When I was young, when I reposted things (retweet on Twitter, and Reblog on Tumblr, etc.), I reposted them because I enjoyed viewing that post.
Nowadays, I would say 40% of the stuff that I repost, I repost because I was about to act like a "reply guy" to the author of the post.
I guess my motivation for doing this is a form of substitution.
That is, ditch my bad habit of being useless in someone's comment section, and instead give the author a little bit more exposure to someone who might be more suited at providing a useful response.
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@manlycoffee Sounds like a step backwards to be honest... "reply guy" sounds like 'provide healthy respectful opinions to a discussion".. the fact that you are avoiding doing this, likely due to the toxicity of the environment and not you, is sad, and a step backwards not forwards.
You didnt ditch a bad habit, you ditched a good and crucial one for a society that advances. You ditched a good habit for popularity. Understandable, so not trying to attack you. But I think its important to say.
Trust me, my behaviour was not acceptable at all.
Here's a silly example: someone makes a post asking for help with parsing JSON-LD. In spite of me having no idea what JSON-LD even is (back then), my response was naively to tell that person to "use a JSON parser". Not helpful at all, and makes me come off as an idiot.
What's even more sad is that no one called me out on that behaviour, leaving me always wondering why is my engagement online is useless, and wondering why I had no real friends.
Just being a guy who knows how to listen makes my social network slightly more broader than having no social network at all. Friends—even if it's just one or two friends—are necessary for a decent life.
@manlycoffee Ok yea, by reply guy i thought you meant "voicing counter-opinions is bad"... i see now you mean "providing stupid opinions you dont take time to fact check is bad"... and on that we agree... Kudos on recognizing that.
All I am suggesting is dont let that stop you from jumping in and providing a reply or even a disagreement (politely)... just, do a little fact checking first :)
?Yea when i talk of it being respectful I am emplying your using language to try to show that respect ins ome way.
@freemo @manlycoffee I'd add that a questioning style, like "might xyz be viable?" could be helpful. After all, we often don't have all necessary info and before everyone that lacks info stops interacting, asking instead of saying "do xyz" would make this a lot less stressful.