Is Common Courtesy a Lost Art??

[BuffyElevated]

Ok, so I am pissed off and this will be a little bit of a vent... 😉

I am wondering something. Is common courtesy a lost art in the world of online forums? When I first started using forums, it seems like people were so much nicer and respectful of each other. And these days, even the moderators are acting like assholes.

For instance... I am a member of another forum that's pretty large, like BB. Last night I reported a member's post for making fun of mentally handicapped people and referring to them as "retards". I thought the way he worded his post was highly offensive, and I know something like that would never fly here....

But I go into the reported post today to check to see if the mods were handling it and instead of the member I reported getting reprimanded, they're making fun of me for being "over sensitive". Mind you, this thread is in an open forum where a lot of other members can see this kind of attitude. It's not the fact that they think I'm being oversensitive that bugs me; I know that my attitude toward certain words/topics on an online forum is a little more uptight than some. But I thought it was common courtesy to avoid words that were considered offensive. I thought "retard" was one of those words, just the same as using the "n" word to refer to black people...

It makes me really appreciate BB and the time the staff takes to handle situations like this, as well as the rules set in place to avoid having issues like this one. It makes me wonder, though... What do you think about boards that allow that kind of behavior? Not just from the members, but the staff? And what do you think about the use of offensive language on a "family-friendly" forum.

 

[Kean]

The more time I spend online the more I realise that not only are people not avoiding words widely viewed as offensive, but that A LOT of people positively relish the opportunity to use them and offend someone.

I saw a post on Tumblr last night and I swear to God I've never been more disgusted with a person online. It was vile. The poster knew it was vile and wanted you to know that they enjoyed being vile.

 

[SlayerFest]

I rarely see things like that online. I spend most of my time on here (and like you said...that would never fly on BB), Facebook (I would unfriend someone if they were acting like a total bigot) and tumblr (I try to weed out the a holes on there too). I am not easily offended and my best friend and I will jokingly say pretty awful things to each other and we might use words that are in...poor taste, but never around other people because I wouldn't want to offend anyone. You weren't uptight for reporting that person, at all. I feel like people who say things like that online just want attention. It's really not that hard to tone it down. And maybe it's just me, but I might say vulgar things around my friends...but I feel awkward as hell saying them to people I don't know that well because they might get offended and rightfully so. It's just common sense. It's a freaking online forum, tons of people are on it, people should try to watch what they say. Sometimes things aren't blatantly offensive and miscommunication can arise, but it's just in poor taste and ignorant as hell to use the word "retard" and not expect someone to be offended.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

I have been on a number of forums where bizarre things have happened.

One religious forum has a viewable list of people on probation and banned and some of the banned were financial supporters. My first post on that forum was challenged, but the mods ruled that I had done nothing wrong.

A car forum had a politics section that it eventually dropped because it was getting too inflammatory.

One forum for antique radio restoration lost a member because another forum member accused him of being too whipped by his wife.

One forum for a musician had accusations and threats flying between people to the extent that three people got banned and had to log on again as different screen names. It also had a strange situation of one girl logged on as four different people but she got caught when she posted another member's pictures as her own, including baby pictures. That was brought to light in a thread that generated 528 posts over one weekend.

Another car forum had some members banned for being more vulgar than their very lenient standards (and calling somebody a retard would not be enough for a ban there - you could get away with worse, including sexual and homosexual innuendo, in your signature).

Another music show forum deleted a whole lot of threads because weird accusations were flying around, like one guy living in Mississauga ON Canada (near Toronto) was enticing a single mother into an illicit affair and the single mother was in Auckland NZ when no such thing was said and there was no possibility of it happening. There was one obnoxious guy on that forum and I got him back with a little "fan fiction" of my own, so I have no reluctance to give as good as I get. This forum was so upsetting to some people that they started another one on the same topic that was by invitation only (and I was invited and joined).

One forum on FM radio lost one if its most valuable members because his integrity was called into question and no one rushed to defend him.

