(no subject)

It is interesting how one of my online groups handles discussions that generate lots of posts, especially discussions that involve some kind of controversy or difference in opinion. After a while, some people always start expressing sentiments such as "when will this thread die?", "beating a dead horse", "enough already", "can we move on to a different topic?". This happens even if there isn't flaming going on, and even if the posts continue to be intelligent and thought-worthy. It's like there's a limit to how much input people can take on a certain subject, without losing interest and becoming irritable by repeated exposure to it.

I notice this tendency with myself too, at work. When emails on a particular topic keep going back and forth, even though progress is being made with what is being discussed, after a certain point, I almost cringe whenever another email in the thread arrives in my inbox. By the time we've decided exactly how the thing we are discussing should be implemented or handled, I don't care enough anymore to follow up and make sure that it actually gets implemented like we decided on (unless I'm assigned to work on it).