posting anxiety and forums

[bedman]

so, this is my first time truly wanting to participate in a forum, but im finding myself getting kind of anxious every time i want to post something and end up doing nothing at all. i feel like all replies, posts, or topics i might choose to make have to all be significant or important, and im unsure if thats the truth.

im a bit worried im also too heavily influenced by social media :[ the lack of immediate response or proper notification makes me feel impatient and a little paranoid.

i think im just too caught up caring about my digital footprint. but this is a real concern i wondered if anyone else shares, and if i really dont have to worry so much, because im sure im not the only one. just wanted feedback from others and their forum experience.

  (oh, i do try to participate a lot sometimes though. i play on the minecraft server semi frequently...but not that many others are on it ;w;)

[nihil0]

Nahhhh you're not alone, I think we've all gotten used to instant replies that the modern internet has deemed standard, honestly I kind of dislike that facet of modern tech because it gives the illusion that everyone is available every day all the time

Forums are not, and have never been high-standard bastions of significance, any super significant forum posts across the web are pretty few and far between, we can just see all of them in retrospect without any of the "insignificant" discussions around them.

Most of them were simply places where hobbyists could share their work to a centralized community of people with similar interests. Like a funny bug they found or the last engine they took apart. As long as it's mostly on-topic, you can kinda just share it, forums' are just big feeds with separate categories.

[Slix]

I think this is an issue we've had with online spaces for decades actually, so you're definitely not alone!

One thing I really appreciate about forums still though, is that it's always fun to come back later and see what has been left for me to read. It takes time to get comfortable with sharing your thoughts anywhere, let alone in a space like a forum where the expectation is that you write a bit more, and you put across your thoughts a little more than on social media for example. But at the same time, people are usually allowed to just hang out and make friendships over more casual conversation in places like this too. You got this! 

[Kallistero]

A need for a post to be significant is one of the big reasons social media can't really hold on to me.    Fundamentally, most people have no obligation to care about every little blurb that I want to say, and I wouldn't make a habit of trying to oblige them toward doing so.

Even here in this forum, I have two topics I've made that no other person has replied to in spite of being around for a while:

• Kevg, the Real American Country Guy
• The Retro-like Web Lands of Psychedelic Pop Artist Magdalena Bay

Old threads, no replies, that's completely fine. It's cool to share what I want to share, and that can be that. Getting personal recognition for it isn't the same goal as just wanting it to be out there. Nobody has anything against me for sharing, and I've lost nothing by getting no replies. I simply wanted to share it, and I did! 

No post needs to be a showstopper for you to be just as welcome here. This is a place where you can share, and if I have a read on the community, our default assumption is that your intentions are pure. And conversely, you can expect the same pure intentions from us.   

[ajazz]

so, this is my first time truly wanting to participate in a forum, but im finding myself getting kind of anxious every time i want to post something and end up doing nothing at all. i feel like all replies, posts, or topics i might choose to make have to all be significant or important, and im unsure if thats the truth.

im a bit worried im also too heavily influenced by social media :[ the lack of immediate response or proper notification makes me feel impatient and a little paranoid.

this is very natural, especially if you weren't around during Peak Forum in the mid-to-late 2000s. i also had to sort of "relearn" the norms of forum culture when i started getting into the web revival earlier this year, and one of the hardest things to adjust to is exactly what you said: no "immediate responses." sometimes you will log onto a forum, skim the recent threads for that day, and decide that there's none you could meaningfully contribute to at the moment. that's a feature, not a bug - the way that conventional social media has conditioned us to post all the time for instant gratification is deeply sinister and unnatural.

i promise that as you get used to things that vestigial urge to get "engagement" that we've all been pavlov'd into will start to fade, and you'll appreciate the freedom to only post when you have something to say, rather than the implicit pressure to post for posting's sake. i would say i just recently started to re-adjust to that myself, and it's done wonders for my mental health - and i think it's also significantly improved the quality of my posts across the board lmao