So far, I have not seen much in the way of disrespect on this forum - I have had statements opposed, but I could justify what I said and the one person who got upset about it did not suggest a ban. I think this forum is pretty benign and a credit to the mods.

 

[Spikefan31]

I am soooooo glad this is such a nice forum. 🙂

 

[EVIL UU]

[MENTION=8356]HisMrs[/MENTION]

And these days, even the moderators are acting like assholes.

Yes, it's truly heartbreaking when moderators resort to name calling users, like this one BB ex-moderator, now what was his name, HerMr or something?

What do you think about boards that allow that kind of behavior?

I'm OK with them. It all comes down to personal values ( freedom of expression or other values it conflicts? ) and boards' rules and etiquette. There are on-line communities out there in which certain words commonly considered highly offensive have a completely different meaning inside those communities and are not considered offensive at all among the members.

And what do you think about the use of offensive language on a "family-friendly" forum.

I think that in certain situations offensive language can enhance the message and improve entertainment value.

 

[Robb Stark]

This is the only forum I really actively partake in anymore. I have no problem at all with disagreement, that is often required for productive discussion. However, I can't stand when things are discussed civilly, when member act like dicks just because they can hide behind a keyboard and when threads devolve into back-and-forth name calling for a hundred posts. That's just dumb to me.

I tried getting into a forum about "A Song of Ice and Fire", my absolute favorite book series, but I've pretty much quit entirely now. People just get insulting when disagreement arises. Now, BB was my first real forum experience, so I guess I was a bit naive, but I went into it expecting it to be like BB, and it...really wasn't. I found myself getting annoyed as opposed to enjoying being there, and then just asked myself what the point of going to that forum at all was if that was the case.

Things will get heated from time to time, I get that, and that's "wrong". People see things differently. People disagree. It happens. But for the most part, there's very seldom a reason why things can't remain respectful.

 

[Living Dead Boy]

Common courtesy is a lost art form period. There is no such thing anymore. Of course, with it being the world wide web, you would expect a couple of ignorant people out there who'd rather hide behind their computers than say it to your face. I mean seriously guys, have you checked out the Yahoo! comment section? It is utterly, and truly appalling. You see not only words like "retard" thrown out there casually, but the "n" word, among many other no-no's, are as common there as....ants.....on a sidewalk? You get what I'm saying....right? 😉

People tend to take that political right called "freedom of speech" and they twist it to their own liking. I can call you a retard, just because I can. I can call you a fag, just because I can. It's really sad.

 

[Washburne]

Correct me if I'm wrong but freedom of speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you want. You're allowed to express your feelings and opinions. But that can be done in different ways. Being rude or offensive on purpose is done for a reason. To get a reaction, not to prove your point or show how you think/feel about something.

Now we're all human and for a lot of different reasons we sometimes act out of line, sometimes way out of line. A huge different thing than constantly act that way. Not having to say things face to face can be a good thing but most often it seems like people use it to act like jerks.

 

[Joan the Vampire Slayer]

Well, I can't speak for other forums as this is the only one I frequent anymore.

What I have found is that in general - RL and online - people are lacking in courtesy and common sense. I think that nasty people might be drawn more to online because it gives them a "safe space" to spew their hate and bigotry without consequence. After all, it's mostly anonymous. If someone said, for instance, the "retard" to someone in RL, someone would probably speak up. Or at least I would. But online you can basically say whatever you want. I think sometimes people forget there are real people behind those computer screens.

 

[sk]

No, I actually don't think common courtesy is a lost art.

It's just so easy to get caught up in all the bad stuff that is going on that you don't notice all the regular nice people who knows how to behave decently.

I'm still convinced that there are lots more good people out there.
Unfortunately so are the bad, annoying ones a lot louder and takes so much more space that you easily miss that.

