Posted by Dinah on September 10, 2008, at 10:17:59
In reply to an IMHO post, posted by lucie lu on September 9, 2008, at 22:54:47
It's always been perfectly acceptable to do either or neither. So for those of you who aren't posting because you don't feel you can properly reply, please post. We care about you. Do you really think we'd rather not hear from people we care about because we'll be upset at how you reply or don't reply? There aren't so many people in a person's life who care that you should cut yourself off from them in performance anxiety, no matter how reasonable performance anxiety might be. 10der, Pegasus, and everyone else who feels that way. I would far rather hear from you and hear how you're doing and what challenges you're facing, I'd far rather reply to the best of my ability and have no response at all to my reply, than have you not post.
Seriously.
Actually, I remember there being posts from people who dislike individual responses for various reasons. It really is ok to do a group response. Or no response if a person isn't up to posting a response.
For myself, I try to do individual responses in part because I want to respond to particular statements in the replies. But there are times when I post, respond to individually to a few replies, then leave and come back to a number of responses and not have the ability at that moment to respond to each so I respond to all. It certainly doesn't mean I don't appreciate the individual responses. It has to do with me, not anyone else.
I don't really feel one way or another about people replying to my response individually (or as part of a group). Sometimes I worry a bit about something I wrote and it's reassuring to see a reply. But mostly, it's ok either way.
I do try to make sure that if I respond to one person individually that I respond to everyone who posted at the same the same period of time individually. I might accidentally leave someone out, but I am generally mortified if I do. The only situation that really does strike me on occasion is when most people are responded to individually, and others aren't responded to at all - individually or as part of a group. If it happens once, I assume that it's an oversight. If it happens consistently, it's hard to see it as anything but a response of a sort, even if a silent one. In those cases, it might occur to me that my input is not overly helpful to that poster, and so I might be a bit hesitant to reply in the future. But that very rarely happens.
Alex used to say something that I really liked. I'm positive I won't paraphrase it correctly but... It's best to go into a situation like babble and give people the benefit of the doubt. People (and I've found this particularly true of the Psychology Board) want to be accepting and welcoming.
poster:Dinah
thread:851256
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080906/msgs/851321.html