Meta-discussion about LJ

[alexxkay]

siderea recently tried to start a discussion (on the topic of "love"). I observe that, though she got many people replying, there was very little discussion, or back-and-forth. Such back-and-forth discussions do happen on LJ, so why didn't any happen this time? Does it have to do with the topic?

My suspicion in this case is that it was more the format of the initial post. She posted a long list of (interesting) questions. Soem people are obviously willing to answer a long list like that. But I suspect that few people are willing to follow up on other people's long list of answers.

Is it the case that, for involved discussion to happen, the initial "starter" post needs to be more tightly constrained?

Comments

Re:

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Yes, but my belief is that while different views are interesting, on big questions (Who is going to Hell? Is there a Hell? Is George Bush going there?) friends are going to be fairly much in the same camp. There will be some differences, as a recent discussion that Alexx and I and Metageek had, illustrates. But it's a rare person who will have a good friend who loathes their principles.