I'm generally curious as to why so many people on VGC act and react the way they do. Yes, I'm talking about posting with good intentions on the internet, and I seriously don't understand why this doesn't happen more. (I'm naive, I know)

Some people provoke negative answers from their fellow posters, some people put fellow posters in booths and will look at anything they post as negative and some people will attack back at fellow posters and rile things up further. Why? I just don't get it. What can possibly make you feel good about doing these things?

I don't want to mention any names, but I'll just give examples of these things.

I was on the IM (back when it existed) once, and were talking to a few other guys. They were monitoring a thread where one of them was trying to bait another member into flaming, so that member could be reported. What the hell?

Another time, a mod asked me to report another member for a fairly innocent post, so that member could be punished, simply because the mod was tired of him. Again, what the hell?

In a recent thread, a bunch of posters were celebrating all the awesome games coming out this holiday for the PS3, and a fellow poster came in and made an innocent joke (I thought it was rather funny) about PS fans celebrating multiplat games on their console, and many of these PS fans, took this joke as a direct attack, and started defending themselves. Why do that?

If there is one thing I've learned over the past few years, it's that being defensive about things and trying to fight fire with fire is not going to do any good. You're not going to be happy for doing it, so why bother?

Take a step back, relax, take a deep breath and realize that you don't need any of those things, they won't do you any good.

There is nothing wrong with informing people of course, but if you know that someone is attacking just to rile up other posters, or refuses to listen to reason, why not just ignore them? Direct your time and energy to a place where it will be appreciated.

And why spend your time and energy assuming that certain posters will always be out to say something bad about something you love? It's a total waste, and if they really are out to do just that, the mods will handle them. Don't bother with being overtly defensive, because it breeds negativity.

A perfect example of all this is highwaystar101. He just said that he is staying out of all threads discussing creationism and evolution, because he is arguing with people who he can't sway. So why bother, right? And in the last two weeks of not doing so, he has been feeling much happier. I guarantee you those two things are connected.

So, honestly, why be negative? Ignore the stupid stuff that isn't worth your time and use your time and energy on constructive stuff where you'll be happy with what you're doing and your work will be appreciated.

Have fun with the fun stuff, ignore the stuff that'll bring you down.

I won't be around for a little while, but I'll get back to this thread for sure.

OT:

Its the internet, we can't do anything about it!!

Such is life and the interwebs, we just have to live with it! I see it as partly our responsibility as veterans of the site to post with tact and tone to set an example, the older members are almost always worth a read!

We do have a lot of good new members as well, of course but I see a lot of people with 5-50 posts, no avatar and generally bad conduct go into threads and post short, ill tempered flamebait to rouse the other users into foul language and anger (this especially happens in the weekly sales threads as of late). Personally, I only very rarely report someone and I've been reported only twice myself. I intend to keep it that way!

In other words I had good intentions. I took my dog for a walk and in the end I had to carry her to the car. So much for the walking part right? Anyway the lesson I learnt is that when the going is good some dogs just don't want to get back into the car so you have to either drag them by their necks (cruel) or carry them. Now carrying them is more work than draging them along the ground and for the sadistic amongst you, it isn't as fun either. However by carrying my dog to the car I learnt an important lesson. I learnt that you get a lot more attention from the babes on the beach when you're ministering love and compassion to your four legged companions.

Yeah, as darthdevidem01 said, it's the internet. You can't change the internet as you can't change the general behavior of the world population... What you can do instead is cheer up and learn to ignore the comments you mentioned.It's not that hard!

I see you play MMOs, so you should be pretty used to it by now!

On the internet, people either show who they really are or who they want to be.  Some people are dicks in real life so they are dicks online.  Some people are nice in real life but since there's little reprecussions online, they use this opportunity to show their asshole side.  And other people are men that want to be women, cool, or sexy space ship captains.  It's a really diverse mix of personalities.

I try to present myself as real as I can be (this is my chance to be the person I can't be in the real world  where I have to act hard, scary, and professional) and say the things I can't say in the real world (secrets, opinions, etc.) so I wouldn't dream of trying to be a dick to anybody.  But I guess there are those that can't help themselves.

I think your thinking about it way to much. It's the internet and people are human,plain and simple.

Why are you trying to make the forums boring? >_>

much the same off the webs too,its been along time since i was in a playground at school but thats what it can be like

how many alt accounts are there,thats what i'd really like to know,i wish there was a way of making it for everyone to see