Quote:
Originally Posted by mazex
People don't start banging sticks at each others because something they did - it's because something they said - that the other side did not understand due to cultural differences...
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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.