That's quite a biggie in terms of forum meltdowns. Also, as someone else said, it's a similar mechanism to road rage. A small anecdote...

Many years ago I attended a football (that is, soccer) match being played by my home-town team. At that time in the UK there was a widespread problem with violence between rival football supporters and conventional wisdom was to keep them separately caged.

At this particular match, two guys had somehow got into the home stand whilst sporting away colours. I happened to be sat just behind them and there was some gentle banter going back and forth. What I could also hear, however, was a stream of vitriol from home supporters who were sat far enough away that they could not get into direct conflict with these two mad/brave guys.

We see this same behaviour in cars and on the internet.

Another major factor IMHO is the delay between posting and response. Perceived slights have time to fester, whilst in face-to-face conversation you can be much more nimble and nip misunderstandings in the bud. Plus there's the honour thing - this happened to me the other day. Someone posted something on a forum about me and I wanted to defend my honour in front of the community.

It's a good point though Raaaaid.

S!

Well..in interenet you are a faceless meme IF the others do not know your Facbook or Twitter or whatever profile. Easy to throw mud and smack talk as the risk of meeting the person is small. But on the flipside if you are a turd in internet many can form a totally different picture of you and this can affect RL too. Therefore IMO everyone should stop and think before acting like a raving lunatic from the "safe haven of the armchair". Once it is in the net it will not dissappear. Think of that.

I would rather see many of these forum members in RL to have a real discussion. I am sure it would be a much more interesting and educating process than these forum wars. Therefore whenever I am on ATAG TS3 I do not act or be any different than IRL. And I like to chat with new people.

AoA, I can imagine some of your smack talkers made a Split-S when saw you coming..I recall you were not exactly a short person ;) This same smack talk is in Aces High and EVE Online or World Of Tanks..so times change but manners not :)

Exactly, and then there is the interesting fact that people often use the same nicks in many forums, naturally on flight sim forums but it's not that uncommon to recognize nicks on other forums too... So over the years you will get a track where all those posts you did that you actually regretted an hour after posting them will live for many years. In real life it's just the really stupid comments that people will remember for years ;)

So if your real name gets out you have to be able to stand up for all your comments. Myself I think I can stand up for most that mazex has posted over the years, but if some customer saw how many useless threads I have participated and spent time in here for example I don't know if their image of me as an effective professional spending time on relevant stuff and not floating out in nonsense would get strengthened ;) For many of us I guess this is a vent for some nonsense talk about a dear subject... The problem is that it's too often the same discussions ocer and over again :) Regarding many questions here we already know what 50% of the nick alter egos will answer but we keep going on ;)

Myself I have 45 minutes of train time on my way to work, so many of my posts are just for spending the time... :) Tapatalk rules!

/mazex

totally ot i am listening to this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqG6l...tes&playnext=1

and i wonder why i hear angel land

avalon anyone, applelon

Don't worry, I'm the same prick in real life as in here. :)

oh i like you i just think you watch house too much :)

I think all of us can hide behind these names. Mine in here is my own and IIJG27_Rich in the Hyperlobby but still who would know that. No one knows where you live, they can't come pounding on your door if you've hurt their feelings. I look at videos on youtube sometimes and am pretty shocked at the replies from people. If you fly a German areroplane or put anything up about Hans Joachim-Marseille or any other German pilot you're going to get crap from people who have no idea what they're talking about so I took what was a great documentary down. People put up videos of family trips probably to show friends and they get slammed by idiots.."Take this sh*t down" etc. I'm sure he or she is either a kid or the person want's to get into a discussion with the others on what good taste they have so they don't hate themselves so much that particular day. Like Mr. Finch said in "To Kill A Mockingbird" "Put yourself in the other persons shoes and walk around in them"... before you write something down.