ScottFromWyoming wrote:
Ayup

 mutepoint wrote: 
Raise your hand if you scrolled down to see what the readers had to say about it...

 private_di wrote: 
Tech forums are excellent places to find ignoramuses who cover their lack of understanding and basic intelligence with insolence.

Back when I first got a computer, I asked about turning off plug' n 'play BIOS because I wanted to fiddle with Linux.  Normally, when you start up the computer and go into the BIOS, there's an option to turn it off.  I couldn't find it, and mentioned it online.  Some nitwit told me "just look for the 'turn off plug n play option'  "  Nope, I couldn't see it.  "Then you're a crackhead." was his intelligent reply

It turns out that there really was no such option displayed - it was disguised as "Are you running Windows 95?" or some such.  Anyone who actually knew what they were doing would have simply told me that.

I'd just like to say how nice it is to not only have excellent music available 24hrs, but to be able to discuss contentious stuff, thereby gaining insights in others thinking, without it turning into a slanging match. Well, ok, most of the time. Bill & Rebecca should be proud of their flock, and I for one appreciate the calm hand they hold on the tiller.

 rosedraws wrote: 
I've seen a few examples, but they have mostly been from people who tend to be rude in general. I've seen the same people deal with men just as poorly as women, although the wording and temper may differ.

 

 hippiechick wrote: 

what's a typical female way to respond? just curious...

 rosedraws wrote: 
I be interested in seeing some specific examples.

 hippiechick wrote: 
I agree, but it's not limited to non-typical females.  

Misogyny always shocks me, I never expect it.  And I've seen some strong examples here on RP. 

 private_di wrote: 
Oh yeah

 hippiechick wrote: 

uh, yeah, note the little pink circle-with-the-down-arrow thingy next to "Gender" below the avatar...

 private_di wrote: 
A little confused...are you a female?

Anyway, yes, there is definitely misogyny here to women who don't respond in typical female ways.

Not that this means anything here, but this is my observation...

Back when I first started posting to online forums, I noticed that I was most often met with rudeness and condescension — and these were not opinion forums, they were usually technology-oriented where I would look for help with computer problems. For instance, I once posted a message looking for help with a sound card issue. I was called an "asshole." Then I realized something...my profile easily identified my gender. So, going forward I would always make sure to create a gender-unknown profile for these forums — and the rudeness and condescension completely went away.

The only place that continues to have my old "female" ID is right here at RP. A few weeks ago I posted an opinion in one of the forums and I received from the alpha male what were the most vile responses I have seen in my seven years here. (I'm sure if he recognizes himself here he won't hesitate to tell me off again .) One week later, someone posted an opinion which was similar to mine but worded incredibly offensively — and it didn't generate a single peep of protest from anyone. But you see, there was that little astrological sign in his profile indicating he was a man...

Again, just my (very sad) observations.

 dmax wrote: 
Is that some kind of thermometer?

 Leslie wrote: 
Only time I put up with language like that is if it's iambic pentameter...

 dmax wrote: 
Yeah, especially for an M.D.

 romeotuma wrote: 
Those are way too many big words.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
He needs to put mirrors on top of his shoes like I does.

 

Control p's + q's

Sometimes it seems as though nastiness dominates the Internet. But there are signs that the Web is growing up.

By Don Aucoin

Globe Staff / February 21, 2009

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When Jon Stewart interviewed MSNBC talk-show host Rachel Maddow in early January, it triggered a discussion on the TV Newser website that got off to an ugly start.

 

"Maddow is a dude," sneered the first contributor to the site's comments section, in an apparent reference to the fact that Maddow is gay. But in the very next post came a sharp rebuke from another contributor: "This should not be a venue for homophobia." Soon, the comments section was overflowing with pro- or anti-Maddow sentiments, many of them passionately expressed. But the exchanges focused on the merits of Maddow's show and on her politics, not on her sexual orientation.

 

It could be counted as another small victory for the forces of civility that are fighting to establish a beachhead on the Internet. There is a quiet but growing movement to forge a truce in what Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, calls "an arms race of name-calling" on the Web.

"In public forums where there is some semblance of community, there are now norms and some degree of boundary-setting," Rainie says. "People are pushing back against offenders."

"There are lots of people in lots of places who are thinking hard about this and having conversations, asking: What is the character and culture of the Internet?" he adds. "Is it always going to deteriorate into a state of nature, or can we build a community where we can be civil to each other?"

Of course, buckets of venom still flow across the Web every day, every hour, every minute. Combine human nature with a social space that allows for anonymity, and nasty online behavior is often the result. But Amanda Voodre, 27, an online communication specialist at Simmons College, says that whereas a few years ago online insults would lead to an escalation in a war of words, the evolution of the Web has led to an informal code of conduct in online communities such as livejournal.com or in social-networking sites like Facebook. People who sling invective online are dubbed "trolls," she says, and are either ignored or told to get lost.

