What's going on in these conversations.

Often, people are talking to each other in a way that is quite different to how people speak in real life, and how people interact on a forum. Does that mean that it's all nonsense? Well, maybe. But maybe the conversations you're reading are meant to be only understood between the people talking, or maybe they're a different kind of conversation than you're used to and you just don't get it.

It's also the case that a lot of comments are just masturbatory, but that's not a huge deal. I can understand why you'd group them all together if you couldn't understand which ones were good and which ones were bad. Like most things, there are some comments and comment threads which are useful to the people involved and some which were made with solely the poster involved, and the latter are the ones which are nonsensical to the reader, beyond realizing that their comment is just about them.

I mean, sure none of this is about learning Zen, but it is about something. If you're interested in learning Zen from the masters, you're better off slowly and carefully working through their sayings until you reach an understanding, without bringing any of your own understanding to the party. That way you can get a pure stream of understanding Zen without making it about you, and degrading what you're reading.

How much literature have you read? Do you take your time with it, slowly, carefully penetrating to the substance?