It can be tricky at times, determining just when the stress-out, out-and-out pissed off factor outweighs the “but I like this place” factor. I’m in a stressed-out period of timeout at the moment from elsewhere – and I come back here to the SDMB, even to the Pit, to relax!
It’s working, too.
So, yes – my hand goes up in answer to “anybody ellse stressed out by message boards?” That’s me. It’s happened loads of times in the past three years. I never learn to roll with the kicks. But, that’s my problem, not that of a messageboard.
Hey pizzabrat, I understand how you feel. Sometimes. Once when I was still a guest I talked out of my ass. People were revealing my ignorance, one person in particular in a not-so-very-nice way. I was actually kept up late for 2 nights thinking about that and wondering if I wanted to stay in this forum.
Luckily no one has yelled at me since, but I’ve read some pretty nasty things people say to each other - yikes!
I just try real hard to give people the benefit of the doubt, and shake my head when jerks feel that resorting to insults will help get their point across.
I’ve seen more beautiful, helpful comments than nasty posts, but that could be because of my choice of threads I read.
I’ll be your friend, pizzabrat. If anyone starts hassling you you just let me know and I’ll go over there and fart. People are very afraid of my farts and I have a lot stored.
Oh, and NoClueBoy, that was hilarious! I almost peed in my Reeses cereal.
Good Lord, Man (or Woman, as the case may be), You just got an involuntary two day vacation. What more could you ask.
On of the basic problems around here, to get just a little serious, is that the point of debate is not just to hear the sound of your own voice. The point is to try to persuade somebody. Here we have nobody to persuade. No one is charged with making a decision. Because of that the blather just goes on and on with the same points repeated, interred and resurrected until everybody runs out of steam or some hot, new controversy arises to divert everybody’s attention. We are all trying to effect a conversion from ftrongly help opinions and an abandonment of precious beliefs that have much invested in their verity. That is the reason this place is like an invasion of a chicken house with lots of squawking and fluttering and lose feathers blowing in the wind but precious few eggs.
It does, however, provide all sorts of ammunition for arguments at morning coffee with the other old farts in their extremely late forties (the old guys don’t debate at morning coffee, they argue).
I fully expect that the great issues dividing our world, from abortion to gay rights to gun control, are going to be decisively settled by a group of anonymous people on the internet engaging in round after round of mutual pseudo-intellectual written masturbation in Great Debates and the BBQ Pit.
Yeah, but how many times do you see people having a heated arguement in one thread, with nasty things being said, only to agree in another thread? I see that quite a bit. The same person calling you an ignorant ass in the pit, may also post something heartwarming in IMHO to help you out with a problem. So that’s cool I guess.
I’ve always found gaming BBs in particular to be incredibly hateful and vituperative, bringing out the worst in people who often, sadly, don’t have the best social skills in the first place.
I would play a game I absolutely loved and then go read posts about people who had nothing but nasty things to say. I’ve known some of the community people for those boards, people who get paid good money to corral and to moderate, and my hat’s off to them every day. I don’t know that I could do it.
I admit I am personally far too wrapped up in the upcoming Presidential election, and am guilty of spewing bile on the “gee, I still can’t make up my mind who to vote for” people…
I took a two week break from SDMB, and feel better.
Mind you, I still think those people are idiots, but realize my ranting won’t change the fact that they are clueless. Maybe if I leave them alone, they will do the world a favor and just forget to vote.
I have, however, noticed that even in Cafe Society, some people are getting nasty…someone recently misunderstood a plot line, and another poster ripped them a new one and implied they were too stupid to understand the show…ouch.
As the great philosopher, Rodney King, once said, “can’t we all just get along?”
I know how you feel, pizzabrat. I’m still astounded by the way moriah conducted hirself in the “Sluts in Church” thread. And not because I’m in favor of bare midriffs in church, or whatever s/he was ranting against, but because s/he continually and personally insulted so many other posters, so many times.
But I didn’t post to that thread for two reasons. First, because by the time I saw it, it had already fallen off page 1, and I didn’t want to drag it up again just to say, “moriah, you are either a bitch or a son of one. Shut your fucking mouth and keep it shut until you’re ready to be civil.” Second, because I was thinking, “I can’t remember the last time I saw a poster be so thoroughly rude.” But then I thought, “But I’m sure I did, at some point. And sometime, not too long from now, I’ll say the same thing about another poster, and moriah will be the one I don’t remember.”
As for why I’m posting about it now? Well, I saw the OP while the other thread was still fresh in my mind. And pizzabrat has a good point in that many/most posters would never have the stones to say IRL what they say here. Or they would, but they’d get their asses kicked, either literally or figuratively.
I’m an old fart in my late forties who’s scavenged some of my best ammo here, thenk you veddy much.