/SK

 

[Tueuse de Vampires]

I don't really see it as much of an issue. Words are just words. They themselves are pretty meaningless, it's what's being interpreted in it. And oftentimes, the ban of words has been taken a bit too far. Like, we learned in school (in Germany, German being the language) that you shouldn't call people black, but instead say 'colored'. The reason for this being that 'black' was too negatively annotated. But the thing is, since both the 'negative' word and the new more pc word are referring to the same concept, if people really meant to speak negatively of whatever special group of people, the new pc word would, in time, get the same negative valence. On the other hand, when people who just normally talk and refer to the group by the old word, but were putting a more positive meaning on it, the 'rude' term would become less offensive and return to its original meaning. By avoiding certain words, you are only adding to their offensiveness.

Retard is another one of those words. It depends on how you use it. Coicidentally, earlier today I just told one of my good friends that she was laughing like a retarded seal. Was she offended? No, because the intention behind the statement weren't anything bad.

Another example is b*tch. Basically among my entire circle we call each other that. And it's a good thing. If you're called that, it expresses strengh, coolness, and other people being impressed with you. That's not negative at all, although the word itself is probably considered pretty negative by most people.


Bottom line to this, I guess, is that words are what you make of them. If you wanna be offensive, you don't need those special words. Actually, that's one of the most offensive things people can do in my opinion: phrase everything nicely so that it sounds sophisticated and all, but have the underlying meaning be really really rude and mean.
On the other hand, 'offensive' words shouldn't really be banned for good from public use, because that just enforces the negativity of the word and confirms the underlying prejudice.


Although I do guess there are words for which it's just too far gone to ever be used normally again, usually when they're connected to really dark periods in history. Like, anything that was used during slavery or the holocaust.

 

[Nix]

I think sometimes people forget there are real people behind those computer screens.

Very true, people do forget. I think sometimes people can be very cruel when it's not needed.

I also think that sometimes people are too scared to break from a group of people online when they actually have a different opinion. For example, A group of friends of say 5 all think Spike is evil and not to be liked when one member of those friends actually like Spike, but they don't speak up for fear of losing the other 4 as friends. You should feel safe on a forum, enough to speak up. But some forums are very cliquey and you do feel you can not have a different opinion to others.

I like that here I can have a different opinion to my friends and in general I do not get pounced on for that.

 

[This Year's Girl]

There's actually been a very interesting debate about this in Sweden the last few weeks, but taken a few steps further. A lot of famous women journalists, bloggers and tv personalities have recieved a lot of horrible threats on the internet (not like an organized thing - just a lot of different people). They took a stand together and decided to talk about this openly on a tv special even though they have been threatned not to. There is not only them that have been threatned either - the persons online went as far as talking about the womens children and families too.

In the tv special a lot of people writing horrible comments got confronted and just as some of you mention they say things that show that they don't think about they're actions as "real" because "it is happening on the internet". Which makes no sense to me - a threat is still a threat, being mean is still being mean. It IS real, it doesn't matter which form you have chosen to communicate it through.

 

[Bexieh]

I can only speak for the little corner of the internet that I live in, but I never really come across many problems. It might be because I go on a lot of smaller forums. BB is the biggest one I go on. There's been the occasional tool that shows up and gets themselves banned but generally I haven't come across too many problems and most people I meet are just lovely! I don't really understand the 'lets go online and be a prat to people' mentality. Maybe it makes people feel bigger because they can belittle people on the internet and not get caught, but I don't understand why it makes them feel so. I'd just feel like a prat 😛 So yeah there's plenty of idiots about who make common courtesy seem like a dying thing, but I've met so many amazing people online, you just gotta weed out the bad ones and you'll find tonnes of brilliant people to make up for them! Unfortunately the rude people tend to be the loudest 🙁

 

[Enemies]

I'm going to simply say yes. After spending my last few weeks bending over backwards for people in every walk of life and sometimes not even getting a simple acknowledgement, I would say all courteous behaviour is a lost art. I sometimes wonder what happened to manners and the simple of art of just speaking to people politely. I'm also perplexed about how the younger generation get taught to respect their elders yet there seems to be a bare minimum of respect for the younger generation full stop.

I personally intend on being polite and courteous as much as possible. I would even say I pride myself on it because I think rudeness and bad manners gets you nowhere.