About Rudeness in Forums

[Renegade]

Not sure where everyone else hangs out, but I frequent a few other professional tech forums as well.

It seems like there is a lot of rudeness elsewhere, but never here. If you've ever been to JoS, you'll know what I mean.

The "How to ask questions thread" got me thinking about this again. The thing is that even when people ask questions the right way (or close enough), all too often there are people just waiting to pounce on them. That just doesn't really happen here, which is something I really enjoy. It's very refreshing to read where people help each other rather than attack.

[superboyac]

I have to say very rarely to never.  I've noticed hints of surliness a couple of times here but that's about it.  yes, it's a unique and pleasant experience here for some reason.  I have to give credit to mouser.  And here's the really interesting thing, it's something that's not even enforced or talked about that much...everyone here is just naturally courteous and pleasant!  Other forums usually have to have a stickied topic enforcing their rules with the threat of a ban or something, but nothing like that here.  Kudos!

[Deozaan]

I've encountered what I perceived as rudeness on these forums before, but it's been so long since then that I feel I could accurately vote "Never."

[Darwin]

I went with rarely - I do recall some rudeness (and have probably been guilty of it too) but it is indeed a very uncommon occurrence.

[lanux128]

AFAIK the rudeness level at DC is non-existent..

[Renegade]

The ALTools forums are really just for product support, but there are a few discussions and the like. Similarly there I have ZERO problems. Ok - not totally true. I've had one that I needed to moderate.

I'm not sure what it is, but there is just such a difference between some places. e.g. The Harmony Central forums (for music and guitars) are full of, well... Some pretty morally questionable posts that are definitely not family-friendly. Just think very off-topic and sinking a notch or two from, "I'd hit it."

The JoS forums allow anonymous posts, but even then, it's often non-anonymous posters that get snarky, so I'm not sure that anonymity has any relation to nastiness.

I voted "Never" because I've never seen anything here that even comes close to what happens elsewhere. I've see heated arguments/discussions, but not the outright, overly aggressive attacks that go on elsewhere. Disagreement is one thing, but calling someone an idiot because they have a different opinion is a bit overboard.

Got to run... Stuff to do...

[lanux128]

btw, a thread related to this topic - How To Ask Questions The Smart Way.

[Eóin]

I said 'Very Rarely' but from any member who is even halfway regular the answer is Never!

[f0dder]

I've voted "very rarely" - perhaps once a month or a bit less frequently I see a post and think "this might offend somebody, but not me" because of political/religious/sexual content (obviously very very little of it since it's not moderated away, but we all know how touchy some people are).

I can only recall one heated/nasty discussion on this forum community, it's a quite magical place to be

[J-Mac]

I voted "Very Rarely".  I can't help it - I am rude from time to time. Don't even realize it when I am; I usually see a curt reply to a post I made and have to go back and take another look at what I wrote.  My posts often sound a little ruder when I read them after the fact.

Combination of a lot of factors, I guess. Just smack me once or twice - I'll straighten up!

Jim

[nosh]

Very rarely. DC seems to have a way more mature audience than most other places on the Net. Which is obviously a good thing but sliiiightly constricting at times coz I find myself censoring my own posts rather more strictly than I do at other places.

[zridling]

Also, I attribute it to mouser and the original DC bloggers, and members like Carol Haynes, who set a open-minded, informed, and relaxed tone for the forum. I feel free to talk about anything and everything and when someone corrects me, I'm grateful. Hell, you guys even tolerate my Linux posts!

[f0dder]

Hell, you guys even tolerate my Linux posts!

-zridling (November 20, 2007, 01:23 AM)

You're pretty moderate about the stuff, not the typical gpl-zealot anti-ms attitude... and I tend to agree with a lot of your points as well, even though I don't see linux as a real alternative to windows (and that to the point where lots of people would classify me as anti-linux ).

[nudone]

i vote never as it must be around the 0.001 percentage area - or less. possibly things are misinterpreted sometimes but they don't take long to resolve.

[Carol Haynes]

I must say I really like the atmosphere here. I was the first 'moderator' Mouser asked to help out - it has not been an onerous or difficult job. Occasionally there are stupid or offensive posts (almost invariably one offs from newcomers or visitors - and almost always spam of some sort) but the community is very good at reporting these posts and they are probably dealt with before anyone notices.

