Seeking Input on Internet Socializing

[segaloco]

I hope this is a fine topic to broach in earnest, but I'm troubled and want to get some takes from people more "in the know" I guess? So internet social activity for me is limited to a few forums and email lists, I got out of the social media racket many years ago, but even then, all this time, internet social etiquette has always been bewildering to me.

The main thing I don't get, as my history here and elsewhere would indicate, is why the internet is the way it is about conflict. My view of conflict on the internet is that it is harmless bs, stupid, but not something anyone but the party in conflict should care about. Historically, in real world meat space, there was impetus to try and mediate and settle conflict because we (myself included) are a bunch of stupid apes with no impulse control that will escalate a purely verbal disagreement into whalloping each other, flinging poo, whatever it is the monkeys do today. There was a very real reason to try and limit things for the good of the village, don't need a stabby disagreement between two folks escalating to the point someone unrelated gets a knife in their belly.

The internet is data sitting in a box somewhere. It is a plastic or glass surface someone taps to push bytes across some wires or the air into that box. If they get angrier, they push on the entry mechanism harder, maybe they grumble as they do it, but this feels like a far cry from two monkeys in the jungle bearing their teeth and stomping the ground in preps to tear into each other. This collective trauma we have as a socially "advanced" species derives from the physical danger presented by socially and emotionally unbalanced people in the physical world and their physical ability to cause physical violence. That is not the case in this world of bits and bytes, plastic facades on computer cases, etc. especially web forums and email where, unlike social media, you aren't just proudly doxxing yourself as a point of pride.

This leaves me with little intrinsic understanding of why it seems that conflict is *more* heavily regulated in the digital sphere than it is in real life. Nobody is getting stabbed, there isn't a bunch of audible screaming that alerts predators outside the village that there might be an easy lunch. All the real, tangible, biological factors that actually lead to our conflict avoidance over millenia of evolution literally do not exist online and yet the collective trauma of how we had to treat *real* conflict, conflict that isn't weird nerds pushing their keyboards at each other, seems to have dictated every level of how we push our buttons and send little electrical beep boops to some faraway box.

Long story short, I'm conflicted on conflict once again, and rather than trying to figure it out in the heat of the moment, I want to ask casually other folks opinions why in digital spaces, the slightest sign if conflict summons over some "handler" as if we are all living in an old folks home. Why, when we aren't at risk of getting all stabby or getting eaten by something, are digital spaces so controlled compared to the real world where someone unhinged can actually lunge at you with blunt objects because they can't emotionally regulate themselves? To put it another way, I or anyone else is not putting themselves or their community in physical, tangible danger, by saying something stupid to someone else, so why higher urgency responses to such insignificant stuff. Why does real life more often espouse "let them fight" mentality where someone can actually get physically injured?

Thanks for honest answers, no matter how much I agonize over this over the years, I can't seem to make any more sense of it with my own line of reasoning. Are we really that afraid of someone killing us or hurting our family and loved ones over petty, stupid ass arguments on the internet?

[Ben Boldt]

I think that in a lot of cases, there is a lot of necessary dynamic missing when people communicate through text. We have to make a lot of assumptions about people when we can't hear their voice or read their body language. Something that might be very subtle in real life might appear the same as loud yelling and screaming in text. There is a lot we end up assuming, and that easily makes "an ass out of you and me".

Let's take your style of text for example and see what kind of assumptions that I make about you, and you can judge how incorrect someone can read you on the internet.

I see that you use a lot of big words and a lot of cliches. That tells me that it is important to you that people think you're smart. It seems that you take a lot of time reviewing what you typed and going back and making revisions, etc. You seem very serious all of the time, like this is work for you and you are a manager. And we are your peers or subordinates. I feel like you are trying to figure out an org chart and where people sit, vertical vs. horizontal, relative to you. I feel like you take a lot of time to ensure that you have good grammar and word choice, but no effort was given whatsoever to make your message concise or easy or pleasurable for us to read.

