Why do you think some people automatically jump into rudeness during disagreement?
- Thread starter WillNever
- Start date
Actually, I don't have a problem with it at all. It's just that a lot of people have participated in so many different online communities that they've pretty much seen it all. The bottom of the barrel, so to speak, when it comes to internet behaviour. Stuff that makes this forum, on it's worst day, look like Hello Kitty Island Adventure. You don't survive 18 years of the internet (in my case) without becoming immune to it. In the end you either adapt yourself to the already established behavioural equilibrium of a particular online community, or you seek out those which actively uphold a standard of behaviour that is similar to what you consider necessary for you to be able to enjoy participating in. There's nothing in particular that is wrong with trying to hold it to a higher standard yourself, but you'll often meet resistance because the community likes everything the way it is. In fact there are some communities on the internet within which the regular exchange of scathing personal insults is par for the course and a persons ability to hold their own in a flame/bashfest is a matter of pride. Even the moderators will advise you to leave if you can't handle the heat. The community is what it is and doesn't want to change and suggesting that it should will just invite further and possibly even more colourful insults.
But, well, in the end this boils down to moderation policy. Few people if any seem to think that the example of "rudeness" you've presented here is anything to make a fuss over. And it's probably useful for you to understand why (hence my posting of the above paragraph). In fact there are regular examples of much worse behaviour on these forums that go permanently unmoderated. So I think that it's pretty easy to get an idea of the identity of Sciforums in that respect, and decide whether you can accept it. All in all I think this is one of the better forums on the internet.
I don't think that this thread contains an example of bullying, does it?
WillNever
Valued Senior Member
I don't agree. The person who this thread was originally directed at wrote a very well-written and polite apology. People do change their behaviors, when you point out that something is currently wrong with the status quo.
Immediately bending at the first sign of resistance might be something you're accustomed to on the internet. Some people are passive. Others are assertive. Both are legitimate ways of behaving. Now as for which approach is the most effective, I guess that would depend upon which sort of outcome you seek.
I agree with your observation, pinwheel. But it's shameful that some people use a simple point of disagreement as reason to be needlessly rude to others who are trying to help people... especially if the person helping is 100% right in what they post.
What a world.
It is a reflection of society my man. Natures way of telling you somethings wrong. Natures way of telling you in a song. Nobody likes a snitch , but your o.K. with me , Live free and prosper
The constitution of rudeness varies by subculture. A question of moral norms, of etiquette. Where I come from, for example, calling a proposition nonsensical is to state only that it does not seem to make sense. Opinion tags are considered superfluous and are omitted.
On the internet you've an incessant collision of subcultures, transcending social class and corners of the world. There's no such thing as the implicitly moral in that environment. So the public forum tends to be a rude venue, almost by definition. No matter what, somebody (somewhere) is going to perceive a serious affront. Nothing to be done about that.
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You mean the well written apology where he continued to insult you and said sorry in the same post? It really was a bit of a mixed bag that one. But if it's good enough for you, then I guess that's what matters.
Immediately bending at the first sign of resistance might be something you're accustomed to on the internet. Some people are passive. Others are assertive. Both are legitimate ways of behaving. Now as for which approach is the most effective, I guess that would depend upon which sort of outcome you seek.
Somehow you seemed to have reached the erroneous conclusion that I'm a passive person. You couldn't be further from the truth. In other words, I'm the exact opposite. The fact that I don't often bother to take anyone to task over a little bit of rudeness is simply the result of not taking things too personally. If someone dismissed one of my assertions as nonsensical I would simply demonstrate how it wasn't. You did a pretty good job of doing that, which would have been enough for me.
When I first started participating in online discussion I used to call people out on their unnecessarily hostile bullshit all the time. Sometimes I'd make my point and sometimes I'd get called a sanctimonious f#*ktard, or something similar. In the end I realized that some communities just are what they but by that time I'd gotten over all of it anyway. In any case, if you stay away from some of the more "spirited" communities on the internet, I'm sure you'll do just fine.
