A deluge of livejournal

[jack]

You probably noticed I hit a deluge of catching up on LJing last night. I notice the posts seem to be in two sorts:

* Medleys of things I did, which attracted no comments.

* Thoughts on topics, which attracted many comments and in some cases webpages (:) thanks, Owen).

Is it that a medley makes it hard to read, or to pick one thing to reply to, or just that topics often have something that needs a reply to, but things I did don't?

Comments

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

I did comment on something you ate, if you recall. :-)

[mair_in_grenderich]

You probably noticed I hit a deluge of catching up on LJing last night

yeah. it was great. I was working late in the lab and it kept me entertained.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL. Oh good. I know it's good when people seem to exist to entertain you :) I'm a bit worried about the next day effect, when everyone reads lj at 10am and goes "Agh! Thousands of words by Jack. Can't cope." :)

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

or just that topics often have something that needs a reply to, but things I did don't?

I think that on the whole `what I did posts' will attract less comment because if you weren't there,* there is often not much that can be said whereas thoughts about stuff provoke discussion.

*Unless it's the sort of thing which results in needing sympathy.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

* LOL. Yes, I almost mentioned "Except when I say 'I need a hug'". BUt I rarely do.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

Interesting. You don't get off too badly; compare to my own lj which has a very strong inverse correlation between number of comments and amount of thought that went into the post.

Looking back through your posts (this was really a trick to make us read them, wasn't it ;) ), the 'what I've been doing' ones feel more like notes to yourself, whereas the thinky posts are more, well, thought-through.

Case in point for the former would be this, where it takes a decent amount of interpretation (and knowledge of what's happening in your life) just to work out what's going on; it's therefore something I'll likely skim when I'm reading lj:

* Happy Starwars Day
* The problem with this meme is I end up thinking about it all day until it goes off. Setting an alarm to do it at a random time would make it worse, as I'd always be on tenterhooks. But I am spodding things I wouldn't otherwise so I'll probably keep doing it.
* Yay, M&S wedding next week!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

compare to my own lj which has a very strong inverse correlation between number of comments and amount of thought that went into the post.

Oh dear. I sometimes have that effect, but not here. Actually it seems like posts I think out a *lot* I've said everything and no-one has anything to add. Posts I've written as they occur to me are disjointed to read. Posts I've thought a bit about (like feetneet, hex, etc) tend to be provactive, and one-liners I've tossed off either spawn rambling multipages discussions or die.

Case in point for the former would be this, where it takes a decent amount of interpretation (and knowledge of what's happening in your life) just to work out what's going on;

LOL. Good point.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

I find your medleys of things you did to be very interesting and always read them - I just rarely, if ever, have anything insightful to add by way of reply! But please keep posting them!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you. *HUG* Then I will.

Is it preferable to have a list of everything, or one thing that happened that I think about for several paragraphs?

[ex-mair-aw801.livejournal.com]

both!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL. Ok, I'll try :)

[mair_in_grenderich]

have a list of everything on the outside with lj-cuts hiding the interesting bits ;)

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

I rather like lists, but anything goes so long as there aren't too many large, scary chunks of text. Hmm. Bold subheadings might be nice...maybe I should try that myself!!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I often do that, to try to break up the post and give people's eyes the ability to jump to interesting bits. But it never seems to work especially well.