But really I don't know anything about you. You might be a really nice, friendly, helpful guy that that is just overly wordy and excited to be here. I made all of those assumptions about you and it wasn't proven and it wasn't all positive. We evolved with grunts and brow ridges and smiles and frowns, fidgeting, etc. Those are the forms of communication that we are wired for and text is totally new and different to us and we don't know how to handle it yet.

I think what will happen is, we won't gain more ability to judge dynamics when writing or reading text in any reasonable amount of time. Somehow the internet will change to accommodate it better. Look at emoticons, right? That is one example where the internet has taken a step forward in this area. It will keep evolving.

[nocash]

I don't see much of a difference between online and real-life communication: de-escalation is always better than escalation.
Staying calm doesn't hold you back from voicing your opinion (and staying calm is potentionally raising chances that people will listen to your opinion).
Another strategy - if it isn't too important - is to ignore some people or provocations, and avoid unneccessary fights.

Whether the internet is safer space where you don't have to fear physical consequences: That's probably true for the aggressor, but the victims can get easily hurt for real, either emotionally, or even physically (if you manage to stir up real-life violence online). And concerning escaltion, that's a situation where both sides see themselves as victims, and both act as aggressors, nothing good comes from there.

[Pokun]

In martial arts we talk about a "hard" and a "soft" side which is a very basic and a little fuzzy principal of balance. Hard and soft can apply to almost any number of things, but in this case we can say say that the physical and technical world is considered hard while the mental and spiritual world is considered soft. Without getting too philosophical we can generally say that both sides are better to always be considered instead of focusing on just one of them.

On the internet you are protected against "hard" attacks but, as Nocash said you are still vulnerable to "soft" attacks.
Sure there is very little risk of someone getting physically injured as a direct result of an internet discussion, but hurting someone's feelings is very easy on the internet, and such injuries may add up.

It's very easy to underestimate the other side of the coin and for example to consider mental injury to be a metaphor not to be taken seriously, but the two sides are connected and even mental harm can lead to physical harm indirectly.

The plastic keys and electronics are just tools for communication, in the end it's not the transistors but the words that hurt no matter how they are delivered and they can and do connect to the physical side in various ways.
How many military operations haven't been ordered over radio? And historically via phryctoria, signal flags and handwritten letters among other methods of communication.

I'm a simple man that likes concrete things, I don't like when people can't define what they are trying to say and keeps feeding me fuzzy ideas instead of explaining with concrete examples (this is doubly true on the internet where the word is basically the only communication channel we have and implies are easily lost as Ben Boldt mentioned).
I normally try to make important decisions based on reason rather than on feelings, but I'm certainly not immune to soft attacks, and although I generally consider myself a patient man, I'm certainly very capable at loosing my temper.
I know that the soft side is as powerful as the hard side, it's just of a very different nature that works by totally different rules, yet is connected to the hard side.


So why do internet societies needs to be regulated? Because of the same reasons physical human societies needs to be regulated. It's about morals and we can define morals as whatever needs to be done for people to live good lives. It's basically what allows us to live with other human beings at all. One of the oldest moral laws, that pretty much all human societies are based on and every major religion uses as its main fundamental principle, is the golden rule about "treating others as one would want to be treated by others".

I'm not sure if the internet is more or less regulated than the "real" world. On one hand, it has historically been very liberal (a freedom some politicians are trying to take away from us) and how regulated it is generally depends on the community. On the other hand, it's in a way easier to regulate than the real world as everything you say on a public forum is readable to everyone and stored on the server as proof for your crimes, and because moderators can ban you if you break the rules too many times.

I greatly prefer forums that are not full of insults and flame-wars, whether they are strictly moderated or not. It simply saves me from getting gray hair, I think it's a good thing that morals are still considered on the internet and I see no other way to run things that would make any sense.

[creaothceann]

My view of conflict on the internet is that it is harmless bs, stupid, but not something anyone but the party in conflict should care about.

