Are we, as a wider community, nasty?

[delericho]

Weird stuff, watching an argument I just saw spread across G+, Twitter, and Facebook. Sometimes I think the "nastiness" exhibited by RPG fans is a sign of a damaged community. I've seen it for 15 years, and been on the receiving end of it dozens of times. Then I think that perhaps the awesome part of us that lets us not grow up and enjoy escapism and gaming and pretending to be elves is the exactly same part as the really nasty part of us that lets us not grow up and be as cruel as children are to each other.

I don't think it's that. Rather, I think it's a combination of two things, the first of which is the "cleave to groups" thing that Umbran and others have mentioned.

The other is that when dealing with internal politics there seems to be an inverse correlation: the smaller the stakes, the nastier the arguments. Probably because the potential losses are so small people think it "doesn't matter", so they take the gloves off. Of course, that neglects that although the stakes in the main argument are very small, the collateral damage may be high indeed.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

My experience is that in person, RPG players are really cool people. It's rare that I meet one I don't like. When it comes to online communities, it's entirely another story. My theory is that the jerks are obnoxious enough that the nice folks leave, and we're left with just the jerks. It's kind of a feedback loop on the internet anonymity thing.

There's a reason that this is the only online RPG community I participate in anymore. The norm of civility and enforcement of it make it light years ahead of any other online RPG community I've looked at. My second to last was RPG.net and I finally left there about a year ago after things really went south, after about 10 years of participation. I'll be here as long as this is still a fun place to chat about RPGs.

 

[Jhaelen]

Sometimes I think the "nastiness" exhibited by RPG fans is a sign of a damaged community.

I think it's just a sign of a damaged humanity. RPG players are no exception in that regard.

 

[was]

as cruel as children are to each other

I don't think that the nastiness is necessarily a community norm. It could also be reflective of the prevalence of technology within our society. Children are very tech saavy and are getting on-line at a much younger age every year. Thanks to the anonymity of the web, you don't always know if the person you are speaking with is 13 or 30. I think that we have to accept the fact that 1/3 of the people on the web do not have fully developed manners and social skills due to their youth. However, some of us older folks don't have them either.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Weird stuff, watching an argument I just saw spread across G+, Twitter, and Facebook. Sometimes I think the "nastiness" exhibited by RPG fans is a sign of a damaged community. I've seen it for 15 years, and been on the receiving end of it dozens of times. Then I think that perhaps the awesome part of us that lets us not grow up and enjoy escapism and gaming and pretending to be elves is the exactly same part as the really nasty part of us that lets us not grow up and be as cruel as children are to each other.

Then I remember that football fans stab each other, so there's that perspective, at least. We're actually not that bad, relatively speaking.

Nasty compared with what? FPS players who make death threats when guns are nerfed? Football hooligans? Certain religious groups?

Do we have disagreements? Yes. Do we have spats? Definitely. Do we have mysogeny and prejudice? Yes. Do we have some thoroughly unpleasant individuals who, for instance, call everyone they don't like SWINE and impute motives on people that they are trying to ruin the hobby - and call for game developers to have their vocal cords surgically removed? Yes, unfortunately. There's no open community I'm aware of without a proportion of jerks - and no way of creating such a community.

Would at least 90% of those of us even involved in the edition wars happily have a drink with those on the other side of the edition wars and have a fun conversation with them based on our shared mutual hobby? I believe the answer to this is a definite and emphatic yes - we all know we have a shared love of pretending to be elves (or dwarves or...). And because of this I believe that our hobby is not a particularly nasty one.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I read on here about all kinds of divisions, and I suppose there are some, but there's really only one rpg debate in my lifetime that ever seems to turn into this nasty confrontational thing in person. So I don't think that the community as a whole is all that bad.

Rpgs are clearly a very tribal hobby with a lot of variation between groups, but usually we can all communicate and get along.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

What's that principle in academic politics? The fights are so nasty because the stakes are so low, or something like that?

There's an author who said it better:

“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” - Robert E. Howard

 

[Umbran]

There's an author who said it better:

“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” - Robert E. Howard

Except that Howard was engaging in the "noble savage" fallacy.

The original statement about small stakes arguments being nasty is based in a bit of misdirection - it refers to what society as a whole may consider high stakes, rather than what the individual considers high stakes.

Whether it is in academia or internet messageboards, the scenario is similar. We make assertions. Having made them, our reputation is based upon whether they stand or are refuted. So, whether the world at large thinks the issue is important or not, it is tied to something that is very important to the individual - reputation and social status.

 

[tomBitonti]

Weird stuff, watching an argument I just saw spread across G+, Twitter, and Facebook. Sometimes I think the "nastiness" exhibited by RPG fans is a sign of a damaged community. I've seen it for 15 years, and been on the receiving end of it dozens of times. Then I think that perhaps the awesome part of us that lets us not grow up and enjoy escapism and gaming and pretending to be elves is the exactly same part as the really nasty part of us that lets us not grow up and be as cruel as children are to each other.

Then I remember that football fans stab each other, so there's that perspective, at least. We're actually not that bad, relatively speaking.

Well, problem here with the question. As a group, are we nasty? Very definitely. But, that's a non-relative statement. We are also saintly, vindictive, reactionary, and forgiving, all to some degree. The question is, how nasty are we, and, are we more or less nasty than other groups. Without providing a qualification in the question, one can slide off it it in many directions, maybe too many directions.

I think a reasonable interpretation is "are we nasty to a degree that is striking or notable". I've not seen that in particular among gamers, a group in which I include not only RPG'ers, but also LARP'ers and Board Gamers, and on the edges, but not quite in-group, folks who play other games like Chess, Bridge, and Go, and perhaps also on the edges, Comics and Cosplay folks. I'm not sure if I should include video gamers, which can be any of folks who play PC games, especially first person shooters, but also folks who play MMOs, and the millions of folks who play tablet games, and whom seem to not be so much of a distinct group. Within all of these groups, I've seen lots of decent folks, as well a lot of rude and nasty folks. Most nastiness seems to express itself online, far more so than face-to-face.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Morrus]

I saw this article on Cracked.com today. It's a bit NSFW in terms of language. It summarizes our attitudes thusly:

1. Choice-Supportive Bias: We Rabidly Defend Our Meaningless Consumer Choices
2. Illusion of Asymmetric Insight: We Think We Know People Better Than They Know Us
3. Time-Saving Bias: We Are Prone to Speeding Like Idiots
4. The Woozle Effect: We Parrot Previous Information Without Critique
5. The Pollyanna Principle: We Refuse to Deal With Unpleasant Things