Granade’s Laws of Online Discussion

Posted by Stephen on June 16, 2007 – 2:28 pm

The first law: The ratio of finished projects to the number of posts and comments naturally approaches zero.

The second law: If the ratio begins at zero, it is unlikely ever to increase.

This helps explain the phenomenon where someone shows up on a forum for writers and starts talking about their fabulous novel which they never do finish.

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6 Comments

  1. Jon from ifMUD
    on June 16, 2007 at 2:44 pm | Permalink

    Sadly true.

  2. Geof F. Morris
    on June 16, 2007 at 4:05 pm | Permalink

    :snerk: I’m glad that I’m not the only person who develops these kinds of “laws”. It was kind of a schtick for me back on Usenet.

    Oh hey, Stephen … let me show you my manuscript …

  3. Jota
    on June 16, 2007 at 4:57 pm | Permalink

    Does this mean that once you’ve posted about a project, you need to continue to post about it if you want to make any real progress on it?

  4. Stephen
    on June 16, 2007 at 6:30 pm | Permalink

    Actually, if you want to keep your ratio high, you should minimize your posting about a project even if you’ve already posted about it before.

  5. duchess
    on June 16, 2007 at 7:49 pm | Permalink

    That explains why I am not making any progress…

  6. Jeff
    on June 16, 2007 at 11:18 pm | Permalink

    Speaking as he of the many unfinished projects, this is SO true. :)

    I’ve slowly gotten better at curbing the urge to post/talk about things before I’m done with them.

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