The forums aren't a chat room

Perhaps not enough forum posters realize (or care) that they aren't just talking to the one or three people that respond back in their thread. No, they're actually talking to thousands of people every day.

Yet they bounce around from topic to topic within a single thread as if they were in their own private chatroom. A serious discussion or solution to a problem shortly devolves into comparing hometowns, which eventually devolves into favorite coffee choices.

Why should you care? After all, you got your problem solved, and you ran into an interesting person to chat with. Life is good.

Well, life could be better. Your problem/solution/hometown/coffee thread lives on forever, long after you've forgotten it. But it still continues to attract people here, via search engines. So your thread might possibly solve their problem, as well. Unless it didn't quite solve everything or they have need of further explanation, but as they read on finding your hometown/coffee discussion, now they have to decide if they really want to interupt this cozy little kaffeeklatch.

99% of them won't interupt, they'll simply leave and go back to google or wherever. And in their minds RetouchPRO is a low-quality place for help.

The irony is you'll also attract some hometown/coffee fans, but they won't post for the same reason.

So pause one second before you hit "Reply" and think "does this have anything to do with the thread topic?". If so, type away. If not, simply hit "New Thread" instead of "Reply" and type away. You'll still get your warm chat, plus we'll be of more use to future visitors, and probably have more registered visitors.

And that would make life really good.