Reasons for someone to "ignore" you

Many times in the past I have felt like I should respond to someone's message, but I put it off for some trivial reason. Later, I feel too guilty about ignoring it to reply, and then the next time I feel even guiltier, and then I never respond to hide my shame. Seriously.

Many people can't go into long conversations about each other simply because answering requires more than one click. Even Google can't conceive of a better way of communication than Google Plus. I have to retype my answers to everyone around, whenever I get to meet a new person, I can't easily reuse my previous answers from an autosuggest list, and why not? Here is my idea, which I shared on halfbakery.com:

"Profiles should contain a 'magic FAQ.' Any vistor of your profile should be able to add a publicly invisible question to your magic FAQ; you would be notified, and have an option to answer it, both replying the questions and building your FAQ at the same time (one shot-two birds). The publicly invisible conversation could continue much like hierarchical comments, forming a hierarchy. The next time someone asks a similar question (i.e., adds a question to your FAQ), you could tell the system that it's just another way to ask the same thing, and reuse your previous answer with a click of a button. A different follow-up question? No problem -- the data structure like pHTN (probabilistic hierarchical task network, which is just hierarchically arranged lists with probabilities of each element in the lower level of the hierarchy) can handle this, and even learn to autosuggest you to reuse your most preferred answer (three birds?).

An expected result of this idea, is that even celebrities, who don't have enough time to chat with every fan, would suddenly have time to communicate personally, in this semi-automated manner."

I may have a different Theory of Internet Commenting, because to me not-replying is the default and I need some particular reason to continue a back-and-forth. Do I have something worth contributing to the conversation - something worth adding or clarifying? Is the discussion heading in a worthwhile direction, such that I want to take it further in that direction? Or, is this one of the (relatively rare) cases where I have a social obligation to respond?

There are many exceptions, but in a typical discussion I think that:

1. There are rapidly diminishing returns to extending the conversation (I usually communicate most of what I have to say in one or two comments)
2. The discussion is primarily for the benefit of the many silent people reading the comments, not the few particular people who are making the comments (so I don't feel much need to press my interlocutor on what they think, or to clarify exactly what I think, unless it adds something to the discussion as a whole. One cue I use: if a comment has been upvoted then it probably represents many people's views, and is more worth replying to)

Not sure if this fits one of the reasons on your list, but I maintain a (short) mental list of LWers I never reply to, regardless of what they write, because a number of prior conversations with them were invariably futile for one or more of the reasons you describe, and my estimate of any future conversation going any better is very low.

I am guessing that other people might have similar lists, and if so, I am probably on one or more of those. I conjecture that this is the case from the downvoting pattern on some of my instrumentalism-related comments.

I have on occasion explicitly mentioned when I add a person to such a list, but this is usually detrimental, so I stopped doing so. This is not to say that I always downvote their comments, often it is quite the opposite, I just don't ever engage them.

Oh, and once or twice I noticed an extreme change in attitude from a regular and started replying to them again.

My most frequent non-reply cause: "Technical difficulties. They first read your comment via a mobile device, composed (mentally) a reply that would take too long to type on that medium and two days later they either forget to type it out via keyboard, no longer care about the subject or think that a late reply would be inappropriate given developments in the conversation."

For example Gwern recently had to remind me about a reply to a Modafinil tolerance question that had become neglected during travel.

Also add in "Previous comments by them in the thread had been downvoted or otherwise opposed and they choose to accede to the implied wishes of the community rather than try to fight it or defy it." (Given that this one is the primary purpose of the karma system we should expect it to work sometimes.)

Apart from those two the list seems exhaustive.

Sometimes I will enter discussion wanting to talk about X, but my correspondent seems keen to jump around from topic to topic. They will respond with a question loosely about X, and I feel obliged to respond. We're now talking about Y. They will then ask a question loosely about Y, and I feel obliged to respond. We're now talking about Z.

