The Art of the Followup

Just sort of a ranty, consciousness thing...

One of my pet peeves (mainly because I'm a bit OCD and like things in one, neat little handy place) is the lack of followup on threads...in other words, new information becomes available, sometimes days and sometimes even weeks or months later and it's either not posted or a new topic is started.

This information might corroborate, support, or just be news about the initial story, and sometimes it resolves it or is a retraction or correction. To me, it can bring a sense of continuity or closure that's so rare these days. Don't get me wrong, I love chaos and anarchy as much as the next person, but things are happening faster and faster and it's so easy to miss things.

It seems that when new information comes along, it's a lot easier to start a new thread than to add as followup information on an existing thread for the topic. I'm totally guilty of that myself, sometimes intentionally lazy and sometimes I just can't find something easily. Yeah, it's not always easy to search through the myriad of threads and forums and topics here, I know. But if you're the OP maybe a bit of followup is a good thing now and then?

And by the way, lack of followup and completion is not a problem just here in ATS either. Our news media is getting worse and worse about this too. Maybe it's just a symptom of information overload or shoddy research or laziness or all of the above, but it seems to be happening more and more.

Lately I'm even noticing a trend where they news media is posting stories from 5 and 6 years ago and making like they're something "new," sometimes merely substituting the words "Obama administration" for "Bush administration, which is freakish to watch in itself, when people who wholeheartedly supported Bush now bash Obama for the very same thing and vice versa. An example of this would be the EMP weapon story this week and plans to use it in Afghanistan.

Um this weapon has already been used in both Iraq and Afghanistan, in the early 2000s, and it's been in discussion since 1988 at least. And by the way, they were also testing it or approved to start testing it on U.S. citizens. That could have been mentioned in the story, no? Why treat this as if it's totally new news? Doing so does readers a disservice and to me is shoddy journalism...lack of focus, depth, research, and perspective. It's as if it's totally new news to the writer, so let's just treat it that way and ignore all sorts of history and background.

Now I know we're not the news media or professional journalists here at ATS, not most of us anyway. (Some posters are of such caliber that they really could and should be, and they far outdo the professionals as far as level of detail and thorough research and investigation, but that's a whole other topic.) But I think that a few extra minutes in a followup can be invaluable.

What do you think?

And I SWEAR I searched for an existing topic about this before I posted. Cross my heart!

I like to post follow up stories in my threads. I never know if the original readers will notice, but new ones will if they're interested enough to read to the end of the thread.

I don't know whether or not it's the 'done thing' but I like to have as much information as possible in the same place.

The one poster that always follows up with his threads is Hellmutt.

He will add to one of his threads even years after the original post if new info comes to light.

I not only appreciate this, but get to read some interesting history that I would not have read otherwise.

There must be others, but I have only really noticed it in him.

Whether or not a new thread is made, doesn't bother me so much as if it's important, I would rather read it twice or three times rather than not at all.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Hi Lucidity, I agree.

Following up a thread can give you more insight into a story.
Let you know the outcome.. And whats the point of starting a thread and not following it up untill something results in its end.

And gives you Closure to some.

Take today for example.

When the president of Polands plane crashed, killing 80+ political figures everybody pointed at the conspiracy and speculation surrounding the event... Yet... Today... No threads about the Election taking place in Poland..
Nothing about the candidates.

No closure. No follow up... Maybe someone will tackle it later..?

And for those who want to know whos currently ahead in the poll, then its the acting minister since the disaster - Bronislaw Komorowski...

Just thought id say.


Edit to add that, despite me being a hypocrit and not following this up because I cant add links to sites whilst on my phone so that people would actually be able to read the news their selfs.
Anyway, I guess any half decent news source should be covering this.

[edit on 20/6/10 by Esrom Escutcheon Esquire]

Okay so I mixed my weapons up...EMP vs sonic or something. But anyway...

The thing that gets me about the news media is that there's rarely resolution. It's in everyone's collective consciousness what went down during things like Virginia Tech and Ft Hood, when the story was sensational and not all the facts were in. But what happens after that is not in our consciousness. This doesn't seem right to me, particularly if things CHANGE and change dramatically from the original stories. It doesn't seem right to have people running around laboring with misinformation in their minds. In fact, I think it causes a lot of turmoil and trouble because this is so. It's almost as if they count on us having misinformation because they full well know what that brings. Ugh am I even making any sense?

[edit on 21-6-2010 by ~Lucidity]

reply to post by Esrom Escutcheon Esquire


Exactly. I was surprised at how little there was on this story, without someone having to go out and really dig for it. Most people don't have the time to dig. So it's a logical conclusion to think that we only hear what they want us to hear and remember or what distracts us and nothing more or less?