mean, rude, simple-minded posters are ruining this board

[Anonymous]

is it me or has the board taken a really nasty turn lately? this board used to be a good resource for info and an interesting place to chat about this and that. but the level of discourse has plunged recently. there are so many posters who are cruel or just plain stupid. i feel like this is not a space for reasonable, respectful adult conversation anymore.

why on earth are people jumping all over each other, in vicious ways, over small issues? why on earth can't folks accept that there different perspectives out there other than their own? where have all the grown ups gone?

[Anonymous]

oh well... here we go again...

[Anonymous]

I would venture to guess MOST of the threads are adult and pretty cordial, and then about 25% are just ridiculous.

It is an anonymous board, you gotta take the bad with the good.

[Anonymous]

"...lately..." You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous]

Because people are losing their jobs, or at risk for losing their jobs, having problems paying their bills, can't send their kids to better schools, fed up with the congestion around here, fed up with the economy, thrown into competetive envirnoments against their will, deep in that rat race to send their kids to top schools, make more money, etc..etc...

This area just creates unhappy people. I used to live in Seattle and I can't tell you how content people seem to be there. I would get strangers smiling at me. I once had a guy whose car I hit from behind apologize to me. When I went to the grocery store and bought an eggplant, the cashier would ask me how I planned to cook that eggplant. My neighbor would bring my trashcan back to the garage for me many times. It's less congested there, less of a rat race. People go to fancy restaurants in their birkenstocks with socks. It's laid back. Nobody is out to impress.

Wish we could adopt a bit of their ways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because people are losing their jobs, or at risk for losing their jobs, having problems paying their bills, can't send their kids to better schools, fed up with the congestion around here, fed up with the economy, thrown into competetive envirnoments against their will, deep in that rat race to send their kids to top schools, make more money, etc..etc...

This area just creates unhappy people. I used to live in Seattle and I can't tell you how content people seem to be there. I would get strangers smiling at me. I once had a guy whose car I hit from behind apologize to me. When I went to the grocery store and bought an eggplant, the cashier would ask me how I planned to cook that eggplant. My neighbor would bring my trashcan back to the garage for me many times. It's less congested there, less of a rat race. People go to fancy restaurants in their birkenstocks with socks. It's laid back. Nobody is out to impress.

Wish we could adopt a bit of their ways.

you're so right...
DC area is all about "impression".

like someone once said, these people look like whitewashed sepulchers: outwardly indeed they do appear beautiful but deep inside their "emptiness" is full of death and filthiness.

[Anonymous]

Good lord, PP, that is a bit much!

[Anonymous]

Well, at least we're moving beyond simple-minded discourse... thanks 1:28 and 8:14!

[Anonymous]

Aw heck. Now I want to move to Seattle.

[Anonymous]

Aw heck. Now I want to move to Seattle.

[Anonymous]

...really badly, apparently. Sorry for the double post.

[Anonymous]

While there are a lot of things I might want to change about DC people generally, isn't OP's point about how nasty these boards have gotten? I've been reading DCUM for a while now, and I agree it's gotten worse in the past several months. Not sure why. Maybe higher traffic just draws more trolls. I really think there is a relatively small number of instigators who are the root cause of most of the problems. When those instigators pick fights or make uninformed and judgmental comments, others inevitable rise up in response, and then a fight breaks out. I know I've taken the bait before.

How can we stop it? I'm not sure. Sure we can ask people to be nicer, but that's never going to work. Even if 90% of the people are reasonable, that crazy 10% will suck up all the bandwidth and still pick fights. The only solution I can conceive is to require logins, and I know that poses problems for DCUM admin.

I know many will say "get a thicker skin" or "just don't take it seriously," and while that may be good advice, it doesn't help the nastiness and really just asks everyone to give the jerks a free pass. If ignoring them would make them stop, I'd be all for it. But they always will find someone to respond. It's like the little kid at the playground that runs around spitting on everyone to get attention -- while it would be great for everyone to ignore the kid, not everyone is willing to ignore the spit.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:How can we stop it? I'm not sure. Sure we can ask people to be nicer, but that's never going to work. Even if 90% of the people are reasonable, that crazy 10% will suck up all the bandwidth and still pick fights. The only solution I can conceive is to require logins, and I know that poses problems for DCUM admin.

I am not able to read the vast majority of threads, so most of the time I have no idea when rude messages are posted. If you notice a thread being disrupted, feel free to post a message in the website feedback forum asking me to take a look. I might not always agree that the poster is out of bounds, but if I see continual patterns of disruption, I will do something about it.

For example, I recently stumbled across a very rude response in what was otherwise a pretty innocuous thread. I took a look at previous messages from that IP address and saw that almost every one of them fit the pattern of a one or two line flame that offered nothing to the discussion. As a result, I blocked that IP from posting. The user can still read, but we are free from the unwelcome posts. I'll try to help keep discussion on a reasonable level, but I can't fix what I don't know about.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can we stop it? I'm not sure. Sure we can ask people to be nicer, but that's never going to work. Even if 90% of the people are reasonable, that crazy 10% will suck up all the bandwidth and still pick fights. The only solution I can conceive is to require logins, and I know that poses problems for DCUM admin.

I am not able to read the vast majority of threads, so most of the time I have no idea when rude messages are posted. If you notice a thread being disrupted, feel free to post a message in the website feedback forum asking me to take a look. I might not always agree that the poster is out of bounds, but if I see continual patterns of disruption, I will do something about it.

For example, I recently stumbled across a very rude response in what was otherwise a pretty innocuous thread. I took a look at previous messages from that IP address and saw that almost every one of them fit the pattern of a one or two line flame that offered nothing to the discussion. As a result, I blocked that IP from posting. The user can still read, but we are free from the unwelcome posts. I'll try to help keep discussion on a reasonable level, but I can't fix what I don't know about.

I'm sure this is an age-old question, and I know it wouldn't be a silver bullet, but I'm curious as to why you choose not to require log-ins? I'm on a number of message boards, and most require log-ins (and bonus, most have some sort of "ignore" feature).

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can we stop it? I'm not sure. Sure we can ask people to be nicer, but that's never going to work. Even if 90% of the people are reasonable, that crazy 10% will suck up all the bandwidth and still pick fights. The only solution I can conceive is to require logins, and I know that poses problems for DCUM admin.

I am not able to read the vast majority of threads, so most of the time I have no idea when rude messages are posted. If you notice a thread being disrupted, feel free to post a message in the website feedback forum asking me to take a look. I might not always agree that the poster is out of bounds, but if I see continual patterns of disruption, I will do something about it.

For example, I recently stumbled across a very rude response in what was otherwise a pretty innocuous thread. I took a look at previous messages from that IP address and saw that almost every one of them fit the pattern of a one or two line flame that offered nothing to the discussion. As a result, I blocked that IP from posting. The user can still read, but we are free from the unwelcome posts. I'll try to help keep discussion on a reasonable level, but I can't fix what I don't know about.

quick technology question... forgive my ignorance...
what if more than 1 user uses the same IP address??? none of them will be able to post?