It's not harmless when it results in real-life consequences. The internet, more than any other technology in the history of mankind, has enabled the interaction of thousands and possibly millions of people with each other at the same time. This can act like a magnifying glass that burns anything it focuses on. It has affected the psyche of the participants, even former members of this forum.

People who are in perfect health often can't understand people who are in pain. Having a complex about one's accent, weight, height, nose shape, chest, public image etc. is bad enough and can be a point of attack. Doubly so if the person in question cannot handle these attacks.

If your real name/location is leaked, the best you can hope for is harassment calls, excessive pizza orders to your house, or getting fired from your job. At worst you get stalkers who try to harm you.

The internet is data sitting in a box somewhere.

Slightly offtopic, but... Data is not just bits and bytes. It could be pictures, audio recordings, emails, confidential documents, intellectual property. Things you spent years working on but weren't ready to publish yet.

I want to ask casually other folks opinions why in digital spaces, the slightest sign if conflict summons over some "handler" as if we are all living in an old folks home.

It's not just about the users of a website, it's also about the owner. An unregulated space will be quickly filled with all types of content, which might make the owner responsible for anything that happens because of that content. After all, you wouldn't allow anyone to enter your house and sell drugs on the doorstep either.

The plastic keys and electronics are just tools for communication

Exactly.

[segaloco]

Coming at this from an angle of biological essentialism, it's hard to really give much weight to the perceived mental costs of different kinds of online communication because its a box you can turn off and go outside. This is a perfect example of what I mean.

Out there in real physical space, verbal abuse is more impactful both in the body language involved and the potential for escalation to physical violence. Saying one wrong thing could very much get you assaulted or your belongings damaged.

In digital space, saying something abrasive or otherwise deemed hostile, there is a limit to what can happen, it's just words on a screen, the real danger is significantly lower, and again, you can just turn the device off and walk away.

In the physical, real world scenario, pretty much the only thing that might happen accountability wise is police getting involved if it gets physical. Leading up to that, for better or for worse, folks are exercising their right to use their voice to speak for their point of view. If I ran up out of nowhere and decided I didn't like what they were doing and started asserting that I get to manipulate the situation, I'm liable to just get beaten up by both of them. They started their conflict, they can end it, I just walk around them and let them go about their day that they apparently can handle.

In the digital sphere, it seems the second you go against the grain, the prevailing opinion, whatever it might be, you are immediately in the cross hairs of some other person, however that may be. Just the slightest sign of disagreement and someone else is up in the business too dictating how things shall be. Why is this reversed? Why in the real world circumstance do people largely leave folks to fight it out amongst themselves until there is actual demonstrable physical harm, but you're on the internet and like, breathe weird at someone and you've got the whole town down your throat. It just feels so backwards, if individuals can be left to sort their own crap out in the real world where someone can get hurt, is the danger from words on screens really so much that it has to be so much more tightly regulated than interactions in the real world?

I don't know if I've made progress in understanding any of what you all said, I appreciate you for trying, but the disparity between the relative freedom exercised in the real, dangerous outside world vs the meticulous level of control exerted in circles where you can turn a screen off and walk away unscathed is still just as bewildering.

[creaothceann]

In digital space, saying something abrasive or otherwise deemed hostile, there is a limit to what can happen, it's just words on a screen, the real danger is significantly lower, and again, you can just turn the device off and walk away.

In the physical, real world scenario, pretty much the only thing that might happen accountability wise is police getting involved if it gets physical. Leading up to that, for better or for worse, folks are exercising their right to use their voice to speak for their point of view. If I ran up out of nowhere and decided I didn't like what they were doing and started asserting that I get to manipulate the situation, I'm liable to just get beaten up by both of them. They started their conflict, they can end it, I just walk around them and let them go about their day that they apparently can handle.

"it's just words" - except it never just is. It doesn't matter if it's in "real life" or through other mediums. It's always first words, then followers, then (possibly) action. That's exactly why incitement to hatred is banned over here (and other countries have much stricter laws). Just words over several months, not action, led to the reunification.

