Internet Argument

Once I asked my mother: "What do you do when you get angry with someone at the office?". I was expecting something like "deal with it", "make something good out of it" or the classic "count to ten to calm down". Her reply surprised me. She said: "I go to the toilet, close all doors behind me and then swear my eyes out". Maybe that's why internet arguments end up a bloody mess most of the time; people want to swear at other people but they feel awkward to do it in front of them.

So, like most people on the internet, I'm a member of several forums (I refuse to call them fora for some reason), but only with one of them have I been any less than one of the well-behaved "good" people. It's a forum about fantasy and science fiction literature, geared towards writers. I won't bore the reader with all the details. Suffice to say that I strongly feel that most of the moderating team are imbeciles but worst yet big hypocrites.

It's funny how one can delete a post because it mentioned politicians and included a sniper emoticon while at the same time go on big unreasonable rants condemning every religion out there. It's funny how one is allowed to bash people's well-thought arguments with one-word sarcastic replies while at the same time banning people who do the same. It's funny how one can dismiss someone's years of work with a witty comment while at the same time be offended when there's anything remotely negative mentioned about something even remotely associated with himself... and be a moderator. Then, if you tell them "Hey, I think you're doing it wrong" or even dare to use the report button, you are swiftly accused of backseat moderating.

Still, that's not the point of this post. The first time I was really warned about such a behaviour, about a year ago (the funny thing is that the formal warning was removed in the end but I was never told why exactly), I decided to take a back seat and only write a) long informative posts-articles about events or things I knew well about and b) stories. Time passed and at one time I came at the opposite end of the argument. Someone said something that I found very insulting to me. That someone was a moderator and of course nobody ever told him anything. So, it was clear to me that these moderators were only abusing their powers, protecting only themselves at the sligtest of provocations, while leaving everyone else exposed. I then decided that I would only use the forum as a library to publish my amateur short stories.

Alas, it happened again, yesterday. I posted a short story which was a parody. It contained a single sentence that could be offensive, if one took it to heart and too seriously. Of course, they did and this morning I was promptly informed that they would remove it, not only because it was offensive but because it lacked artistic value.

Now, for today's novelty: The past times I felt I was wronged by those people I kept a grudge. I decided to distance myself from the forum more and more and the respect I had for them was replaced by contempt. Today, I decide to do the exact opposite. I have already complained about the decision but I won't do anything more about it. I won't get angry with them, I won't say I will leave the forum forever or any other melodramatic thing. I will just ignore it. I shouldn't mind every silly thing anyone does, so I won't.

PS: The comic above is xkcd#438: Internet Argument.