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  • Showing only topics in ~talk with the tag "self censorship". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. How often do you go to write a comment or a post online, and after a bit of time spent writing you decide that it is crap and just delete it? Is this a good thing?

      I do this a lot. I did it just now. I wrote about five paragraphs on a topic, deleted it and started over, wrote about five more and did the same thing. Got frustrated. Some thoughts that went...

      I do this a lot. I did it just now. I wrote about five paragraphs on a topic, deleted it and started over, wrote about five more and did the same thing. Got frustrated. Some thoughts that went through my mind:

      • "this is not concise at all. It's disorganized and needs to be re-done"

      • "this is going to trigger an emotional response and that will filter how they read it, so I'll be less likely to get interesting responses"

      • "maybe I should just do this as a journal entry and keep it private"

      • "these thoughts are worth something, and even if they aren't super cogent, maybe they can be a starting point for a collaborative thinking process"

      • "that's dumb, nobody cares about my ramblings anyway. everyone has thoughts like this, mine aren't more important"

      • etc.

      So what usually ends up happening in instances like this is I just don't post. Other times, I get wrapped up in trying to make a post super-high quality and it comes across as over-produced... and if I've somehow triggered an emotional response then that aspect becomes an avenue for attack.

      Does anyone else experience something comparable to this? Is it a good thing for helping to maintain quality content and discussions? If not, what are strategies to improve situations like these?

      25 votes