In the digital sphere, it seems the second you go against the grain, the prevailing opinion, whatever it might be, you are immediately in the cross hairs of some other person, however that may be. Just the slightest sign of disagreement and someone else is up in the business too dictating how things shall be. Why is this reversed? Why in the real world circumstance do people largely leave folks to fight it out amongst themselves until there is actual demonstrable physical harm, but you're on the internet and like, breathe weird at someone and you've got the whole town down your throat. It just feels so backwards, if individuals can be left to sort their own crap out in the real world where someone can get hurt, is the danger from words on screens really so much that it has to be so much more tightly regulated than interactions in the real world?

It partly depends on the platform and the people. Twitter/X is notorious for drama. Reddit has wildly different subreddits. Every forum/discord/chat has its own culture.
Second, the perceived amount of disagreement can just be because you can interact with so many people. Some, like myself, just tend to speak up when they have a different point of view, which isn't necessarily criticism.
Third, the "real world" has police etc. to handle conflicts, and - as you said - personal involvement comes with personal risks. (I certainly won't discuss my political leaning with my colleagues at work.) Many people rather spend their time in the real world earning money, and use the internet in their free time as entertainment.

[Oziphantom]

the first thing is that the real world is more regulated than the online world.
If you are in a bar and you start talking shit, the bar keep will jump in very fast and very early, hence the phrase "take it outside", i.e get out of the control of people who are going to try and stop you. As soon as you start doing it, other people in the area you are within will start looking at you, at every moment you are weighting up, how many people are there, how many are on your side, and how likely they or the person you are attacking is going to retaliate in some other way. When faced with the real world most people will add extra checks and balances to what they say, you can also see the other person to see how they are reacting to your comments. If you do escalate to punches, each word them comes with "how much more pain am I willing to endure?" before the next one is thrown.

Online there is no crowd, there is no hard stares, there is no retaliation, it lacks the natural control variables of the real world. And the guards are not always around, so things tend to get out of hand more. What starts as a small Tête-à-tête can easily bloom in to a 400 thread post of mud slinging as there is no natural counter. Atari Age is a classic example in some cases.

Online has a an everywhere approach, you can not always escape, you can fight on the SNES forum, and then go to the NES forum and then Discord and then Twitter, while in the real world, get in your car drive down the road find another pub and the person is gone.

Now in the SNES communities and by association the NES communities, you will get extra resistance, the tragic tale of `Near` still stings with us. Some of us may even remember the Nesticle Debacle. Although I think we are down to NoCash and myself on that one, maybe if Koistu comes back, he was right in the middle of it

Also these communities are the safe haven for a lot of the terminally abused. The nerds, the geeks, the autistic, the trans, the furry, the autistic trans furies. People that suffer a lot of abuse both physical and verbal in the real world which makes them more on edge in the online one, make each minor punch sting harder, harder still when this is "their happy place".

However every community is its own, you need to read the room in each. For example
Lemon64, rather lax, things tend to go on for a few pages before Mayhem will step in with a warning and then quite a few pages more before he will bother to lock something.
CSDB, there is no mod team for all intents, and everybody will pull a chair get the popcorn and watch with gay abandon and then wait for somebody to make a demo release about it, everybody votes, and waits for the next demo counter attack release.
Atari Age, you argue for a page, tragic, 400 statistic.
SMS Power, is a small saloon and as soon as you walk in the whole 10 people there are eyeing to see if you are "gunna cause any trouble"

The makeup and size of a community is important. For SMS Power having one person come and start fights left,right and centre will tear the fabric of the community and potentially destroy it. Meanwhile Lemon64 is a one of the three massive ivory towers that sits atop the Minas Tirith like Commodore community fortress, filled with mostly 40+ European men who in one walk or another were touched by Commodore, and then there are a few Americans here and there as well, just a pile of normal folk looking to have a yarn about the good ole days. However when you get that big, you can't keep the peace, to the point that there was a holy-war and a faction did split off and form a new forum, "The New C64 forum" and that has turned into a mid sized tower among the complex's grounds. No harm done.

