Why are there very few replies from the people asking the questions?
Hello,
I guess this one is more for the forum administrators as well, maybe the interface can be improved with this.
Just for clarification, this is more of a observation than a criticism.
I have noticed people asking questions, but the people asking the original question mostly do not reply to some amazing supportive answers. Some of the answers have questions within them and they are not replied to either. Some answers are great as standalone supportive replies.
A lot of the time I'm reading what other people have said in reply to the person's question and I see this amazing, supportive help and wonder why they person that written back with a reply, even when the answer has a question for the questioner, if you see what I mean.
One recent example is "What do you mean you're an agent?" I was wondering the same, but the person that submitted the question did not reply.
Many times I'd like to follow and see what the questioner thought of the answer, but there's no reply.
It's all good, if there's no reply from the questioner too, if the the person that raised the question is getting some benefit from the answer that's what matters. I just hope they are reading the answers, there's no way of knowing.
It's different when the number of answers are simply too many to reply to them all.
It's not a complete criticism, The reason I am asking is I want understand that persons situation better and find out what helped them. How things shaped up for them after, I'm wondering how it all worked out for them.
This also raises the question if replies to the answers are being read too. I guess they are.
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And my hope is that ‘love’ and ‘best wishes’ hit the same spot as ‘prayers’.
Someone else that responded to my question said, some people simple don't know how it works. They post a question thinking they're going to some email reply or a notification, but none of that happens.
I wondering if people posting questions know that all the interaction happens on the forum itself. I think many sit by their email waiting to see if some is going to reply i.e. you've got a reply/answer from "blahblah" for example and they're left thinking no one has replied to my question, this is just me speculating.
All the best to you.
Then there are situations where a poster is VERY interactive with his post and those of us answering him, giving feedback with lots of back and forth. Those posts are best, imo.
So to answer your question, only God knows why there are very few replies from the people asking the questions. 🙄😣😏😑
And there are times when I will see what I think is just pure fiction where the writer just wants to see how many answers they will get. I tend to see that increase during school breaks and during the summer time.
Also the info that anyone even responded to your question is nowhere I can see easily. Took a few weeks and then me going into my own profile and scrolling through it to see that people actually ever posted on my question - I honestly thought maybe it was just too weird so ppl ignored it. I haven't found any quick spot to check where it has notifications that anythign was responded to.
thought "questions" or discussions with 5000+ responses seem super dauntnig to me. i dont even try to check those anymore :)
Alerts might just be email-centric and I'm very lax at checking email these days, and its possible lots of folks also are. Spam tends to build in inboxes so things get deleted en masse. Agingcare sends an email daily, at this point I just log into the site, not the email account. Once upon a time email inboxes were more accessable than web-pages, so notifications to web-page updates got sent to emails. Now web-pages are more accesable than email inboxes, so... yeh.
And again no dialogues possible. The tree only goes: Question, response, follow up response. Then things just stack under there one on top of the other. It probably prevents issues which is why it is being used (like ppl raging back and forth at one another -- though you can still see that happening sometimes).
Some people respond, some don't, it is what it is.
Even today some people are social media newbies and the whole idea of conversing with strangers is a little unnerving.
The more private and introverted of us are not comfortable sharing more than the minimum.
Some people can't figure out how the site works or how to reply.
Some of us are busy and aren't checking back regularly, it may be several days or even weeks before the OP returns with a comment.
It's an unfortunate reality that sometimes people are incredibly unkind in their responses, I'm not talking about tough love but comments that are often judgmental and condescending.
And when I was first scrolling the web for answers one of the things that set AC apart was that the threads were so long and the answers so varied, almost every help forum was lucky to get one or two replies and continuing conversations were incredibly rare. AC is as much a social media platform as a help forum, and some people don't want or need that in their lives.
My first thought is...did any of these suggestions, comments, ideas help the situation? If not what happened?
I think in some cases people don't like the "in your face" answer. Caregiving and in many cases this is for people that are caring for a person with Dementia of some sort, so "Sugar coating" an answer helps no one.
As I mentioned in my answer to someone's post last week I think there are "Ostridge people and there are Prairie Dog people" There are the "Ostridge" ones that stick their head in the sand and want to not know what is next, what to do to get ahead of the situation. Then there are others, the Prairie Dogs that want to know what is coming, what to do, how to prepare for the inevitable.
Even if the Original Poster does not read the answers or comments there are others that may have the same questions, have not worked up the confidence to ask their own question and when they read responses that might help them then the answers, comments are doing what they are supposed to do.
What I do find frustrating, aggravating ..and this is getting off your post..
Is when 2 or members begin back and forth comments picking at each other often for comments that are totally unrelated to the topic. For me when I see this happening I just leave so even if I could provide some comment or help I don't because I just do not want to read through "trash talk"
I also think that perhaps posters have their course of action already planned out, and then when posters tell them that course of action is wrong, they disregard those responses and just never return. All they ever wanted was validation of their (often foolish) plan of action.
Sometimes we see posters come back and react with anger because the responses aren't what they wanted.
And I think a significant number of posters are the "poor me, ain't it awful, yes, but" type of posters who really just want tea and sympathy. They have no intention of making any changes in their situation.
Wondering how a poster's situation is working out with in relation to the answers they have received; is similar to the feeling of watching a movie and not knowing how it ends.
I also see it from the perspective that people are taking the time to read people's issues, and provide some amazing answers, in that respect, I see it similar to asking the question to a good friend, if a good friend came back with soothing, caring reply, I would definitely express my gratitude to them. Obviously with the caveat that forums can get 100's or more replies sometimes, but when it's 5-10 or so answers, I'm really grateful someone spent for the time to think about how to reply to a person in need of supportive help.
All the best to you.
When searchers are in this situation, they choose not to respond.
It’s hard to hear that decline is inevitable, there are sometimes no happy endings, and that there can be many solutions to try, and that the outcomes may not please anyone.
Caregiving, whether hands-on or with the help of residential placement, is ALWAYS TOUGH. Caregivers are sometimes looking for something in a website that can’t be found.
For me I really admire the people sharing their experience, giving their time to respond to questions. I find this very valuable and I'm sure many other do as well.
For me, someone sharing their insight and experience with something I have posted, is like "gold".
I appreciate & understand as caregivers or people associated with others doing the caregiving, there's no instant fix for many of our issues, every caregiving issue varies, but the support and advice I'm seeing in answers to poster's is like gold.
Thank you.
It's not always easy to come back to it for various reasons, you're so right.
I guess for people like me that have wondered about such things, we can go on the premise, that posters not choosing to not respond to the answer for whatever reason; we can hope that giving them some help and support is still helping them in some way.
There is also the possibility that the post will help someone else that didn't post the question, but just wants to know how people have answered a specific question. I.E., the same question is useful for 100's of other people.
For example I have looked at other questions that I might have in future, for example on incontinence. I didn't post the question but I still find it useful to see how others have answered the question. If this is how people are using the forum, I guess it's all good, in that the answer is indirectly helping someone else.
Thank you.