OT: Hostility in Forums

[Atrocities]

My $0.02 worth:

Caution, Long Rambling Rant

There is a sincere lack of etiquette when it comes to manors of people who use game forums. Cyber Nations forums are no exception either. The forum moderators are, for lack of a better term, fanatics and the members who post there are without, for the most part, kindness.

When the normal rules that govern our social behavior are removed, such as they are in forums, peoples natural tendency toward being socially polite and willing to discuss rationally, topics of interest, are put aside. The rationality of ones own limits are removed and well your free to say anything you want any way you want. That kind of aphrodisiac is far too powerful for most people to deal with thus all rules of adulthood go out the window and in this behavioral vacuum comes the thrill of freedom of unrestrained speech. You can say what you feel often times without having to worry about the consequences of your statements. Some people in life are to weak in the knees and are unable to express themselves in the real life work and find that when they are secure behind the anonymity of their monitor and key board, they can say what they really think, no matter how rude or twisted that message might be.

They get a rise out of pushing peoples buttons, calling people names, spouting off hate, and generally carrying on as if they are spoiled rotten little retards with no concept of proper decorum.

Often more than not, these people are childish adults who have one or more Psychiatric issues that limit their ability to function as normal social adults in real life. So these mentally challenged people find a new home, and often a new identity, on the internet, chat rooms, and forums where they harass people, push buttons, and generally carry on their anti-social behaviors.

They attack over every issue, spend countless hours on the internet looking for obscure web sites to back up their ridiculous points of view and are never willing to show the rational behavior of compromise when it has been proven that their point of view is, how shall I say this, misguided.

They are irrational, ill spoken, mean, of center, anti-social, mental morons who lack any semblance of normalcy. In most cases they are fringe hangers, zealots, and or socially challenged individuals who believe that they are sane while the rest of the world is insane. They hold true to warped ideals and beliefs and no amount of common sense or reason will ever be enough to enlighten their dark and twisted way of thinking. No matter what you do or say, they are die hardly committed to their own self deprecating way of thinking and they have nothing but disdain for any who challenge their way of thinking. In fact, they thrive upon attacking those who are not like minded to their confused and often bankrupted points of view.

The best method for dealing with such looser's is simply to ignore them, placate them, or if your up to it, challenge them and aggressively denounce everything they say and do as an act of ignorance, as in most cases it is.

When it comes to these kind of people, you can say the sky is blue and they will argue that it is not. You can show irrefutable proof that it is indeed blue, and they will not accept it, and will bury you in links to trivial, seldom visited web sites that support their ignorant views. Dispute their links and web sites, and they will flame you, attack you, and threaten you. Ultimately they will register 200 accounts and use them all to denounce you and your evidence.

They will spend every waking minute of their ground hog days dedicated to the singular goal of proving their point of view and will stop at nothing to either force you to accept it, or punish you for not accepting it. They are the worst of the worse when it comes to the internet and they all subscribers to their own self importance.

Give a fool attention, and that fool will do everything he can to keep getting your attention.

[Randallw]

See now this is something I don't understand. I hope it can be agreed that I'm a long term member of the SE community and I have a lot of knowledge I can pass on, but I'm simply not interested in being placed in a position of responsibility. I have no desire to go on power trips and so don't consider the extra effort worth the bother.

In some SE games I've on occasion been resentful of another empire riding roughshot over me and secretly vowed revenge, but this doesn't last longer than it takes me to get half way through my next turn. I simply can't see the point in expending additional effort in being petty or vindictive.

Apart from the conflict it causes getting into arguments with people, I fail to understand what the attraction is in bothering to make an issue of something. Yes I occasioanlly voice my opinions on matters but really it's not worth casting dispersions personally at someone just because you disagree with them. I'd rather just give up and forget it. In the grand scheme of things it makes no difference if you're right or not, and it just causes bad humours, you could say, to get obsessed. This is why I consider myself a Stoic (as well as a cynic, a nihilist, an appollonian, and half a dozen other half baked philosophies I once read about in a book ). There's nothing you can do about it so why bother.

Not that I'm criticising that you are making a point, just that I fail to see why people go on power trips.

[Atrocities]

Debating is fun, arguing is not.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

A great debate is one in which both people learn.

Pride (That is, thinking oneself more capable than one is) does indeed goeth before the fall.

[capnq]

Atrocities said:There is a sincere lack of etiquette when it comes to manners of people who use game forums.

All Internet forums, actually, not just gaming forums. I usually don't even look at the comments section on news sites, because they're just too painful to read.

[Xrati]

I usually don't even look at the comments section on news sites, because they're just too painful to read.

Come on capnq, some of them are pretty funny! I guess until you realize that these people are serious...

AT is right about alot of things in his 'long' version of his 2 cents. One more thought about that is, those people should never lead or be in power as you need an open mind to be able navigate through lifes twists and turns... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon12.gif[/img]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

It's amazing how much can be blamed on marketing.

[Xrati]

Don't forget the media!!!

[AgentZero]

I think the above attachment does a pretty good job of summing up AT's rant.

I'm rather hungover and sleepy, so I don't have much energy to coat this thread with another layer of sarcasm, but if someone happened to mention something like, oh say, people who think video games should qualify as sports, well then I think I could come up with something suitably vitriolic.