Before I know it, we're talking about L. I don't want to be talking about L. Fuck L. I wanted to be talking about X. I probably would have been content to talk about Y or Z for a while if we could stay on them for any length of time, but we can't, because there are so many other letters and the person I'm talking to can't resist them. I've learned to nip this process in the bud. Sometimes that's with a polite "I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in discussing this". Sometimes it's by ignoring them.

TL;DR: if I feel my correspondent is going to take the discussion on an unproductive wild goose chase, I may stop responding.

ETA: I'm not necessarily blaming my correspondent for being a bad discussion partner here. It may very well be down to different expectations from the discussion. I've probably come across as an attention-deficient topic-hopper myself on more than one occasion.

Here's a common one: your post/comment didn't contain a single question mark, so there's no call to answer.

(Also: thanks for obviating some portion of that "raising the discussion waterline" post I had in mind!)

Reason to ignore you. Reason to not respond to you. Reason to ignore a comment of yours. Reason to not respond to a comment of yours.

The last is really the observable we're talking about.

When I ignore a comment left here at LW, this is sometimes for the reason I often ignore comments sent to me by email. The reason is this. Upon first encountering a comment, I may not feel motivated enough to compose a reply, and as a consequence procrastinate on it for a while. After enough time has elapsed such that I feel motivated to write the reply, I feel that I must include, in that reply, an explanation to my correspondent of why my reply took longer than expected. Knowing that my reply must now include this explanation itself demotivates me further, and causes me to procrastinate even more. This gives rise to a perverse cycle. The longer I postpone my reply, the more elaborate I feel my excuse must be and the harder it is for me to write it. The cycle is usually broken only after a few weeks. At that point the excuse I feel I ought to write is so complex and enough time has elapsed that I become convinced I will never write it, so I simply write the original reply either abstaining from offering any excuse at all, or prefacing it with a very simple, formulaic apology like "I'm sorry for the long delay."

This may overlap with some of the other issues listed, but I think it comes from a slightly different place mentally/emotionally: They're purposefully trying to disengage early rather than getting into a fight about who has the "last word" on the subject, e.g., on some level they may want to respond or even to "win" the exchange, but they're purposefully telling themselves to step away from the computer.

Under "some other instrumental reason":

• They worry about future actions you or others would take after reading their response.

• The opportunity cost of time spent composing a reply outweighs the expected benefit.

• The negative signaling value of a reply outweighs the expected benefit.

Specifically for the busier and more illustrious people one might want a response from.

I once started writing a very long reply to someone's comment, but in the mean time this XKCD came out. It did an excellent job of draining my motivation to finish it (it wasn't literally an argument about "literally", but the general principle of the joke still applied). I actually still really want to reply on some level but it's possible I never will.

I think at some point you realise you're only arguing with one person and the whole argument is really a waste of time even though you're compelled to continue it until it's resolved. Blaming XKCD aside, getting burned out and never finishing the reply is something that's not quite on the list. It's close to "They disagree and are planning to write up the reasons later", just without "later" ever coming, and it's also close to the suggestion attributed to Airedale but without making a conscious decision.

They don't know how to answer your question and are too embarrassed to admit it.

Admitting that I was wrong previously or that I don't know how to answer a question is embarrassing. It's also boring. I don't want to read comments like "I too am not an expert in FAI" or "I'm confused twelve different ways about a settled topic" or "I haven't made any progress at all".

• They have a nonemotional aversion to talking to you.
• They have a nonemotional aversion to the subject.
• They have a nonemotional aversion to responding to a particular comment of yours.

If anyone has decided to ignore me, I invite them to tell me why in PM or here. As for reasons I ignore people: Too many comments is the biggest one. High frustration level with communicating my perspectives to people I find it difficult to communicate to (all reasons) is the second one. My frustration level waxes and wanes. I will try to communicate to just about anyone on a good day, and ignore everybody on a bad day, and there are days in between. Sorry to anyone I have not gotten back to. If you were really hoping for a response or for resolution, you are free to ping me about it.