"Bait and Switch" and "Social Experiment" thread titles

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.

Over the past few days I've noticed several more threads than usual mentioning less than direct and honest New Thread topics.

1. The OP will use provocative language in a title, and long about 4 pages into the general mayhem (OK I exaggerate) disclose that they did that purposefully to "get people to read my thread", "grab your attention" (and it worked! see! you're reading this, aren't you?) :D

This is extremely irritating to me, just as it is when a supermarket tabloid does the same thing. True, I'm reading your thread now, but anything beyond that is not going to get a heartwarming response.

2. A few occasions when a user name is intentionally chosen to stir up strife. About 9 pages into the general mayhem, the author lets on as to how "I/we just wanted to try an experiment and see what happens".

We're not your personal human behavior laboratory, and personally, I don't like to be manipulated. Please respect your fellow nurses/students/others enough to let us decide if we are interested in your issue presented in a respectful, professional way.

Thanks.

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
Over the past few days I've noticed several more threads than usual mentioning less than direct and honest New Thread topics.

1. The OP will use provocative language in a title, and long about 4 pages into the general mayhem (OK I exaggerate) disclose that they did that purposefully to "get people to read my thread", "grab your attention" (and it worked! see! you're reading this, aren't you?) :D

This is extremely irritating to me, just as it is when a supermarket tabloid does the same thing. True, I'm reading your thread now, but anything beyond that is not going to get a heartwarming response.

2. A few occasions when a user name is intentionally chosen to stir up strife. About 9 pages into the general mayhem, the author lets on as to how "I/we just wanted to try an experiment and see what happens".

We're not your personal human behavior laboratory, and personally, I don't like to be manipulated. Please respect your fellow nurses/students/others enough to let us decide if we are interested in your issue presented in a respectful, professional way.

Thanks.

You've nailed it. I am fed up with this horse-hockey as well. It's extremely immature. I've noticed the same sort of titles on threads that aren't necessarily the "experimental" threads you're describing. OPs will deliberately use provocative titles just to get responses. Stop trying to be cute: say what you mean to say.

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Co-sign 100%. It's basic message board etiquette. Thread titles should be about a topic, so that potential readers can choose what they want to read. Thread titles like "I'm desperate- please help" not only fail to do that, they manipulate people. Opening a thread should be a la carte, voluntary and transparent, not deciding if you want to take what's behind the curtain.

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Have you not notice the All Nurse's and i get this now. I think this is a site for critical thinking or we are some form or another experimented on to see how we handle different things . Because i to have seen post and they are the same post just rewritten time and again like for night shift or religion or someone toss's in about relationships and so on.

The more i look at this the more I'm seeing a set pattern. I wouldn't be suprised if this has to do with a sociology degree of some sort even a psych. There are some postings i read and i write is this for real. Are you really asking this question. Because some of the postings i have read are way way out there.

So if your thinking of feeling this your not to far off and i bet there are people on here who feel the same. Then again how do we not know this is not another lab rat type of thing to see how people think the same it can happen. These are my thoughts use them as you wish.

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Specializes in Med/surg, Quality & Risk.

I agree. Of course I kind of think it's better than "Question, please help!" where I pretty much just ignore it because it probably won't be anything I can help with anyway. Descriptive without attention seeking.

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Specializes in pediatrics, public health.

It takes about 20 seconds to read the OP. If you feel like the thread title misrepresented what was in the thread, it takes about 2 seconds to click off the topic again and then ignore it. How are you even getting 4 pages into the topic if it's annoying to you?

People use the provocative titles because they work. Invariably threads with the most provocative titles have the most posts. If you want to do something to discourage this practice, don't read the threads and don't post to them.

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Karma, now that would be funny. :lol2: Hey it's the internet. Why not try and psych us, if we are a gullible group, then we are. IDK, I take the good from this board (my idea of good) and trash the rest. That's my rule for the whole of the internet.

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Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.

And ... reason #3,479 why I dislike that allnurses.com is prominently listed in search engines, and is readable by all internet users.

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Specializes in LTC, Memory loss, PDN.

Tell tale signs: OP just signed up, no introduction or previous posts, no "about me" in profile, The OP's style reveals good language skills, but there are typos and punctuation errors which shows the OP doesn't really care about being a contributing member, the post appears to be pasted.

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Specializes in M/S, Travel Nursing, Pulmonary.

I saw the thread with supposedly false screen name. IDK, I'm not convinced it was really as premeditated as the OP said. Wonder how many of these people are............trying too hard to make a point.............see they have created an epic failure of a topic and then "Oh geee, I was just kidding, this is a psych class experiment, I didn't mean any of it."

Massive RN Layoffs - Nursing for Nurses

Because [tongue in cheek times a thousand] ya know, this site is short of people who love to talk with no point who are simply interested in sounding smart.........and aren't really sure of what they are arguing.

Its kinda like when I was a kid in HS, someone would make a joke or statement then realize it was not well accepted and then would call out "Psych...........Naaaaaaah, I was just kidding, I call take backs".

Except these trolls are literally claiming "Psych." lol

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Very few threads go unanswered here. There is no reason to use deception.

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Karma, now that would be funny. :lol2: Hey it's the internet. Why not try and psych us, if we are a gullible group, then we are. IDK, I take the good from this board (my idea of good) and trash the rest. That's my rule for the whole of the internet.

:lol2: It can happen. Remember to pass the Nclex you need critical thinking. So why not get a group of people like nurses and psych them or put them in a class. Nurses are very intelligent and they have very stressful jobs and how and what we think can be a meaning between life and death at times. So why not make post up to see how we would react it happened on the Twilight Zone remember they took a block of people turned the power off and isolated them just to see what the group would do. Is All Nurse's not doing the same? lol. Something to think about when answering your next post. Someone might be grading you... :lol2::lol2: These are my thoughts use them as you wish..

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