My experience with Internet message boards

I used to be a member of a couple of major Internet message boards--one for liberals, and the other for writers. I am still a member of one major writers' message board, and I run a tiny message board for writers who defected from the other one.

I left both of these boards for the same reasons: 1. the ignorance of many posters, 2. the appalling lack of rational thinking, 3. rude behavior, and 4. rampant sexism. These characteristics were disappointing among writers, but not that surprising. All kinds of people think they can write; some of them actually can. But that doesn't mean they can think critically or that they have dealt with their prejudices.

Confronting so much ignorance, irrationality, and sexism on a so-called "liberal" board was more upsetting. Women were attacked routinely, as was anyone involved in the animal liberation movement. I was even stalked on the board by someone who was offended by my campaign to stop theft of my copyrights.

There is a sports board that I read sometimes, but I would not join because of the rudeness and the sexism. In this case, the constant female exploitation is done mostly by women.

When I left the writers' forum, one of its leading members was upset with me, and asked me why I went away (it seemed obvious to me that I went away because being attacked by crazy people did not amuse me). I told him I thought there was quite a bit of psychological instability among the members (many of the outbursts and writing patterns were clearly products of mental problems). He wrote back asking if I didn't think there was about the same amount of psychological instability in the forum as in the general population. I wrote back that there wasn't that much mental instability in my psychotherapy practice. That was the end of our correspondence.

It is possible for people to behave reasonably on a message board, as is evidenced by the writers' forum of which I am still a member. Of course, things will get out of hand from time to time, but there are moderators to deal with that, and such things are rare occurrences. There is plenty of disagreement, for sure, but posters are focused on the subject of their writing, and they are serious about it.

I believe that all social intercourse, face-to-face or otherwise, should be civil. But I find it is especially important to be civil in a cyber situation because we cannot see each other's facial expressions and body language. Unfortunately, the cyber situation seems to being out people's most negative behavior.

And an awful lot of people need to read up on the logical fallacies, the sooner the better.