Why bother starting an AMA if you don't answer

[andrew_b]

This is something that is really starting to bug me. I completely understand that people live busy lives and certainly don't come onto this site every day or even every week.

It's annoying when you take time to ask questions for people who start these threads, they'll have lots of people who have replied but then never bother to reply. This is especially frustrating when they don't even reply at all to any of the questions.

I know that there can be many reasons why this happens, forgetting passwords, losing interest, being busy etc

I know as well that it can be overwhelming with the amount of replies at times. That I can understand but when it's like one or two replies with not many questions then at least have the courtesy to reply.

There are also some who will be still posting elsewhere on the site but not bothering with AMA. If you aren't going to answer, then don't start one

Anyway that's my rant over

[Runesmith]

The majority of humans are arseholes, and most of the current generation has grown up within the anonymity of the internet, where you don't need to take responsibility for anything (until the point you get doxxed, of course, or you are stupid enough to use your personal ID).

Such morons start AMAs when they are horny (or, as the Germans say, "notgeil"). They can wank off reading the questions, but answering is tough work. So why bother doing it?

Some fucktards have the audacity to abandon their AMAs, and then come back a few weeks later and start a new one. There are also those who supply one word answers to well thought out, and well written questions.

I'd rather prefer those fake AMAs by "public sluts" who claim to walk around naked in countries where you get arrested for that, and performing sex acts in bars, but having pics as limits. The limited knowledge about female anatomy notwithstanding, those "women" at least write detailed answers.

In any community, there are parasites and morons who fuck up good things. The idiots who make profiles during school holidays are that kind. This is not limited to AMA threads. ToRD Online threads are also a good example.

There are some things that could be done to curb this:
1. If AMAs don't get answered, there should be a way to flag them so that mods can inactivate them.
2. Those who create AMAs and abandon them, despite being active on other threads could be handed bans.
3. Those who want to create AMAs, but don't want to be committed to that forever, could easily create time-limited AMAs by stating "This AMA is open until <date>." That's what I did.

[knorke]

Hi, I'm knorke and I have an AMA... that I started in 2018, and that I most certainly did not check any time recently. I say that, but it's not true, actually - I checked last week, when I first saw this thread; and actually vaguely recall having seen the last two posts of it (neither of which are by me) at some point prior.

I often times only come by if I have a few free minutes and while on my phone, barely good enough for a response I thought is worth posting here. The order in which I browse the site is typically lounge (where it actually feels like people are mostly humans that care for interaction more than other parts); then look at the chat to see if there's anyone in there I wanna chat with (typically no); then maybe check if someone I know has posted in the request TORD section. If I ever go to AMAs, it's probably because I'm super bored - or one of the people that I care about shows up as last poster.

I find it interesting that AMAs are under crossfire here. Abandoning threads isn't particular unique to this section of the site and happens to a lot of other threads as well, with perhaps one notable distinction - very very few people create threads or post there comparatively. If you post something in Request TORD, and noone posted in there for a day or two you might as well forget it exists. How many people skip past 2-3 pages anyway? Meanwhile, 3 pages of AMAs gets you to 2+ months ago...

I don't doubt that people come here for reasons mentioned before - judging by what's posted at times. But I also can't see how an AMA would help you in any way, shape or form if you're horny to achieve anything? It's just... not a very active section of the site. Chances are you won't get any questions, or only after a while - in which case you might as well have forgotten to even check anymore?

It's also discouraging when someone posts either very trivial questions; or something related to the posters' very particular fetish that the creator hasn't even hinted at having in common. These often are posted in every AMA with zero variation; and I just don't find answering questions engaging if the other person gives me not a lot of reason to care about them. Short answers don't help engagement - but I also know that I'm far from a person sharing much insight into my life.

There's only been a single AMA thread where I felt the creator was generally intriguing and actively wanted to know many things - if only because they felt extremely charming and/or relatable... and I would've been absolutely thrilled to see anything like it more often. And I would absolutely love to meet that person more, but alas.

