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.

A Study on my (not particularly fast) Reading Skills

I have noticed in my life, that I have my hobbies and my perceived hobbies. What I mean is, there are lots of things I find myself wanting to do, on a theoretical level, but never actually investing in. This is a depressing situation, when you think about it. One of those things is reading. I have always loved the idea of reading but never really made a habit out of it. On top of that, I'm distracted rather easily, which makes reading anything, particularly non-literature an exhausting and frustrating experience. However, there was a time when I managed to almost make a habit out of it. It but a few years ago that I read something before going to sleep. One of my teachers once said that reading on the bed before sleeping is a cure for insomnia, because it makes your mind make you feel tired in order to escape from the labour. While I can't say I fully endorse such sentiments, I can't deny that that time is not the best for understanding concepts and clear thinking.

Then, it happened, during a visit to my godfather. He has a really immense bookcase in his house, it's actually a whole room. He asked me whether I read books and I replied that I did, almost every night, before bed. He frowned a little and said "Well, I only read in the morning, so I don't miss anything". So, that's how I stopped reading before bed. Then, I started reading books during the breaks in university, but that's a different story.

So, yes, I read: occasionally, some periods more, others less. These days, it's the latter. I started reading a book containing all the works of Edgar Allan Poe a few months ago. Unfortunately, I only went as far as the first story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue". It's a pity, too, because although that story didn't leave a really good impression on me, I loved the way it was structured and the way Poe had with words.

So, for this day's novelty, I took the challenge of starting reading the book again, as fast as I could, to see how far I could get in one hour. The second story is "The Mystery or Marie Rogêt". It starts on page 26 and ends on page 61. The results were really discouraging. I managed to read until page 49, which means one hour's worth of reading equals to a mere 23 pages read. That's about 0.4 pages per minute, which -with some rough calculations- amounts to about 208 words per minute. Even with my concentration constantly breaking, other thoughts creeping in my mind, especially ones about how much time I had left, I really expected more out of myself. I always thought I was a fast reader; apparently, I was wrong. Perhaps with enough training, I may learn reading faster.

Poe's style didn't help either. The story was about how the narrator and his genius-of-analyical-thinking friend tried to solve the mystery of a young lady's murder. It was full of supposed newspaper excerpts and huge monologues highlighting every logical or factual mistake of the aforementioned newspaper editors. Even with my slow reading and re-reading of certain part, I cannot in good conscience say I was fully confident in knowing what was going on. Oh, well. Still, I am looking forward to finishing this story.