And it’s played pure hell on arrogant whippersnappers, drones, zombies, misbegotten clones, flesh-eating soccer moms, grossly over-inflated power types, strung out carnies, goth vegetarians vampires, 12-step devotees of all stripes, Springer rejects, low carb carnivores, cirumscision victims, recovering SUV drivers, polyester clad geriatrics, check writers, cat de-clawers, boy band enthusiasts, militant Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, atheists, humanists, Jehovah’s Witnessness, gays, straights, the metrosexual, astrologers, telemarketers, the fat, the thin, the pumped, gamers, geeks, slacker service folk, frustrated customers…
You sound like someone who will understand one of my favorite cartoon drawings…Mick Jagger at age 75 standing on a porch, shaking his cane, screaming, “Hey! You! Get off of my lawn!”
Not that there aren’t some discouraging, disheartening, disgusting threads and opinions. There are some topics I simply avoid because I’ve seen how the subject was handled in the past and didn’t gain anything from earlier conversations.
But this place isn’t anonymous, it’s full of track records and traces of ourselves that accumulate in our posts.
And for every ignorant, bile-filled post there are usually a dozen or more responses that seek to find a more reasonable view. People do take “fighting ignorance” as the prime directive, and there’s something sweet and beautiful about that.
What’s really fun is how many sides of oneself are on display at a given moment, everything from the compassionate to the impatient, the educated to the ignorant. And getting a little nutty from time to time is perfectly appropriate; what better way to expose one’s rough edges.
Even better, a thoughtful question almost always receives a few or many equally thoughtful replies. I’m continually impressed at the moral and intellectual calibre of the typical Doper. When I see something inflammatory in the news, I can pretty much count on finding a careful, thorough analysis here.
BTW, I thought the Sluts in Church thread was hysterical.
Maybe if the OP didn’t spend so much time making contributions to threads that would untimately result in their stress, they’d experience less of it. (coughoffenderaticough)
After spending a few years deeply immersed in the eBay message boards (where *real money * is involved, folks), and becoming so stressed out by all the back-biting, subterfuge and politicking that I had to leave and even cut the *real friends * I made there out of my life , this place is a warm welcoming oasis of bonhomie and reasoned discussion.
I was a little scared of the Pit, and waited over a year to venture in here … to find it resembles nothing so much as an eBay board on an unusually pleasant day.
And I get to learn, and laugh, and understand others’ points of view. Being pretty isolated IRL that last point is what brings me back here every day. I don’t post much, but I read just about all of ATMB, GQ, IMHO and the Pit. Doesn’t leave much time for the other fora, sadly. I s’pose I could give up sleeping …
You mean when you would have to see his face and know his name to have an opportunity to insult, offend, or annoy him? (I don’t mean to imply that you insult, offend, or annoy people, since I’m not familiar with your posts; I’m just saying that that particular knife cuts both ways.)
It’s an unfortunate side effect of online communication that some people lose their self-edit. Some people post stupid things they’d never actually say for fear of sounding like a dumbass. Other people post mean, catty shit they’d never actually say for fear of sounding like an asshole. Mixing these two groups of people is a recipe for hurt feelings and stress.
You also have to keep in mind that people around here tend to play rough, and a lot of the arguments and insults here aren’t meant to be taken personally. A lot of the fairly ugly shit that gets said here doesn’t have much real venom behind it.
Its a plastic box. Nothing more. People will say anything they can get away with, but its not personal…It can’t be,* They don’t know you*.
Think of this as a toy box. Just leave the toys with sharp edges in the box. They’re broken and someone should take them back to Toys-R Us®
pizzabrat - Yeah. I recently started a thread on this very board bemoaning the unbelievable depths of crappitude the GameFAQs boards had sunk to. Bear in mind that I first signed up to those boards specifically because of the supposedly incredible strictness, and…
…wait, you’re only talking about THIS website?
Look…the Pit is for people with a beef. I scrupulously avoided it myself at one point, until I found out that a lot of the perspectives in it mirrored many of my own. Lord only knows how much more frazzled, stressed out, and boiling mad I’d be if I didn’t have this place to blow off steam. And before you even start comparing it to comparable boards on other sites, keep this in mind: Most of the people here know what they’re talking about. Cripes, I’ll take THAT over any of the chuckling blowhards I’ve seen on GameFAQs. Or The Madman’s Cafe, for that matter.
SDMB is one of the good guys. Just take it from someone who’s been victimized by far too many bad guys. (I’m looking at YOU, Improfanfic!)
I’ve been around plenty of message boards and they all have a personality, never been to one quite as tight assed as this though. I hereby dub the SDMB The Nabob Ipseity of Desperate Intellectual Rectitude, Overcompensation, and Anger (NIDIROA)
, this place is a warm welcoming oasis of bonhomie and reasoned discussion.