Internet is hateful because it is for the biggest part anonymous, so people don’t have to behave as they should in normal situations, there is nobody watching you, you will face no social punishment. So… why wouldn’t you act like a pig, if you can?
I see man as a rather dismal creature. Look around, you’ll see what’s there. Fear and frightened people who kill what they can’t understand.
Experience should teach anyone that their frustrations are not unique, that others also feel frustration and not exclusively the fault someone individually. This is why discussions where much higher-standards are expected are often not about ‘who is right’ but about understanding the perspective that is not their own.
That good-faith earnestness to understand a different point of view is the major thing missing from communities with embedded toxicity. Where that is lacking, people can not pretend to be ‘passionate’ about the topics of discussion as an excuse; it’s actually a reason why they are lacking in passion for the topic that explains the incivility. When the topic is put first, egos are not.
I blame companies that manage these communities for things getting into this state and I accuse them of pro-actively doing so. Most argument are people not understanding each other, not thinking they need to and thinking the blame for it must be individualisticaly assigned to one or more participants. One way for example which community managers cause this is by having heavy-handed and often arbitrary enforcement of community guidelines, but vague definitions and explanations of them.
Having vague rules helps a community manager or moderator do whatever they want, they get utmost discretion in all matters, but they are of very little use to people who wish to follow the rules but want a higher-standard of discussion. What happens here is people who value very low-standards learn to conceal their abuse of other posters and de-railing of topics and they have no deterrent for doing so from disinterested, flippant and mercurial moderators. It’s like a reverse-panopticon.
I just don’t accept that. In real-life, people behave awfully even when their reputation is at stake; they know they don’t just have one reputation, they have as many reputations as there are people with an opinion about them, most of whom they don’t care about. It’s nothing to do with being anonymous, this tired meme must end. In turn, some anonymous online forums have surprising levels of community spirit and solidarity.
Anonymity isn’t freedom from consequence; people are not cut-off from how others view them because of it. If they were then they wouldn’t care whether they were anonymous or not, except when they can percieve immediate and direct consequences such as posting something illegal leading them to getting contacted by the police etc. Being anonymous whilst also being attacked or insulted by another anonymous person still affects someone. Likewise, when getting support and encouragement in the same way.
Generally, we get the standards of discussion which we invite and cultivate, but we are not equal participants. The strongest hand in the overall temprement and respect in a community is that of whoever is policing it and deciding the rules.
Yes, they behave in real life awfully as well, but it’s not 90% of people, it’s the vocal minority that you are mentioning. Most people are completely polite (if you compare it to how they behave on the Internet), even though this changes in last years to the worse, imo thanks to the internet, as well. People just get it mixed up in their head, not consciously, but it’s there. They spend so much time online reading shit that they get it all confused. People are getting more mean overall, they dont give a sht about other people. Everyone is like that, why wouldn’t they be as well? This is their logic, even though they don’t admit it, this is how their behavior works. Was it always like that? I don’t know, but I don’t think so.
Yes there are some anonymous forums that are nice, of course there are exceptions to everything. Also anonymous doesnt have to mean anonymous per se, if you have a nickname and you use the forums on a daily basis, then you are not completely anonymous, but you still kind of are, you dont get punched in the face if you are being rude and you are not ashamed as much, thats just a fact, I think you cant deny that.
Also we are being bombarded with negativity from all sides, even “official” media, bad news are the best news for clicks. Politics? Everyone has their opinion, every other opinion is bad, everyone is fascist or pro-migration, USA or Russia, etc. There is nothing in between and everyone is sure about their truth. It’s everywhere.
But here you are anonymous and you dont face such a punishment as in real life. I dont think these forums are any worse than any other average forums on the Internet. Try to read a comment section under a political article…
Also not only internet is the cause here, but also the individualistic culture we are having in the West. In Japan they don’t have these problems irl, would be interesting to check how they behave online.
Sorry if this post feels confusing I wrote what I head on my mind, I dont have the time right now to check it.
Experinces are accumulated differently, and that changes perception in the individual and changes how you respond.
I must politely disagree with this one - with this statement you put every topic equall, but some topics bears the users name and credibility and it cases another stress to the debaters.
Passionate is just a word I chose to make the comprehension of my text more easy, but every forum have their own language.
This forum uses that word to show how much they care for the subject, a subject they need to discuss because it weighs heavy on them - rather you think the subject is worth this weight or not.
And yet, if rules are too strict and with too many guidelines is restricts the debate and kills any healthy conversation.
People on this forum already thinks they don’t have freedom of speech here 
I respectfully disagree once more on the derailment of threads… Some threads derails if they have served their purpose, others as a defence machanism if the topic is meant to be hostile or a disturbance and sometimes it just happens because of the natural development of a conversation.
This conversation we are having are a derailment too, because OP asked specefic towards this forum and not every conversation forum in general 
Natural development
I am not toxic.
Why is everyone on these forums so toxic?
Because a lot of posters deserve it. After you have seen the 20th “Alliance PvP sucks” post in 12 hours, you would get annoyed too, especially when they say the more posts on a subject the more Blizzard will notice, which they don’t.
The dot-shock protest proved that players are not free to express certain views, in certain ways, regardless of the majority opinion.
If you don’t remember, back in 2006 every class was being reviewed separately in terms of quality-of-life, fun and what their purpose was. Shaman originally was scheduled to be one of the first; it was the most active class forum in both the US and EU, yet had never had a single post from a developer at that point, after almost two years. The class review kept getting pushed back, until it actually became one of the last to happen. Shaman players were already upset at how they seemed to be getting treated, but Blizzard badly messed up the review itself and it was revealed the staff member put in charge of collecting feedback had failed to pass anything on to the devs.
The Shaman class forum virtually as one then protested and everyone who took part was perma-banned without warnings, myself included. Posting was only restored when the old community site was closed and Blizz made this new one when WoTLK released. The damage was done though; the Shaman forum went from being the most active to the least and it still is. Hardly anything of merit is ever discussed there.
I dont think its about passion so much but more about consequences. When there are little to no consequences then the boundaries will be forever tested
1 Like
I didn’t play in 2006, because when WoW got released my opinion of WoW was it was a game with no value at all
Please explain, i don’t know what this is
Eager - heated - enthusiastic - care… Pick the word you like, I wrote about how your writings are percieved by those who read it.
Lighten up - grab a drink - relax
It’s not the real world - and a lot of topics are misguided at best - they deserve a bit of flame grilling
Less than 1% if 1% of subscribers ever look at these forums
Just hang out and try to avoid Hunter FD+Trap spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam - there’s a song in there
This hit too close to home ( Furries, nuf said )
aye? your point?
Im 22, im too young for classic
Whilst I’m of the view that neither passion or consequences are much of a factor in of themselves. Someone who is passionate is going to make the post that will get them banned despite the risk of that, but if their passion is focused on the topic of discussion rather than the background of personal conflict between themselves and others, they won’t. They will find another way if they can.
There’s another reason I’m so against these as explanations by default: they completely let those most responsible off the hook.
They both instead propose there is someone to blame individually and that it can only be the individuals involved in a discussion. Sometimes people have discussions in bad-faith, with no intent to reach understanding or resolution, but they are always enabled by whoever is controlling the environment that lets them thrive.
Blizzard could end a lot of the toxicity in their player-communities very easily, but it would require them to accept responsibility for the way things are in the first place. Instead they feed the myth that individuals themselves, by being passionate, by being anonymous, by having a lack of fear of ‘consequences’ just behave badly by default.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.