The Nastiness of the On-Line World

I am part of the on-line community. I have a blog, I read blogs and I am a member of a Yahoo group and a discussion forum.

A blog is your private house. When you write an entry, you are opening your door and inviting people in. Sometimes what you see is a room tastefully decorated, you may not want to live there but it is pleasant to visit; others are clean and tidy but definitely lived in; or they are so lived in that there is a mess everywhere; and then there are those where you open the door and dirty laundering is waiting for all to see.

A discussion board/group/forum is like a public park. Anyone can use it as long as you follow the rules. Some park keepers rule with a rod of iron, any transgression of the rules results in banishment, others do not worry about minor infractions but wait for the complaints of other users before issuing a warning. There are many different types of users of the park. Some pop in every day, others just at weekends and others are infrequent visitors. People move away and find a different park and other people move in.

Some people like to listen to music while in the park. Of these some will have head phones or have the music turned down very low so that they don't disturb anyone else; some will set the volume at a setting they like but when asked to turn it down, they do so with many apologies; and there are a few who have the music up so high it disturbs everyone in the park. When asked to turn it down they say it is their right to have it at the volume they want and a few are pleased that they are upsetting people.

Something along these lines happened in one of my forums/groups this week. A poster asked a question. The first replies answered the question and then there were some not-so-nice replies, then posters were sticking up for the original poster and the replies got more nasty. The original poster started a new topic asking what she had done wrong to get such hostile replies. You wouldn't believe what that unleashed! Many headphone users, no apologisers, and, unfortunately, a few I can do what I want.

I often wonder if that is what people are like in real life or if they feel that behind the anonymity of the on-line world they can be as nasty as they want. Being nasty is being nasty however it takes place. I hope these people like themselves because they must spend a lot of time in their own company as other people gradually leave them alone.