Is it just me??

[disneymac]

It seems like a lot of people lately are really quick to judge other people's choices and jump on them for those choices. Maybe it's always been this way here and I'm only recently seeing it, but it seems a shame that this happens. Some threads start out with a perfectly innocent question and all of a sudden there are debates and attacks. I guess maybe people feel that being anonymous gives them a greater freedom for this - I don't know. Well, all done with my rambling now - peace to all.

 

[bicker]

Rarely are there such conflicts in response to something that is nothing more than an innocent question. Rather, such conflicts emerge when a question raises a deeper issue for which reasonable people disagree. One of the magical parts about discussion boards is that it brings people together who have extremely varied perspectives. It is often very useful, for those who aren't wedded to a specific perspective, to understand the various perspectives others have, so they can make their own decision. Where things go bad is when there are folks unwilling to accept that reasonable people can disagree -- where people are unwilling to accept that their own personal perspective is not the only possible reasonable one. Luckily, even that is handled very well here.

 

[Marseeya]

Welcome to the internet.

 

[bicker]

Hehe... good point. I've been online for almost 25 years, and I don't remember it being any different, since the introduction of WebTV and AOL. (Before that, I do recall there being a much more reserved, collegial atmosphere -- there was still disagreement, but the disagreement was ALWAYS discussed in an academic, almost droll manner.)

 

[Marseeya]

I haven't been online for quite that long, but I remember the days of local message boards (what were they called? bulletin boards? i can't remember), and I agree.

Then came AOL. Whew! I signed up for AOL in the early 90s when there were still less than 100,000 members. The fights were still the same... glass houses this, walk a mile that.

I did meet my DH on AOL, though, so I do have some fond feelings for it.

 

[bicker]

My wife and I go back a bit further, to UUCP/ARPANET, the original Compuserve, the original Delphi, the original Prodigy, GEnie (part of GEIS), and ddial <shudder>. These "hot topics" really didn't get "hot" online until AOL and WebTV.

I met my wife on ddial.

 

[Poohnatic]

The snarkiness is always there. I think it's a little more obvious when there are more posts with questions such as those posed lately. It's unfortunate that someone has a legitimate question and others have to post the "I'm better than you" type response.

Bicker, I've seen your responses on many of those threads, and appreciate that you can say something without it belittling the OP's. Those *P, GEnie, and BBS days were good ones-the posts were moderated, so it never got to the point that some of the things here have. They screened before anything posted.

Suzanne
(Yes, 10 years later and I can tell you my prodigy id-the one that came with my first computer in '88!)