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Old 07-31-15 | 05:13 AM
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Jim from Boston
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Joined: May 2008
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How NOT To Kill A Thread?

Originally Posted by Papa Tom
…I seem to be the last word in most of the threads I post to. I don't think I come off like a know-it-all or someone who is not open to other people's ideas. In fact, I crave the opinions of others whenever I post something. Still, I feel like a thread murderer. A thread can go on for six hundred posts, then I say something and everybody leaves the room.

Is it me? Am I being paranoid? Over-analyzing?...
Well, [MENTION=137127]Papa Tom[/MENTION],

I may well be the threadkiller of this inactive, short-lived thread. Perhaps an indicator of one’s Forum communication skills might be how many replies do your threads receive?

I myself though was intrigued by the question. Might I suggest you post your question to a more widely read sub-forum rather than the Northeast Regional one, e.g. General Discussion, or Fifty-Plus…we seniors tend to be more introspective and voluble.

One memorable similar thread I enjyed on Fifty-Plus was ”How Do You Communicate on Forums vs Face-to-Face.” After 94 posts it became so contentious that it was closed with this comment:

Originally Posted by no1mad
Thread has pretty much run its course, so....
.Maybe closing (locking) a thread is the real definition of a threadkill; perhaps you just suspend it.

Originally Posted by CliffordK
You aren't one of those admins that can lock the thread after your post?

Otherwise, have no fear, in a half a dozen years, those threads will pop back up with some entirely off the wall reply to the OP who has already long since vanished.
As I was going through my list of All Subscribed Threads to find that old one, I checked the threads on which I was the Last Poster (LP). The few I noted were mainly short, and often of local or specialized interest. Maybe an interesting statistic for individual comparisons might be threadkills per 100 subscribed threads. e.g. for the last 100, to keep the counting simple.

PS: It just occurred to me that threadkills per last 100 subscribed threads would not be valid since many may still be active. I guess we need a definition of thread death, e.g. how long without a reply...one week, one month, one year?

One BF subscriber suggested:

Originally Posted by alan s
You do realize that once this is out of the top 5 threads, no one will read it, and after it drops off the first page, it is ancient history…

Last edited by Jim from Boston; 07-31-15 at 05:30 AM. Reason: added PS
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