I have witnessed and have been the victim of very nasty replies to my, posts on forums. Strangely enough the fights usually break out when a newcomer posts a few topic starters and does not get the response they were hoping for. I recently witnessed a writing war break out on a mild mannered sewing forum. The newcomer joined in November and no one was replying to her/his posts. Finally a seasoned member (member since 2007) answered and the newcomer did not like the response and tore into the reply, picking it apart, word by word. The newcomer did not know that the long time member had a following of the rest of the forum and like sharks smelling blood they all jumped on the newcomer.
It have now been several days since that occurred and the newcomer has not posted anything new. I am waiting to see what happens next. Thankfully I did not join in on that one, I just lurked.
Another time, on another forum I jumped in on a writing war and I did not know it was going on at the time. Other members jumped on my post and I was not sure why. I had to read the past post to find out what was going on. I had the sense of mind to not post anymore to that forum until the dust died down and became a lurker for almost a month.
Lurking, or just reading, the forums seems to be the safest place to be.
1 comment:
This describes Internet Forums very nicely:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
The only effective defense is to ignore them. Unfortunately this requires either aggressive moderation or 100% cooperation from everyone else on the forum.
Post a Comment