It does seem to me that here and on other internet discussion-based forums as well that there are indeed some people who post just for the sake of posting, especially newcomers who are trying to increase their post count for whatever reason..... As I mentioned earlier, back in the old days of Usenet and Bulletin Boards, bandwidth was an issue, never mind wasting other people's time, so that posts that quoted several paragraphs and then simply added, "I agree!" were strongly frowned upon, and equally so were one-liners that really did not contribute to the discussion as a whole and were (and are) considered by most readers as meaningless. Several brief posts all within a short space of time which all say essentially nothing significant or saying something which could have been successfully combined in one post as opposed to three or four definitely were problematic back in the Usenet days and I suspect still are on many of today's current Internet forums. I suppose the crux of the matter is what exactly IS considered "meaningless," and by whom, and in what context.
As an example: if on here I were to announce that I am planning to watch a particular television show this evening and then in two or three or more subsequent additional posts also add the reason in which I'm interested in the show and mention the time frame and then talk about other things tangentially related to the show -- well, IMHO that is probably going to be totally meaningless to most participants on MR, even if I included the info only in one post. This isn't something like members participating in a thread talking about the Grammys or the Golden Globes or the Oscars or another major TV event.....that's in a whole other category. In my example I'm just talking about posting about some ordinary show.
On another forum in which I also participate the information that I am planning to watch said television program and why and such would probably be somewhat more welcome, particularly if it were a forum devoted either to that particular show or to someone who was to make an appearance on it, but even then, two or three posts or more where really one complete one would have done in the first place might again be frowned upon, more related to the time-wasting factor. We all know the internet is a time-sink, a time-thief, that even in spite of the best intentions or the most urgent of other things to do in real time, that it is all too compelling to "just get online for a minute or two...." Funny how that minute or two turns into fifteen, thirty, or more minutes...... Posts do add up, but the question is, do all of them really count (in the sense of actually meaning something) in the overall scheme of things?
Huh, I daresay Usenet trained me well!
Oh, and then there are the really wordy ones like me who take up people's time by writing lengthy posts! Guilty as charged.....
