I haven't been here all that long -only a few months- but i've seen fighting going on between certain people. But, having been to a lot of other forums, IRC chat rooms, and BBSs for years now its nothing unique to this particular board. I figure that it's just human nature, and not everyone is going to get along - people butt heads in families, at work, and here on the intarweb.

Is that an excuse for rudeness and bad behaviour however? No. Now, my take on it is that theres a couple reasons rudeness/fights come up.

Theres unintended rudeness - you post something that in your head sounds one way, and comes out entirely differently once you've written it out. Take the time to read it - people can't always read sarcasm, humour, or other feelings in a post because they're not there to hear you say it, read facial expressions, etc. Take for example the word 'Seriously!' - theres the dictionary definition for it, but used with a facial expression, can be taken many different ways ...

Seriously!
Seriously
Seriously!
Seriously

So, you write something, and people take offense to it. You make your apology, and people move on -or they don't- but you didn't mean to offend.


Then theres intended rudeness. This is referred to as "Trolling" - basically saying inflamatory things to get a rise out of people, and is farily common in forums that have a large number of members. I've seen this happen a few times before - one member someone posts something, and then the snippy comments come out about that person etc. in order to get them going, start a fight, or just make them feel bad - usually this happens between people who have some sort of history.

Honestly, thats just not cool. And, it makes a lot of other people uncomfortable to feel like they're stuck in the middle of something.

So, I guess it all goes back to the golden rule - try to treat others as you'd want to be treated, and apologize when its warranted.



Again with the -long posts- *sigh* ... I get on here to write one sentence and end up with a stinking novel :P



_A_