Do you ever get mad when people don't reply to your emails? I do. I have this imaginary timetable set up in my head that starts ticking after I send an email to someone and when someone exceeds their maximum allotted time to reply I get flustered. This lasts for about 10 seconds then I realize that the rest of the world doesn't sit in front of a pc all day with their email open. The rest of the world might actually be busy or have to think about a reply causing them to exceed my allotted 24 hour turnaround time or better yet, have a life!
The funny part of this is that I'm on one extreme, and my wife is on the other. I'll send her an email about the house, or bills, or a meeting, or a party we are invited to and I get nothing. Emails sent to her are lost in this black abyss of cyberspace. It's funny.
For example, I'm sitting here composing a blog in one tab and I have my gmail open in another tab and I noticed that Mandy posted a comment on a previous entry. What does a nut like me do? I halt the writing of my latest post and go reply to her comment. Like she's going to wait 30 seconds and refresh the page in hopes that we may exchange comments via my blog.
Speaking of posting comments...I heard on NPR this morning that these net nerds are coming up with a code of conduct for posting comments on blogs to enforce civility. Here is an article about it. That's a good idea. People too quickly read an entry, lose their cool and feel the need to 1-up the other guy by blasting them in the comment section. Is it that important to be right all the time? Is it that important to show everyone how much smarter you are by proving others wrong? How about trying to understand the situation from both angles instead of forcing others to understand your viewpoint? The Big Picture, ya know?
What I think is interesting is the cojones that people suddenly grow when they are online posting comments. I've seen it before on car forums and on the Muscle and Fitness magazine forum. On the car forums guys will brag that they removed the governor on the throttle and did 130 with only 3 cylinders working. Then some wise ass counters with 'no way man' and chaos ensues. Similarly on the M&F forum some twit logs on there and says 'I'm 16 and weight 145 pounds and can bench press blah blah blah'. More chaos.
What makes people do this? Combine the anonymity of the internet with no supervision, no repercussions, the poster has center stage, arrogant know-it-all attitudes prevail, the whole thing snowballs and before you know it death threats are tossed around.
It's a good idea, it has merit...but then it has to be enforced. And what qualifies as a hostile comment? Oh, I'm going to think myself into a tizzy...time for bed.
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4 comments:
I've had analogous experiences posting on a forum about Oak Island. I frequently bring up things like science and logic and lack thereof in most treasure hunts, and I always get blasted for it. It's gotten to the point where just about anything I say on there warrants some sort of flaming, just because I'm "that skeptic."
It's tricky. I, too, would like to eliminate the anonymous bravado that goes on, but there's no way to feasibly and reasonably enforce it. Forums have moderators, but in my case, the moderator was one of the guys flaming me. It's an imperfect system, but at least we get more opinions than we know what to do with now, right?
By the way, your post sounded an awful lot like a complaint of the crotchety persuasion... ;)
Well, I am approaching 28...I know it's not 30...so the crotchetyness is beginning.
You are good at leaving and replying to comments. I'm not good at it, but you should know that I do appreciate your efforts!
Mandy
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