Nesdev in case you haven't worked it out, is the 2 story saloon with a private room out back for the Super customers, filled with autistic trans liberal yanky furries and a few Brazilians, a couple of Japanese a pair of Russians and a couple of Commodore missionaries So yeah this forum is jumpy.

[nocash]

Biological essentialism is a worldview where people behave according to race or gender, like masculin male fighters and feminin female house-wifes? I would recommend to get rid of that concept. There are a lot of people who don't want to fit into that roles (or if they would, then the world would be a deeply boring place).

Before Internet socializing, it might be worth to focus on Real-life socializing. If you haven't already, try to find some daylight or nightlife activities where you can meet other people. It sounds a bit as if something has convinced you that you are living in a war zone where you could get into a fight any time you leave home. Did you actually get into fights for real?

Most people outsides just want to do their own thing, they might completely ignore you, some might be happy if you give them a smile and say hello. It's been decades since I last met somebody who tried to exchange aggressive provocations, and those people do usually leave you alone when you stay calm and polite.

The outside world doesn't appear dangerous to me (although I feel a bit more comfortable at night, when fewer people are around). The internet on the other hand is a much more dangerous place where people could spread hate and fundamentalism. The nasty part is that they can act anonymously and from a safe distance.

[creaothceann]

Nesdev in case you haven't worked it out, is the 2 story saloon with a private room out back for the Super customers, filled with autistic trans liberal yanky furries and a few Brazilians, a couple of Japanese a pair of Russians and a couple of Commodore missionaries So yeah this forum is jumpy.

And Chinese. *grabs some more popcorn*

[segaloco]

Biological essentialism is a worldview where people behave according to race or gender, like masculin male fighters and feminin female house-wifes? I would recommend to get rid of that concept. There are a lot of people who don't want to fit into that roles (or if they would, then the world would be a deeply boring place).

Ehh it's a term I pulled out of my ass, I didn't realize it already had baggage, I was looking for a term to describe: The dangers I should be concerned with are things that threaten my biological being, i.e. physical harm and/or predators that want to eat me. Given that, some words I read on a screen that make me feel bad don't exactly register on the same level, especially given words on a screen that make me feel bad do not result in me being physically assaulted or eaten by a lion.

So not biological essentialism but...whatever would describe prioritizing avoiding physical harm to my body over perceived harm to some ephemeral concept of mind or community, especially when that perceived harm is localized entirely to bytes stored in a table on some electronic machine somewhere. Internet words only mean as much as you let them, no amount of disagreement here or on some other website is suddenly going to jeopardize my food supply, revoke the roof over my head or safe place to sleep, etc.

Before Internet socializing, it might be worth to focus on Real-life socializing. If you haven't already, try to find some daylight or nightlife activities where you can meet other people. It sounds a bit as if something has convinced you that you are living in a war zone where you could get into a fight any time you leave home. Did you actually get into fights for real?

I do plenty of going out, I'm at metal or hard-core shows two or three days a week if I can help it, and I volunteer at one of the venues as well. None of my interactions there resemble those happening inside screens. Conflict is rare and if there is a point of disagreement, it's usually settled pretty easily by talking it out. However, really the only folks I have standing beef with are some guys that, given their age, spend a little too much time socializing with inebriated college girls. I'm not the only person on their case though so generally I don't find myself sharing community with them.

