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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3923268" data-attributes="member: 4937">This is my observation on self-censorship.  It is true that I conduct a conversation differently in person than I do over the internet.  This is because whenever I discover that the person holds a completely radically different opinion than myself IRL, I self-censor myself and take great pains to conceal my real feelings and opinions.  I do this because if I said what I really believed, it might make the person uncomfortable (and I'm not a small guy, so there is a physical aspect as well) or angry and would interfere with future relationships with that person.  I usually don't do that because I respect the person or thier opinion.  I do that because it isn't worthwhile to potentially create that animosity when all I really want to do is relate to them along some strictly defined social structure - like professional colleague or hair styist.  Only after I believe the person worthy of respect am I going to be completely honest with them.  I'm not going to bother having a bitter argument with someone I don't mutually respect.  For example, I'd argue politics and religion more passionately with my family and feel freer to dissent than I would in virtually any other face to face social situation.  Why?  Because we know that it isn't personal, and we know each other aren't idiots.I'm not normally prone to either coarseness in real life or on the internet, but I do enjoy being able to state my opinion in a forum where I think there is a reasonable expectation that because of the lack of physical proximity, the lack of verbal intonation, the lack of facial expressions and so forth, and the lack of any other social context that people can be reaonably expected to consider your opinion logically, rationally, and with proper emotional distance for having a dialogue.  I can short cut the whole feeling out whether the person is mature, intelligent, and reasonable and just make the assumption of the other person's matuity, intelligence, and reasonableness.  Most of the time, at least at EnWorld, those assumptions are borne out.  A few cases, they aren't, and I try to avoid having prolonged discussions with those people.Anyway, which is more likely?  That the group dynamics of the EnWorld community as a whole have changed, resulting in a community that is harder to moderate.  That a fairly large number of disconnected posters have suddenly stopped being who they've always been, and changed thier personality in the same way at the same time?  Or that the moderator culture itself has changed, tolerating and encouraging things it might not have tolerated before, while discouraging or deligitimatizing things it might have previously tolerated, resulting in a community that is more annoying to moderate?Those posters.  Things would be so much easier if they just stopped posting?  Why won't they ever learn to take responcibility for thier actions, eh?</blockquote>

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