I know I stopped checking mine a while ago (removed it from my signature and all) and I'm perfectly happy with the state it's in. If I could close it - I would. There's actually two posts since I've last checked, one of which is by a friend - that I feel bad about not answering, but she's also not been here recently (so I even feel worse for not having answered it before); and the other is by someone I've never seen before or since (doesn't make it ok, but I can live with it after a 2 year gap which had months of me not opening gD). Hey, I'm no role model, and I'm fine with that.

None of this is an answer, of course - and there's no real solution; I just stopped expecting to see people in a meaningful way more than once on this site, if even as often... which is why I have an extremely tiny circle of people that I genuinely want to interact with.

---

Also feel free to call me out for not responding in my AMA, I'd actually feel like I'd respond if I knew something new was posted there

[Runesmith]

Originally Posted by knorke

I find it interesting that AMAs are under crossfire here. Abandoning threads isn't particular unique to this section of the site and happens to a lot of other threads as well, ....

AMAs are different from all the other threads, in that they are in essence dares. They are a commitment to answer all questions fully and truthfully (yeah, they were once part of the truth section), unless the questions violate the limits set by the OP. These are not discussion threads, where you say your piece and leave. AMAs are quintessentially narcissistic threads, and they are all about you.

Yes, you are going to get boring, unoriginal, scripted questions - eg. whether you sit down to pee, etc. You are going to get questions from other narcissists that are all about their own kinks. If you haven't set limits saying that the questions must be about your kinks (as per a very narcissistic worldview), then whose fault is that such questions are posed?

In the end, what you should consider is - what does abandoning a commitment say about you, in that thread that is all about you? That you ghost things/people when you get bored of them?

In my opinion, the honourable thing to do would be to answer the final questions and post that the thread is closed. If you know from the beginning that you will get bored/busy and abandon the thread, set a time limit.

[StrawDog]

Regarding the OP, a good workaround to this is to either only ask a few questions, or keep to the threads you've seen answered several times.

When someone starts a new thread, people will try to be welcoming by asking very many questions, in many cases before likes/dislikes/limits are posted. However, you're putting that energy into a complete unknown, who may answer poorly, or not at all.

What I try to do is ask little and see what comes back before deciding whether to ask more questions. I also take care to read through the thread and build on the previous answers that stand out for one reason or another.

Your frustration is understandable; someone is inviting you to spend time and energy on them, nothing returned. All you can do is modify your approach to something that serves you better.

[poetrylover828]

Yeah that stuff is annoying but they don't owe you responses either. Even if their reason for not responding is that they just stopped caring about that or forgot they posted it. I haven't checked the one I made in awhile but mine is a couple years old now and last I had checked hadn't had new hits.

I agree with Strawdog focus on the ones that seem to be responding (or check profiles and their stats section to see if it's worth responding).

[Runesmith]

Even though that proposition sounds like a rational approach, the net effect would be detrimental to the AMA threads.

Let's say all those who craft well thought out questions decide to wait and see. So that means the dumb, scripted questions will be out there first. The OP responds to the first couple of questions and abandons the AMA and/or getDare because of the low quality of questions. Then the "well thought out" questions come in and just hang there, unresponded. In the end, the people who actually put some effort in to questions get discouraged and maybe skip the section entirely.

So the issue is - how many dumb questions should an OP respond to order to prove that they are worth? In my opinion - all. Someone who starts an AMA must answer all questions that don't get filtered out by the conditions they have set. Even if they reject a question, they should have the courage and decency to say, "I won't answer this question". If you can't respond to questions, no matter how dumb they are, don't start an AMA.

[StrawDog]

Fundamentally, I agree that people should work to accomplish the threads they create, or state that they cannot or will not continue. You can't police that, you can police yourself. Also, to clarify, I said 'ask little and see what comes back'; asking one or two questions as opposed to ten, say.

I disagree that it would be detrimental to the threads; the situation may remain largely the same, but someone who is bothered by the lack of responses would hopefully work on themselves to become less bothered, and more satisfied with what/if comes back. Someone is frustrated with a situation...that either requires adaption, or letting go of the frustration and continuing regardless.

I don't have much of an issue with scripted questions either, to be honest; they can build up enough of a picture to form better, more individual asks.