Joined another forum recently and...

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So I joined another forum and it's just so vividly clear how differently we approach conversations. I haven't engaged in forums for about three years now, and I'm more of a lurker there, but occasionally I'll put up a new thread or reply to one, only to find out that in my (serious) responses to some of their posts, they were merely baiting/trolling and trying to draw out certain people to respond and it totally went over my head until someone points it out. While I wasn't in their target group, my response to their baiting is causing a little hostility. Being that that forum is meant to help people who are trying to get into a certain program, I wouldn't think that they'd want to get involved with those childish things, but sarcasm and malicious intent are so prevalent over the internet, which is supposedly where I should feel a little safer to engage in conversation. I almost don't feel like showing my face there any more, but they know their stuff. Doesn't help that I've PMed one of the users and they've completely ignored me, probably because they've seen my ineptitude to 'get the joke'.

Seems like here is pretty much where I've ever felt comfortable, even though I haven't really posted in a about 3 or so years. I've been meaning to post more regularly again for a while now, and considering the steps that I'll be taking in the near future, I want to get back into the flow.

ive been scared lately of pissing off the internet because of the difficulty of telling tone/intentions in posts or even what tone i'm putting into stuff... ugh

Well, this site is first of all, more accepting of diversity, and second, I have to think there is some active moderation not only by site admin but by the community.

What you get on many if not most online forums is a clubbishness or cliqueishness, people who need a sense of belonging around a certain factor, and then get nearly paranoid or vicious when someone poses a threat to their belongingness. I truly feel that these sites suffer from their own biases and are much less valuable due to that fact. When they decide to ostracize someone, they pile on hard and fast, without pausing to consider the person's possible contribution.

If you want to participate in a particular forum, be sure to be unidentifiable (make up a different screen name and avatar for that site) and keep a low profile. If you want to participate a lot, figure out where the power lies and then suck up to those people, but I hate doing that and can't maintain the focus to do it regularly.

I've made this assumption many times about one forum or another and it has always come back to bite me in the ass.

A forum might have been set up with the basic intent of being helpful to people, but odds are it won't stay that way, at least not without very close moderation. Actually a help/support forum is the prime environment for people to be jerks. People who are seeking advice or support are showing vulnerability and have their guard down. And the few members who truly want to be helpful will probably be too nice to stand up to the ones who are trolling or baiting others.

The excuse you'll always get is "this is the internet". "Don't internet if can't internet". "You're too sensitive, you need to grow a thicker skin". I think a lot of these bullies and trolls are underdogs irl and that's why they act like that online.

I've actually found that a lot. In having dealt with tumblr, I've noticed that a good handful of people involved in fandoms are the kinds of people that complain about their real lives being difficult due to their inability to 'fit in' and they're therefore made fun of or are bullied. But then they come online and they're these rockstars that belittle, bully, and isolate others for having different opinions. It doesn't make any sense at all. Statistics on how kids that are bullied or abused grow up has really shifted because of the internet, I think.

This is the main reason I tend to stick to this site. People here are in general are a lot more thoughtful in their responses.

The thing that I like about this forum is how polite and respectable everyone is, counting out maybe a few people, just a few. I can post here without fearing what other people might say.
I try to stay off of most forums, sarcasm and trolls fly right over my head as well. It really angers me what people say to others for the sake of amusement, but hey, "that's the internet."

Yah, I ended up just reiterating the statement I'd originally made in my response with more evidence, but then ended it by saying something along the lines of, "But if this was just meant to bait/troll certain people, it totally went over my head, since I tend not to get sarcasm or stuff like that over the internet. So let me just put my dunce hat on and sit in a corner."

I think it was just okay to end it that way and move on =_= I don't want to be that person that actually goes in assuming that everything I read is trolling, as one person later responded she does. That's certainly no fun.

Well, I actually agree with this. People on the Internet WILL be a***holes no matter what.
But of course this is not an excuse for someone to justify their own behavior, it's just a matter of fact that idiots have turned into a rule for themselves.

You know one time I reposted a screenshot that had been an April Fool's joke that year, and contained subtle hints of it, as if it's a real thing. I just assumed the error was part of the thing in the picture. And IMO that's ok to believe, without being naive because this type of error is actually thinkable.
So I posted that and people gave me complete s**t responses that I was ret*d and what not.
So I said "well when this was posted I wasn't on the forum yet, I saw it in another thread being linked and it looked real to me it looks very accurate." but I didn't become aggressive or anything, didn't buy into the shitstorm that was going on. Even the poster of that picture said it was totally worth making it because I fell for it months after lol.
So I got pissed at that and kinda felt bad for posting, thinking maybe I shouldn't stay on that forum because of what had happened...
But then an admin friend on the forum reminded me that, you know what, you're bound to make mistakes sooner or later, and people will b***h at you and laugh and accuse you of being an imbecile... and it doesn't f*****g matter, just carry on. Yeah you made a mistake, that's a thing that happened and people might remember it forever, and that means NOTHING. Mistakes happen, people b***h, but if you just move on with your business eventually they will STFU and everything will be good again.
Happy End.

That's how I used to look at it, but I've learned that certain types of people or groups never do let things go. I have seen people still talking about me on forums where I haven't posted in years and haven't had any interaction with the people outside of the forum.

And I made the mistake of revealing my real name to some of these types of people on FB, before I realized just how vicious and backstabbing some of them are, and I suspect that they have linked all sorts of nasty comments to my name. I wish to god I had never linked to any of these people on FB.

