Degreeinfo = "electronic fight club"??

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by oxpecker, Mar 26, 2004.

Loading...
  1. oxpecker

    oxpecker New Member

  2. No way!

    I completely disagree with your position!!!! ;)
     
  3. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    That's why I choose to use the alias Bill Huffman. It is far more menacing than my real name, Limp Dick Pansy.
     
  4. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    "decimon" means that I'm as good as any ten men. Or a legion of pansies.
     
  5. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    My pseudonym works so well that it is on my drivers license, work and school records and and my brith certificate. My wife and children even know me by that name!

    Tony
     
  6. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    Did that hurt or were you too young to remember?
     
  7. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    Yes, I was too young to spell "birth" correctly...or maybe I just had infant dyslexia.:p

    Tony
     
  8. seekinghelp

    seekinghelp New Member

    What about us?

    Where do the girls and women fit?:D
     
  9. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    Re: What about us?

    Around.
     
  10. Deb

    Deb New Member

    Re: What about us?

    We just PM each other and laugh at the silly macho names the guys pick.

    Fake macho name = small p.... uh, um....
     
  11. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I think that this is a serious issue and potentially one of significance to DL.

    I'm not a psychologist. But my layman's speculation is that there is some kind of internal social control mechanism within human beings that serves a self-censorship function in social situations. Obviously people speak less freely to others than they do when they are talking to themselves.

    But the point here is that this self-censorship mechanism doesn't seem to be triggered by online communication the way it is face-to-face. That might be wonderful for people with social anxiety, but it might also lead to disfunctional online behavior.

    In other words, people seem to treat online discussion kind as if they were talking to themselves. There are no consequences. There's a tendency for aggressive behavior to manifest that would otherwise have been censored. And there is a tendency for people to treat other people as foils, as two-dimensional figures standing in for something that only exists in the writer's head.

    What does all this online fighting reveal? I suppose in some cases simply that the aggressive writer is a thinly veiled asshole. But more commonly, I think that these writers are probably fine people. It's human nature that people don't like being contradicted, that they react badly to being thwarted. In the online environment, frustration that would normally be self-censored is manifested as combativeness.

    One worry that I have is the effect this stuff has on distance learning, on e-commerce and on working online.

    I suppose that abusive online behavior might be reduced by reintroducing greater perceived social consequences. Is there any evidence that making participants reveal their real names and identities reduces inappropriate behavior? Does the fact that online students receive grades and employees need to keep their jobs suppress inappropriate behavior in these more structured kinds of online environments?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 27, 2004
  12. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Well, back in the day when I was such, I might have chosen "Gadfly" or "Iconclast" as my user names.

    But I wouldn't have been able to change it so "Jimmy Clifton" works even better now!
     
  13. seekinghelp

    seekinghelp New Member

    I belong to another site that is for nurses so consequently there are few men who post every day, just mostly us females. Well, I don't know if it is because we are nurses, or because we are female, (or both) but I can tell you that there is very very little of the 'in your face' posting on that site like there is elsewhere.

    I consider it to be a male-based phenomenon through my casual and unscientific observation ( and no, I don't care to prove that and cite specific research thank you). The investment boards I have been a member of have been quite nasty and confrontational. And there is definately a pattern. There are the leaders, who are many times the most insulting and contentious loud mouths, and their followers who adore them no matter how rude they are to everyone, including the followers. Then there are the blissful posters who post their questions and make their quiet non-committal observations. And there's an array of newbies who come and go, quite confused as to why anyone has to act so awful as the leaders do, get attacked once for a "stupid" question and disappear. There are the funny one's who always have a cute and quick comment to make about nearly every subject. There are the helpful ones, who always give tips and ideas to others and post very mild questions. And then there are the trolls, who post to incite and are usually pretty easy to detect right out of the box.

    What type did I miss?
     
  14. oxpecker

    oxpecker New Member

    Interestingly, the April 2004 issue of the Communications of the ACM has an article entitled "Etiquette Online: From Nice to Necessary" (by Prof. Jenny Preece of UMBC) that describes this phenomenon and some possible remedies (including Slashdot.org "karma" ratings).
     
  15. oxpecker

    oxpecker New Member

    This seems like a good time to remind people of the Flame Warriors site, which has pictures of many of our fellow netizens.

    Here's my picture.
     
  16. seekinghelp

    seekinghelp New Member

    Oh, I've never seen this site, it's just TOO funny, and just TOO true.
     
  17. wfready

    wfready New Member



    Ahh! I have been looking for this site (THANKS!). I remember there was thread regarding this link a while ago..
     
  18. Guest

    Guest Guest

    One of the reasons I mentioned psychiatrist Karen Horney earlier is that her typology of people seems to describe all types of forum behaviors: compliant, aggressive, and detached.

    The compliant (moving toward) is the person who needs approval, the aggressive (moving against) is the person who thinks everyone else is hostile but him/her, and the detached (moving away) is the person who needs to feel superior.

    I am sure we can read posts and see how fitting these typologies are for most, if not all, posters.

    Of course, Horney goes into great depth and analyses of each typology but what I have presented is just a thumbnail sketch of her theories.

    Although she uses these terms to describe people in (neurotic) conflict, they pretty well describe most of us at one time or another.
     
  19. wfready

    wfready New Member

  20. Guest

    Guest Guest

    I think is also because there is less to argue about in nursing.
    Here you can argue RA vs NA or something like that.
    On the investment borads you can argue BRK.A vs MSFT
    What are you going to argue about in nursing IMED vs Buretrol?
    I think nursing is more collaborative than the others as well.

    I choose nursing because of the collaborative caring nature of the profession and the ability to help others.
    ( OK I really chose it to meet women but I'm not going to actually say that.)
     

Share This Page