User talk:Macrobreed2/2024/November
Responding to stale messages
[edit]I see that at Talk:Dhirendra Krishna Shastri you have posted to old messages from over a year ago. Occasionally that may be useful, but in well over 90% of cases it serves no useful purpose, and can even be harmful. The likelihood of whoever posted the original message coming back and reading your response is virtually nill, and it can have disadvantages, such as causing numerous editors to waste time checking watchlist notifications. (That page is on 18 editors' watchlists, some pages are on thousands.) I suggest, therefore, that it is almost always better not to post responses to such old messages. Also, if you do decide to respond to one, it's unlikely to be helpful to ping or mention other editors, so that they spend time following up notifications of edits that are no longer relevant to anything. JBW (talk) 13:44, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
- Hi @JBW. I replied to old requests at Talk:Dhirendra Krishna Shastri in good faith as I wanted to make it easier for future Talk page viewers if they had a similar request. However, I now understand that responding to older messages may have more disadvantages than advantages, especially given the potential impact on watchlist notifications. I appreciate your input, and I’ll be more mindful of this in the future. Thank you for taking the time to guide me and coming to my talk page, I really appreciate it. Macrobreed2 (talk) 13:53, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
- First of all, I never doubted for a moment that you were acting in good faith; of course you were. I do agree that sometimes responding to old messages can have the kind of benefit that you mention, but my experience suggests that in practice it very rarely does; on some talk pages almost exactly the same request has been posted numerous times, in ways that indicate that new editors don't usually see what all the old posts say. (And I don't find that surprising: do you usually read all the old posts from years ago on a talk page before posting a new message?) Anyway, it's obviously a matter for personal judgement in each case whether likely benefits outweigh likely drawbacks, but, as I've explained, my impression is that in far more cases than not the answer is "no". JBW (talk) 14:10, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for the further clarification, @JBW. I understand your perspective and agree with you on this. I also appreciate that you shared your valuable experience on this. I’ll certainly keep this in mind going forward. Thanks again for your guidance! Macrobreed2 (talk) 14:35, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
- First of all, I never doubted for a moment that you were acting in good faith; of course you were. I do agree that sometimes responding to old messages can have the kind of benefit that you mention, but my experience suggests that in practice it very rarely does; on some talk pages almost exactly the same request has been posted numerous times, in ways that indicate that new editors don't usually see what all the old posts say. (And I don't find that surprising: do you usually read all the old posts from years ago on a talk page before posting a new message?) Anyway, it's obviously a matter for personal judgement in each case whether likely benefits outweigh likely drawbacks, but, as I've explained, my impression is that in far more cases than not the answer is "no". JBW (talk) 14:10, 10 November 2024 (UTC)