I am curious however about how many times you'll bother to come and post in here about future instances of rudeness. Hey, who knows, maybe you'll rekindle that old idealistic flame I used have burning inside me for all the poor souls on the internet who have lost their way if you happen to make a measurably positive difference around here. Good luck.
This is quite true, when you encounter rudeness again and again, it becomes irrelevant to the discussion - the only choice to make then is to react to the rudeness or brush it aside as immaturity. I've encountered plenty of reactions to my views, some of them quite unbelievably out of proportion to what I have stated and initially, while I tried to understand these reactions by conducting thought experiments, nowadays I just see it as a waste of time to allow rudeness to interfere with discussion. It surprises me actually because I am not a person who usually tolerates rudeness, but in an online community, its quite unavoidable.
I think that correcting other people's behavior (such as calling upon their rudeness) only makes sense when there is a relevant, legitimate and close-enough relationship between oneself and them.
I do not think such relationships are the default in online interactions, and presuming that they are brings about a forced intimacy that is dysfunctional.
I find that people who have something of substance to say are generally not rude.
Their directness or analyticity may be uncomfortable, but they do not venture into logical fallacies (esp. not into the usual ad homs).
Case in point is the "Dr House style", a gratuitous rudeness. Personally, I find it rather boring and a waste of time.
There's a rather alarming trend that has surfaced recently on the forum and especially in some of the natural sciences forums. I tend to try and make very informative, helpful, and easily understood posts to people in those forums who I can tell don't know a great deal about the subject. I do this for a couple reasons. (1) I like to talk about these subjects and (2) I like to be helpful to people who want to learn. Here's an example of that.
However, often, and without any provocation whatsoever, certain people jump into the thread thinking they know better and immediately start acting rudely by insinuating that others are not making sense or are missing details. Usually, this is done under the guise of making a correction to something I said -- except that almost every time, their correction is wrong or simply a competing idea of their own.
Here's a very recent example of what I am describing. In this example, "Name Withheld" is the person acting inexplicably rude. And remember, this is their first post in the thread in response to my first post in the thread as well. I edited some excess statements out so you can see the overall picture, but nothing was taken out of context.
At this point I provided proof positive that my definition has a great deal of support behind it.
That <Name Withheld> prefers a less recognized definition (which may or may not be as legitimate) seems immaterial to the fact that I wasn't posting "nonsense" (not to mention that I was 100% right). That comes from a medical dictionary right there. So why the rude labeling of "nonsense?" What makes people think it's okay to be so rude to complete strangers on the forum? What do they get out of it?
They have not mastered the self, until your emotions are a slave to you instead of you being a slave to them this will happen all around us.
Peace.
Did you ever think that is why the rudeness exists in the first place . Because of your exclusionary out look on life. Get in touch with your ? person . The new name of the game is global community where common people find value in there commonalities. Kissy Kissy How bout that for an Intimacy Dysfunction for you and I didn't even use my tongue
What you talking bout . I like my emotions ruling Me . Yeah I am all down on that love emotion thang. Ima gona lay the rule of love down on you too.
Double peace with a peace on top . Get it like it be it. You been eating Kung Foo chips or something. I can feel the flying air kicks whizzing by from the popping opening bag. O.K> I am listening. After all I don't like being a slave.
this is how religion gets you..
religion capitalizes on that emotional predictability, IE if you do/think/be what we tell you to do/think/be you won't feel bad..
religion tells you you have to be perfect to feel perfect..(we all understand that there is no such thing as perfection?)
god says he knows you are not perfect and he is ok with that.
all of them..
How one tries to improve bad arguments.- Some people throw a bit of their personality after their bad arguments, as if that might straighten their paths and turn them into good arguments-just as a man in a bowling alley, after he has let go of the ball, still tries to direct it with gestures.-Nietzsche