In real life, people move on eventually because they forget a lot of what was said. But on the internet, the words stay there forever.

i competely agree. i also occasionally "lurk" other forums for information.

they are all so hostile and take everything as a personal threat.

there was this one forum in particular that i used to browse, but i got fed up with it. i would constantly have to scroll through pages upon pages of bickering just to find the info i am looking for.

i feel wrongplanet is the only forum that is welcoming and safe. i refuse to join anything else.

I usually think it's people who have zero friends IRL so they turn around and anonymously jeer and shriek on the internet - on the net they can pretend it's some random stranger who's a loser and not them. Sort of like how the boss humiliated the worker, so the worker goes home and finds a reason to scream at the wife, so the wife kicks the dog, so the dog bites the cat, etc.

You can always tell because of how excited and wound up they get to bray their repetitive insults that they heard somewhere else...they are just dying to find someone, anyone to humiliate because they don't have the guts to actually speak back to the people IRL who are insulting or rejecting them or whatever. They've been holding it in all day until they can abuse someone in absolute safety.

Or alternately you get your 12 year olds who are just so excited to be able to use swear words ad nauseam that if they used in real life, would wind up in being humiliated by Mommy yelling at them and taking away their Wii.

I definitely think nine times out of ten these people are 100% helpless and powerless IRL...anonymity is the only way they can scream out all their anger, even if they're not screaming at the person who actually made them angry but rather, at some innocent stranger.

It is sad and pitiful.

I'm a teacher and I was once active in several teacher forums ... and one by one I jumped forums because of trolls.

One forum was overrun by kids who were excited to have the opportunity to verbally abuse teachers without any fear of consequences. As quickly as the moderators blocked one kid, two more would pop in to cheap shots at people they didn't even know. The social atmosphere of the site quickly deteriorated and a lot of teachers wound up leaving this forum.

Another forum went overboard with the concept of free speech, so much so that people could literally say ANYTHING without consequences. There were no moderators and no site rules. People who were supposedly teachers got into terrible arguments in which they said the most horrible things to each other that they probably WOULD NEVER HAVE SAID in public. The caring and supportive atmosphere that had first characterized this site when it first made its debut back in the mid-90's soon degenerated into a wild west sort of atmosphere where threads were hijacked by people who wrote about things that didn't have anything to do with the original post and insults were thrown around like bullets.

Having self diagnosed for Asperger's last year and having only worked up the nerve to have this diagnosis confirmed just six months ago, I joined a forum that had a sub-forum for Asperger's. I wrote a post to say that I had decided to embrace my "inner-aspie" and to become a reclusive introvert. To this end, I announced that I had ended all relationships outside of work and instead of feeling guilty or depressed, I felt nothing but enormous RELIEF because I no longer had to pretend to be someone I wasn't.

I was promptly attacked and severely lectured because I was told that I needed therapy and that I was using my diagnosis to "give up" on life by becoming a reclusive introvert.

Since I didn't feel that I needed to justify myself particularly since I've spent most of my life without the benefit of a diagnosis ... always wondering why I didn't fit in and being stressed out and depressed because I couldn't fit in no matter how hard I tried, I quietly left that site.

I have since been to two other sites but haven't found one that's a good fit.

I don't know if there's a good place for me because at the end of the day, we're all people. It doesn't matter where we are on the autism spectrum or whether the other person is an NT. Everyone has feelings and everyone has opinions and sometimes people are just so strongly opinionated that they feel compelled to PROVE THEMSELVES RIGHT by relentlessly banging you over the head with their thoughts and feelings and opinions, never mind the fact that you have your own thoughts, feelings, and opinions which are in total disagreement with theirs.

By the time the dust settles and the site moderators have stepped in, the damage has been done. Feelings on both sides have been hurt. The atmosphere is strained and off I go to another site.

My life on various forums has mirrored my real life as a teacher.

Although I have been trained in class management and am comfortable with working between the parameters set by school law, the state instructional standards, district and school policy, and my classroom rules and although I have used progressive management techniques to deal with challenging students - I have never been able to figure out what to do with colleagues or administrators who have disliked me.

The very first principal I ever worked for once threw a stapler at my head. After he misappropriated money from the PTO (which had been earmarked for typewriters back in the days of carbon copies and ditto machines (before photocopiers were commonly available), some teachers complained and he had his two vice-principals observe each and everyone of them on a daily basis ... and on the day they failed (and EVERYONE has a bad day), that was the day he had his subordinate administrators write that teacher's formal evaluation. By the end of the year, every teacher who had complained about the misappropriated funds (which were used to remodel his office), was out of a job.

In another school I ran afoul of a principal who was having problems with a group of junior high kids who were sneaking onto the elementary campus to smoke cigarettes. The principal told us to ignore these kids and my 4th graders put me on the spot when they pointed out that a group of junior high boys were smoking on campus. When I approached these kids, they sneered at me ... so I plucked the cigarette they were passing around out of a student's hand, ground it underfoot, and returned to my class ... and the principal wrote me up for gross insubordination, being "argumentative," and not being a "team player."

As a result of not knowing how to deal with administrators (or teachers) who haven't cared for me, my teaching career has been rather extensive. I was an elementary teacher for 17 years and during this time I worked at 9 different schools in five districts and three countries.

As a high school teacher, I've worked at 5 different schools over the last 9 years ... though to be fair, I was laid off from three different jobs due to state budget cuts.

I can deal with conflict between myself (as a teacher) and students because that's what I've been trained to do ... but I'm thoroughly mystified as to how to deal with colleagues and administrators who don't like me. Since I dislike being in conflict with other adults, I've moved from one job to another and from one state to another just as I've skipped from one forum to another.

I keep telling myself that someday, I will find the RIGHT forum and the RIGHT job ... but I worry that this could be an exercise in futility.