If there is anyone I ever come close to wanting to fight is motorists. As a lifelong pedestrian, I feel pretty confident saying it can very much feel like a war zone, these big metal boxes flying down the landscape under the control of people who generally consider it their god given right and that any pedestrian inconveniencing them is oppressing them, rather than the other way around. I will get in shouting matches with drivers that get too close to me in a crosswalk or don't yield right-of-way in pedestrian thoroughfares like sidewalks. Part of it is just that I don't know how well they can hear me inside their insulated box, and part of it is I want them to understand the gravity of the harm their machine can cause. Given how much of an extreme privilege the automobile is, I feel no qualms with loudly holding bad drivers accountable. Still, I have principles, and one of my key beliefs is to not cause physical harm without physical harm being done to me. I'm not going to physically threaten anyone unless they are already actively inflicting pain upon my body. That's one of the reasons I have no qualms with bickering vs letting discontent stew into resentment. In the former case, I know I'm not going to physically lash out, and I give others the same benefit of the doubt. If they have other moral leanings and do hurt me then, it's their failure, not mine, I'm not going to be afraid to speak up because someone else might be unhinged and cause harm. I'm not going to, I'm just going to keep exercising words because they are more powerful than any amount of might.

For these reasons I don't shy away from conflict, I know if it *does* escalate to the point of physical danger, its not going to be on account of my actions, someone else is just putting their ass out there showing that they physically can't be trusted. If anything I *want* people who have violent tendencies to out themselves ASAP, that way I actually know who to avoid, rather than walking on eggshells and never standing up for myself because of imaginary fears. Especially on the internet, nobody is going to cause me physical harm, and if they do, I'm worried for them, not me, because cross the boundary of physical harm and then you get to see the kid who grew up in poverty in a meth lab neighborhood

Needless to say folks I disagree with should take it as a complement, I perceive them as balanced and level enough that any amount of spat would be limited to words, so I feel no need to feel trepidation in disagreeing with them. The worst that can happen are words that don't impact my ability to live or do the things I want to do in my real life away from the computer.

[Fiskbit]

A couple others have already made this point, but I want to stress that the real world absolutely does have the sort of moderation that you seem to think is unique to the online space. People want to be comfortable, and while being physically attacked is obviously not comfortable, it's far from the only criteria and not even usually a concern in most social conflict. People generally don't like being around those who are obnoxious, disruptive, aggressive, or mean-spirited, which are not things limited to physical interaction. While some will confront others about this sort of misbehavior, many people will simply avoid spaces where this is permitted.

In the real world, places like businesses or clubs are likely to ask you to cut it out or even leave if you're being a jerk to staff or bothering other people in that space. They do this because they want to foster a pleasant environment that encourages well-behaved people to stick around. Most businesses also have strict expectations of how employees should behave toward each other, and you can be disciplined or fired for much less than violence toward a coworker. While we do have police who enforce laws against serious misbehavior like violence, the standards of a private enterprise don't have to be limited to what is or isn't legal.

Like in the real world, standards on the internet vary from place to place. What is acceptable comes from a combination of what the members of that space want and what the moderation staff want. For example, many online spaces will ban people for expressing the 'wrong' political or social views, whatever those may be in that community. Some places have little if any active moderation, and those either rely on community norms to stay stable or they change over time, sometimes drastically, as norms shift due to the lack of moderation. Here, we try to avoid topics that divide people because we're all on this site for a shared interest in retro platform research and development, and we try to keep conversation pleasant and constructive so most people will be happy being here.

However, a major difference compared to the real world is that discussion on the internet is much more public. You can go to a restaurant or bar and have an unpleasant argument with someone you're seated with without bothering anyone else in the establishment, but if you're doing that in a thread on the internet, it's persistent and anyone can see it (whether they want to or not), read it, and participate in it. Its presence impacts the overall tone and feel of the space, shifting norms in a negative direction. If you want to have that sort of argument, you can do it with a willing participant via private message and it's often fine unless they go tattling on you.

I suspect your confusion about online conflict stems from either not understanding that online discussion is highly public, visible, and persistent, or from having different criteria for comfort than most people do.

[aa-dav]

It seems my personal experience is a way far from topiccaster's one.
And the reason is: I live in Russia.
The way internet society here looks like is opposite: it's highly unregulated and toxic 'free speech zone" with a lot of aggression sparked by little things by no reason.
And it always was so.
I thought about it many times. After learning english enough to look into western social sites I was surprized by contrast. It feels like everyone are wearing digital shoe covers in quiet and disciplined library.
And I like it, honestly.
This site is the same too. The only time I feel some kind of agression was not so long ago ('because russian'), but anyway it was not about direct 'attack', but so gently that it was not hard to avoid any kind of conflict. And this is good.

