Guide to surviving an internet forum

[Ichimaru]

As you know well, not all forums are friendly, and not all forumers are friendly. These are a few guidelines on how to act in certain situations, all of them are common sense, and revolve around the notion of not hurting yourself or another person. I hope this will help you make you a better forumer, and thus make tip.it a better place.

 

 

 

In no particular order:

 

 

Never take insults or compliments personal

 

 

Never take insults or personal attacks personal, because they are not personal. People can be angry at a forum person named <_______> and say lots of insults usually insults about low intelligence. Truth is, whoever people are on a forum, it is not who they you truly are. There is no voice tone, no facial expression, no eyes expression, there is nothing. No matter what insult people say to you, they don't know who you are, it's not aimed at you, so don't take it personal. If someone insults you, ask yourself the question "Why is he/she doing that?" and try to scroll back into the conversation to understand what happened, and fix what's broken. Worse thing that happens, you make a forum enemy, it's a fake enemy really.

 

 

 

Same goes for compliments I'm affraid. Compliments about your hard work are fine, if it is true, but compliments about you as a person must be discarded. In real life, it's very difficult to know someone genuinely. And as such very difficult to make a valid and truthful compliment, so on a forum, forget about it. Discard those compliments, they are untrue, and do not flatter your ego with them, ego is a bad thing to have.

 

 

 

Compliments and insults are recorded by the human brain to forge self-identity. When you insult or compliment someone, you are actually meddling in their self-identity, that is why people can react so visciously to insults, and so blissfully to compliments. Be very careful of what you say, insults and compliments, but especially insults, are serious business, don't mess with them. I will give you the example of the old chinese tradition. Chinese tradition encouraged being untouched by both insults and compliments, because when you are untouched by them, it is that you know who you are, your flaws and your talents, and once you own who you are, compliments and insults do not touch you anymore because your identity is already forged, by yourself, and you refuse to let other people's defective point of view decide of your identity.

 

 

 

Religious and political debates

 

 

 

Those are very flammable, as you know well. Things can degenarate and become nasty very quickly on topics like those. It's very difficult to debate on topics like those without being hurt, or hurting someone. You can control how you hurt others, and choose not to be hurtful, but the person you debate with probably will not be careful and you will be hurt by them even though you are being decent with them. You can post on those topics, and if your post is not a debate reply or controversial opinion, everyone will ignore you, so better not post. If you're going to debate, I suggest having a total knowledge of your subject, and to stay detached from what you say and what others say to you.

 

 

 

Take constructive critism

 

 

 

Sometimes people need to be put back at their place, people often make the error of mixing personal attacks & constructive critism, don't. If you want the person to take your constructive critism, be respectful, it's already hard enough to gobble critism by itself. Mixing in insults in it will result in the person thinking your whole post is just insults, and won't consider your critism. A good idea is to also say it when your giving constructive critism. In heated debates, it's hard to make the difference. If your the one who has receive critism, then consider it and think about it, if it's not true, discard it, if it has truth it in, try to understand what is causing the problem.

 

 

 

That's all for now, I will add more if I remember what was that last point I wanted to make.. hmm...

[IGoddessI]

Be yourself and screw everyone else 8-)

[Zonorhc]

Be yourself and screw everyone else 8-)

 

I tried that but then Mr Lawsuit came and I had to knife him. =(

[Ichimaru]

Be yourself and screw everyone else 8-)

 

I tried that but then Mr Lawsuit came and I had to knife him. =(

 

:lol:

[Arrr]

To not post crap like this? *_*