"The Internet has matured," Voodre says. "The younger generation of Internet users now see completely through the provoking that the trolls are trying to do. And the troll is defeated, because nobody is feeding that provoking."

No less an authority than Miss Manners, whose real name is Judith Martin, has noticed the stirrings of civility on the Web.

"If you recall, when the Internet first became wildly popular, it was supposed to be an etiquette-free zone," says Martin, who in addition to her syndicated column also writes for WowoWow.com, a website aimed at women. "But if you're saying, 'You're stupid,' sounding off and insulting each other, nothing of any substance gets said."

"What happened on the Internet was that people rediscovered an old truth about community life, which is that if you do not have some rules, nothing gets done. So gradually rules developed."

 

Of course, rules are made to be broken. Message boards and blogs containing vitriolic personal attacks are never more than a click or two away. But such attacks are increasingly likely to be met with a strong response by other users, who are sending this general message: Hey, keep it clean. No need to get personal. In the immortal words of "Seinfeld" character George Costanza, "We're trying to have a civilization here!"

"People are becoming outraged and they're becoming more vocal about it, about the kinds of things they're seeing on the Internet," says business etiquette expert Lydia Ramsey, who has written about how the careless use of e-mail can damage careers. "People are working hard to bring it back to a level of civility."

This could stem in part from an awareness, especially by younger users, that many employers and college admissions officers have begun to routinely check social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to see what applicants have posted about themselves. Attention to the corrosive aspects of Internet dialogue has also been intensified by such books as "Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob," by culture critic Lee Siegel, who coined the term "blogofascism," and Andrew Keen's "The Cult of the Amateur."

More broadly, efforts to change the culture of the Internet could reflect the typical life cycle of a new technology as it moves from infancy (the 1990s, when the Web came into widespread public use), through the upheavals and excesses of adolescence, to a potentially more stable middle age. "In the early days, the Internet was going to help everybody get along together," observes Rainie. "It was going to be the Age of Aquarius. Then it became obvious that it's really hard to gain trust when I'm a user name from who-knows-where and you're a user name from who-knows-where."

But if spammers, flamers, and predators helped put a disillusioning dent in the early dreams of a utopian online community, two recent episodes helped throw the need for Web civility - and for common decency - into exceptionally sharp relief.

The one that galvanized wide public attention was the suicide two years ago of 13-year-old Megan Meier of Missouri, who was the subject of a cruel Internet hoax by Lori Drew, her 47-year-old neighbor. Drew set up an account on MySpace and posed as a 16-year-old boy named "Josh Evans" who wrote flattering and romantic messages to Megan. The girl killed herself after "Josh" sent her a message saying, "The world would be a better place without you." In November, Drew was found guilty of three misdemeanor computer crimes.

The other episode was not as widely publicized, but it helped accelerate discussion within the technology community about the need to reform the toxic culture of the Web, especially with regard to verbal attacks on women. It occurred in March 2007, when Kathy Sierra, a game developer, canceled her appearance at a high-profile tech conference after she became the subject of vicious e-mails and blog postings, including an image of her next to a noose. "I am afraid to leave my yard, I will never feel the same," Sierra wrote. "I will never be the same."

 

Coincidentally or not, content-sharing sites like Digg and social media like MySpace and Facebook have gotten markedly more civil of late, according to Internet consultant Jordan Glogau. He attributes it partly to the fact that older users now utilize the sites, and partly to commercial imperatives: The owners of such sites don't want advertisers or investors scared away by a Wild West environment. The quest for credibility has also become increasingly important as the Web has matured. For example, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which relies on user-generated content, has tightened up its safeguards against the posting of hostile or inaccurate information designed to harm the reputations of companies or individuals, Glogau says.

However, Internet marketing specialist Stephen Pierce says that while the Web needs to develop a culture of disagreeing-without-being-disagreeable, it should remain a forum for robust discussion. "There's a balance that needs to be struck between a person who is being outright mean or racist, and someone who is voicing their opinion," says Pierce. "There are times when there's a healthy debate, and people want to express their emotions."

Still, Pierce welcomes any movement toward civility. He points to the growth of websites like Yahoo! Answers, in which an ethic of politeness prevails, perhaps because users are asking one another for answers to such questions as "How do you make jalapeno?", "How do I get a federal grant to pay for my education?" and "Does anyone know any tips on ingrown toenails?"

Even there, though, there is evidence that many people brace for brickbats whenever they venture onto the Web. A user identified as "yayaya" recently asked Yahoo! Answers when and by whom the Internet was invented, and then elaborated the query in words that, flawed punctuation and all, just might stand as a kind of manifesto for the Web civility movement:

"and im just looking for the answer

dont tell me 'why are you posting this on yahoo answers!? you're stupid' or anything mean/ sarcastic, if you dont know the question or have nothing to say about it, dont answer."