But what about runet? It's opposite. Why so?
I believe this is something about how internet was born in different countries.
I think here in Russia it became to life in short time and average users were shifted in population to teenagers with youthful maximalism. And there were not enough adult admins to insist on the same communication patterns as in real life.
By the way something about month ago I registered on russian site dedicated to Arduino programming/hardware and if newbe user asks something lame typical answer is 'you are lamer, you'll never achieve your goal, forget about it'. 50/50 chance of unmotivated (at first glance) rudeness.

So my opinion to topiccaster: I do believe that you do not need this 'freedom'.

Disclamer: my opinion and feelings are based on average statistics. Exceptions happens everywhere.

[Bregalad]

I haven't read or understood everything in the thread. But basically you're saying that disagree other people should be fine as long as you don't threaten people. I fully agree it's fine to disagree with people respectfully. However the part where I disagree is where you're saying only a direct physical threat to harm someone's body is harming, which is obviously wrong. Basically you're saying that verbal violence is not violent or shouldn't be considered so, but that's not how it work. The feeling of being aggressed, even only verbally, increase psychological stress, and can in turn cause illness, depression etc.

But even if we disregard the stress part, if the forum is so unregulated that anyone can virtually yiell and insult others without being moderated, this removes the whole point of the forum, which is to have helpful and constructive discussions about NESdev, and occasionally other topics as well. An unmoderated forum would eventually be rendered an useless place. The above example of aa-dav about the newbie being mocked at instead of being helped is a good example of what would make a forum completely useless and counter-productive.

I'd also add that with written communication, and especially with instant written communication, it's easier for people to misunderstand eachother and enter into conflict when there is actually no ground to do so. It's harder to explain why, because normally written communication is supposed to be more accurate -- however when messages are written quickly and with too much assumptions about the context it turns out to be the exact opposite - messages are vague, taken without nuance and misunderstood. Sarcasm is most of all misunderstood by some people -- which is a shame because personally I love sarcasm.

Nesdev in case you haven't worked it out, is the 2 story saloon with a private room out back for the Super customers, filled with autistic trans liberal yanky furries and a few Brazilians, a couple of Japanese a pair of Russians and a couple of Commodore missionaries

Despite not being that much active in NESDev anymore, I don't really appreciate you pasting label on NESdev members and I don't recognize myself in your labels at all. However I assume this was supposed to be taken as funny so that's fine.

[segaloco]

Well and I do want to raise I'm not suggesting people should be able to bully or be provocative, nowhere do I think it is a good idea to be nasty to people for no reason. I'm making more of a case for response rather than initiating something. More along the lines of: If you can say something callous, you can probably receive it just as well. If you take exception to being pushed back on for being a jerk, then maybe don't start stuff in the first place. One of my first experiences here was getting jumped on over nothing, and then getting flack for taking it into my own hands to combat it rather than sitting back and waiting for someone else to run along. That is where my primary issue with internet socials in general are, it's not "I want to be nasty for no reason", it's "I want people to take a dose of their own medicine". If they can't, don't dish it, and if they're reprimanded by some third-party, rather than facing my personal ire for their barbs addressed at me, then they're only stopping because they're afraid of moderation, not because they genuinely acknowledge that the conflict didn't need to start in the first place and they need to recognize they can receive what they deal. If they're just slapped down by some other mechanism, they don't learn.

Is that where this is not connecting. Again I get the feeling folks think I want to bicker for no reason. I have reasons, chief among them being I can defend myself, if someone causes me trouble, I don't see how it is on anyone but myself to address that and seek accountability, but when I do, it makes matters worse, not better. I'm responsible for my own business everywhere else, why not on the net too?