dont you think people is nicer in real life than in forums?

[mazex]

Originally Posted by fruitbat

'sticks and stones will hurt my bones,
but words will never hurt me'

I was on an evening event yesterday with the newly assigned Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations - Jan Eliasson, and he talked about that for most of his life he has been negotiating with very nasty persons like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, and that he many times thought about the Shakespear qoute "Words, words, words...". All of his career he has been working with words trying to get people with sticks to stop bashing each other. And like he said - it's amazing that most of the times it's the most effective way as that's where it all started. 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...

[=CfC= Father Ted]

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...

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.

[Flanker35M]

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