It’s funny because I have been exploring the internet in and out for about 13 years now and it all started in 1996 when I was asked by my 4th grade teacher to do an assignment on the presidential election. I had to go home and stare at the computer for nearly 3 hours after dinner that night but ill never forget my father standing over me watching to make sure I didn’t go into any chat rooms. Fast forward 13 years and here I am writing about my experience inside a discussion board.
I have always read discussion posts on various websites but I have never discussed anything myself. So this assignment was a new experience to me. We were asked to find something that we liked and like I said my main criteria for selecting my virtual community was how interested I was in the material. I joined 2 communities and consistently posted something new every day at least twice. The first site I joined was comingsoon.net; this website is devoted to movie news, reviews, and several different rumors. It’s like Variety magazine without the subscription. I looked for pieces of news that stood out and things I was interested in, then I found it. I had recently seen the new Harry Potter movie and wanted to speak my mind about it and what I thought and I voiced my honest opinion, then I went to bed. The next morning I woke to a mixed bag of both ridicule and camaraderie. I got comments telling me that I am a “Michael Bay loving tool who just wants action and no emotion” and I got comments that said “good point, they definitely could have done more”. After reading the comments after my post I realized that I was more liked than disliked because the positives outweighed the negatives but I also noticed that the negative comments were much more thought out than the positive. I posted more discussion topics like news on Iron Man 2 and what to expect at Comic- Con this week and most of those were really positive, the only negative ones were from other people’s honest postings. It seemed here that disagreements were handled very childishly, with plenty of potty humor to make South Park blush.
I then joined a video game site G4.com, I played it safe here I joined their Playstation forum and as a fan of the video game system I rarely had negative things to say, however anyone can join a virtual community and every once and a while the page would get posts from people who hate Playstation and these comments would just belittle whoever they were aimed at. It was funny to read some of them but the funny thing was that when these comments would go up the posters would get banned and we never heard another thing from them. I didn’t spend too much time here because not a lot of excitement was going on in the gaming world as there was in the film world.
In the Wood and Smith reading this week my eye was constantly on the section about “Netiquette” and the 10 rules to follow in an internet community and when I was posting I could definitely tell who was following these rules and who wasn’t. I really liked the idea of “Lurk before you leap” and being aware of what has been said in the community. Remember the Human also seemed to hit home a bit, I had a few negative comments over the last few weeks and some of them were pretty harsh but they really didn’t phase me, but I was surprised at the backing I got from other members who replied to the negative posts with some very positive things about my posts and I noticed on a few occasions that the same people were doing it. I wanted to get to know the people who were sticking up for me when I didn’t want to start an online war but I looked at repect other peoples privacy and decided that I didn’t want to get too involved.
So what did I learn in this experiment of virtual communities, well its important to remember that what is said shouldn’t be taken literally, your feelings when online should be completely different than the ones in the real world, people are tougher on the internet because they cant get confronted about what they say, freedom of speech is a powerful tool and all over the internet people exploit it.
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"your feelings when online should be completely different than the ones in the real world."
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point, but I'm not sure it's entirely realistic. How can you just pick up and change yourself? I think the difference is in how much you know a person.
For example, if some stranger walks up to me on the street and face-to-face delivers some insult, I'd get annoyed, but probably wouldn't take it to heart.
And if someone I call a friend online, posts a personal cut, I might be more hurt. I feel the same way in reverse--stranger online, I don't care; friend in person--I would care.
I had much the same experience with online disagreements. I joined the mother of all magnets for immature individuals: the World of Warcraft discussion boards. While there was a lot of good, positive discussion, and even very civil arguments about techniques and opinions, there was also just a lot of poop slinging when it came to disagreements. As I said in my own blog, most of it ended with who had the most players siding with them, and who had flamed the most comical yet caustic insult. While I do think there are still certain rules that online communities demand we follow, overall, the internet breeds immaturity in disagreements.
ReplyDeleteDavid, I after reading your post I thought about a couple of things. You discussed joining comingsoon.net. This is not a network I am very familiar with but I do know its purpose. I too am an avid movie person and have spent countless hours on IMDB.com to find out the last news or gossip on upcoming television shows or movies. However, I have not actively participated in the discussions, I do read them to try to stay updated on what is happening.
ReplyDeleteThis is just another way we can use the internet to stay updated on things that interest us. It is also free. Why pay for the Daily Variety when you can access something online for free that gives you all of the same information. This is one major advantage technology has provided us with. However, we sometimes have to sift through the nonsense to get the real scoop.