Are we, as a wider community, nasty?

[tomBitonti]

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

I think there is some truth to this, but, overall, that is a pretty disfunctional view of how folks work, and I would be very careful about incorporating those particular views in an outlook. Folks behave as they do for reasons, with varying "validity", but as a whole folks do better than the list indicates.

The problem here is that the list itself encourages jerkiness, by framing questions of behavior in a way that diminishes our actual understanding. If we are coached to view others as behaving so thinly, we in turn see others as thin caricatures unworthy of respect, and then treat them with disrespect.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Morrus]

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.

We certainly are all these things.

I dont' know about other industries, but this one is also very generous - I've seen it prove that time and time again. So we seem to display extremes. I don't know whether that means we have examples of both, or that we're all changeable!

 

[tomBitonti]

We certainly are all these things.

I dont' know about other industries, but this one is also very generous - I've seen it prove that time and time again. So we seem to display extremes. I don't know whether that means we have examples of both, or that we're all changeable!

Now that is getting interesting (at least to me): If folks in RPG's have a different distribution (*) than is typical (more folks at extremes), that seems notable and something to be explored and explained.

Edit: (*) Having a different shape; not just having a different mean.

Thx!

TomB

 

[billd91]

Hey, at least we're not supposed to talk politics around here. You want to see nasty? Check out political articles or articles about crime and punishment in your average newspaper with a website that allows online comments. They make edition wars look absolutely tame by comparison. There's a reason that a lot fewer newspapers allow reader talkback than initially did so and it's because people turn into jerks when given a cheap opportunity.

A friend of mine, while working on some form of masters degree in the local journalism department, did a study of reader letters compared to talkback features - then compiled mostly via the phone - and found that the cheaper the opportunity (and not just in monetary terms but also effort), the nastier people tended to get. If they sat down to write a letter to the editor, they tended to write in a more polite manner than if they were able to just call in a comment. I suspect there are multiple mechanisms going on here such as 1) putting thoughts to paper is a generally more thoughtful process, 2) they were investing time and a small amount of money (a stamp) and wanted more to show for it, 3) they knew they had to catch an editor's attention for inclusion and wanted to make a better impression. Contrast that with today's internet-based talkback sections or messageboards. The cost per post is low in both money and effort, the gatekeeping/moderation is generally low so the presence of my comment is not based on making a good impression on anybody. We're freed to wallow in our own crapulence.

So part of the issue is the community, but another part is the medium that makes it so much easier for our jerk impulses to win over better and more thoughtful behavior.

 

[Alzrius]

Anyone who thinks that gamers are nasty people deserves to be beaten within an inch of their life.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

I think we can be, but as you point out, so can other communities. My feelings these days is i a byproduct of one of our great strengths: we are passionate about gaming. That can lead to energetic exchange of ideas, a strong but respectful debate, or it can lead to fighting furiously over minutiae an the formation of cliques. If it stops being fun, one should take a step back and try to put things in perspective.

At its worst it becomes telling others how to play or allowing others to dictate your taste to you. I already experienced that in highschool and have no wish to revisit it. I like what i like and dont worry about how others feel.

i will say, i am also involved in other communities. I was really into martial arts before i got aick and they can be the same as we are on some of these things. Also very into martial arts movies, and the subgevre wuxia. There you find some serious intensity on things like casting stars for new wuuxia series, or debates over new adaptations. This stuff goes on all over the net. And it is easy to slip from respectful debate into something more hostile and less healthy. Most of us are probably a little guilty of it from time to time. Everyone has a limit and loses patience.

 

[Viking Bastard]

My perception is that people behave pretty much the same in interest-based-groups whatever the interest may be (recent anecdotal data comes from discussion on atheism, feminism, poetry, computers, information science, immigration policy and university ethics).

Status, education, location and age only seem impact the way people express themselves, but not the sentiment.

 

[Henry]

My personal opinion is that it's a "vocal minority" phenomenon - on the whole, most gamers I've met, even the creepy ones, are a pretty soft-spoken lot and, at worst, are passive-aggressive. As stated, every community will have a percentage of Richards and Sphincters, but the worst charge I think the gamer community as a whole is guilty of is unintentional (and sometimes intentional) sexism, more so than rudeness in general.

Alternate thought: Maybe it's the "us vs. them" phenomenon. In the earlier days, when gamer geeks were the subject of paranoia and ridicule more frequently than today, the community stuck together more in the face of a very public foe of negative propaganda. As "geek life" has become more mainstream, and less ridiculed, we find ourselves without as strong of a common enemy, so we turn on each other, like a series of Beholder Clutches.

 

[Roland55]

I don't think so.

I would call this community detail-oriented, classically obsessed, and very picky. But not vicious.

For vicious, you'd have to come and work with me for a week or so.

And I wish that was a joke.

 

[Elf Witch]

I don't think as a group we are nasty in person. It is the anonymity of the internet it is much harder to be nasty when you can see the hurt on someone's face. I have noticed that once people on a forum get to know each other in real life they tend to be nicer at least with the people they know.