. Anyway, I found it to be really witty and insightful, and was wondering if anybody here knew more about the origin or location of this textfile.
posted by Afroblanco to MetaFilter-Related at 5:01 PM (12 comments total)

The textfile had a format that was sort of like this :

1) Everybody agreed with you, so there was no reason to respond.
2) Nobody agreed with you, but your post was a flame so nobody wanted to respond.
3) Some people agreed, some disagreed, but your post added nothing new, so there was nothing to respond to.

....

etc.

Anybody know what I'm talking about?
posted by Afroblanco at 5:03 PM on January 7, 2007

here
posted by shoesfullofdust at 5:15 PM on January 7, 2007

Wowsers! I was talking about this with Navelgazer the other night, and I wanted to show it to him but couldn't find the thread.

Thanks!
posted by Afroblanco at 5:42 PM on January 7, 2007

From the link: 2. The post is complete and utter nonsense, and no one wants to waste the energy or bandwidth to even point this out.

At Metafilter? Pshaw. Those are the posts that draw the most comments.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:24 PM on January 7, 2007

It was probably written when bandwidth cost something.
posted by fenriq at 11:42 PM on January 7, 2007

Also, everyone posts for 1 as well.

Sample post:

Bush sucks. Now we have proof!

Comments:

I agree
Joe Schmoe

Yup
wittyusername

Worst. President. Ever.
wiwfuwwy-cutsie-username


...
posted by Deathalicious at 11:46 PM on January 7, 2007

^ case in point
deathal.icio.us
posted by de at 1:36 AM on January 8, 2007

I have to come in defense of my username. I came up with it a long time ago, way, way before I'd heard of del.icio.us. Here's proof: first use, Oct 2003. That's way before del.icio.us became popular.
posted by Deathalicious at 2:06 AM on January 8, 2007

Warnock's Dilemma is why favourites were introduced, right?
posted by chrismear at 3:59 AM on January 8, 2007

Thank you. I was trying to remember that name for this phenomena for weeks.

(I haven't searched any, I just knew I'd either remember it or I'd see a reference to it if I waited long enough.)
posted by loquacious at 4:04 AM on January 8, 2007

A nigh-on impossible achievement at MetaFilter. February 3.
posted by tellurian at 2:32 PM on January 8, 2007

Late to the party, but I was really impressed when that infamous poop thread had 10 favorites and 0 answers. Like everybody came along, said "ooh this is gonna be...something" and was quietly waiting with baited breath. If it weren't for favorites, I would have thought it was community shunning due to the subject matter. I'm proud AskMe is above than that.

We're not above making silly poop jokes though.
posted by Brainy at 6:16 AM on January 9, 2007