From the tone of some 'heated' discussions I am sure most people realise that there isn't active moderation of posts at all - usually just a quick comment in a thread asking for the temperature to be cooled (sometimes I need hosing down too ).

Thanks everyone for making it a great place to visit every day.

[app103]

The civility of this community is a breath of fresh air. 

Although I do enjoy a certain free speech forum that is more or less an unmoderated "almost anything goes" free-for-all of nastiness, taboo topics (politics, religion, etc), insults, blood-guts-and-gore, adult humor, and seriously off-color sarcasm, too. Most threads there are not family friendly or safe for work or suitable for most humans, so I won't post the link here. They call their equivalent to our 'Living Room', 'The Cesspool'. 

I guess I go between extremes and am lucky to have a place as an outlet for both sides of my nature...the nice (here) and the not-so-nice (there).

Yeah, most of you are lucky enough never to have seen my 'dark side'. 

[Ralf Maximus]

I voted 'Very Rarely' but in retrospect I think I should've gone with 'Never'.  As app103 says, this is a pretty unique interweb experience; it really is a well behaved crowd here. 

I think it has something to do with the moderators, who when they are required to step in are extremely even tempered.  I'm not even sure who the moderators are and that's refreshing, since in some places mods act like they're been issued a Judge Dredd uniform.  In fact, the only time I ever saw a moderator apologize for accidently nuking something they shouldn't have happened *here*.

Hmmmmmmmm...

Okay, I'm now rethinking my vote again, I wanna recast it for "Daily".  Just to stir up some trouble and see if it's even possible to rile up the moderators.  If there was an "Hourly" option I'd go for that.  And plus, I'll add in some profanity -- that usually works.

Frack!  Smegma!  Norway!  Condoleeza!

Duly riled moderators note

Not really 

[Deozaan]

Frack!  Smegma!  Norway!  Condoleeza!

-Ralf Maximus (November 20, 2007, 07:35 AM)

How rude and offensive!   

[Darwin]

This'll get 'em, Ralf, watch:

GRUNTIES

Straight from the Helsinki Institute...

[Josh]

I dont know about you all but mouser is one of the rudest administrators I know. All he cares about is himself and cody. What A SHam!

[/sarcasm]

[Darwin]

Hmm... this thread is heating up nicely - not quite sure if qualifies as rude, but it is getting heated.

[Lashiec]

I think I'll go with "Monthly". Once in a while we get some heated discussions, considering how things go around here, but that one that f0dder linked is the only one I saw mouser closed for going too far.

Examples of somewhat rude threads would be the one that Darwin mentions, that other one that was spawned in the Opera 9.5 thread, with zealotry accusations and everything, and the one about the Mac, hehe, that one was quite the show. In every other forum, people would be trolling in those threads, derailing then to the point of making the original topic or question irrelevant.

Like, for example, if someone asked about an antivirus, people started to recommend switching to the Mac or Linux. Or complaining about an app they never tried. But those are the less rude situations.

Then again, like everyone says, this is a very nice place, considering some of the other forums I hang around, one being really mean sometimes. I have to say that is mostly frequented by teenagers, and their "Living Room" is particularly hilarious, because of the naiveness of some people. Anyway, people is always meaner in the Internet than in real life.

[Darwin]

Ha, ha - I'd forgotten about the Mac threads. Fodder kindly pointed to the single really heated thread that I can remember in over two years of visting the boards. That's the reason I voted "rarely" instead of never.

[Daleus]

LOL,

When I saw the link to this thread in the newsletter, I followed it immediately wondering who I would have to blacklist for being rude!

That might be rudeness on it's own, but as many have said before, I've never seen a rude post.  Granted DC is huge and very busy and I am relatively new and have not yet plumbed all of the depths of DC, but one of the reasons I even decided to sign up was the consistently helpful attitude that pervades the whole place.

Funnily, I started using a product I first heard of here, but when I asked a question on that product's support board, I got beat with the "condescending and rude" stick by the first responder.  I still will use the product, but I'll never go back to their support boards again.  I get better answers to my questions here at DC anyway!

Keep up the swell work folks!

[Jammo the OrganizedFellow]

Aside from my previous #1 Favorite Forum (http://www.sr20forum.com/), which WAS my favorite, till I sold my SE-R.

Then there's always http://expressionengine.com/forums/, where I spend the rest of my time.


But DonationCoder has quickly climbed to the top. In terms of friendliness and usefulness.