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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dethklok" data-source="post: 6251546" data-attributes="member: 6746469">Hi Morrus. I vacillated a lot about posting this. But, I don't think that the nastiness in the RPG community is anything like children picking on each other. Kids insult one another's clothes, or friends, or looks, and then life goes on. It's true that sometimes they bully one another, but outside of actual persecution, they generally handle nastiness.The gaming community is nasty in a different way: Gamers are hypersensitive, and feel vindicated about dumping on people they perceive to have violated group norms. Unfortunately it's extremely difficult to know a priori what these norms are, since they vary from year to year and group to group. I post on all kinds of forums now and then, and I don't run into this kind of thing outside of rpg forums. Even on political forums and religious forums where people regularly argue about the merits of religion or political platforms, people at the end of the day can say "Hey, it's cool you at least agree with me about something."There was one major rpg forum I posted on where I watched three separate guys make straightforward comments or, worse, lighthearted jokes, before being pounced on and shoed away. One of them was unlucky enough that everyone went to the moderators, who handled it by publicly belittling him and then deleting his account. I couldn't find him anymore even to say "hey, how's it going, sorry everyone was crazy." He was scrubbed for saying something unpopular for that time and place, and that's that. I've never seen anything like it anywhere else on the internet - except on other rpg forums.Now, I wouldn't say that gaming as a hobby is in trouble because of this. Who knows; it may even strengthen bonds in the community to keep passions high. But it definitely alters how much I'm willing to say. There's a lot of joking around that I'd love to do even around here, but when I think of something funny I usually get this sinking feeling and realize that people won't take it with a grain of salt. When I walk around gamers, I know to put on my eggshell shoes first!Yes... although I don't think that reflects well on the gaming community that one needs to point out that, hey, at least we don't usually physically attack one another, right?Before I take off, I'll mention one more thing: This forum is a guilty pleasure for me. People who know I post here rib me for even hanging around you guys; my arguments that "Well, EN world at least has good moderators, and they're really not as bad as the gamers at other forums" are generally laughed at. You can make of that what you will.</blockquote>

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