Large communities and jerks.

[Eric the Orange]

I've noticed that people who are jerks or generally just annoying (whine and complain about everything) make them selves more noticeable then the regular calm and nice people. All communities have them in some degree or another, and while the ratio may not be larger for larger communities they will have more of them (being that they just have more people in general). And as they tend to be "louder" (as far as such a term can be used to describe forum posts) it creates the illusion that large communities are full of them.

So my question is do some communities really attract more negative type people. A few examples I can think of are MOBA type games( DotA, LoL, ect.) which by there very competitive nature and fact that the team as a whole is heavily penalized by death of a player, create an atmosphere that any mistake is met by the kind of talk that one would normally associate with XBL games. And that brings me to number 2, XBL. The community as a whole has a stigma for being racist homophobic kids who will spout of obscenities at the slightest provocation. My third example is Blizzard fan forums, which are the most wretched hive of fan boy bitching and whining I have ever scene.

but is this the truth or do those people just act louder and drown out all the decent people?

 

[JochemHippie]

People that whine... want to be heard. Ofcourse they'll be more vocal about it.

"Decent" people just play the game... I'm inbetween. Being incredibly stereotypically gay.

 

[Esotera]

There's always going to be attention-seeking morons on the internet, because we're in no short supply of these people in real life. That said, I think that forums focused on competition are going to have a worse jerk:normal person ratio.

I suppose there could be a 'monkey see, monkey do' attitude as well. If one person can get away with being a complete moron, then it may cause other people to join in.

 

[Keoul]

I think these "jerks" are just attracted to anywhere with a form of competition.

They're waaaay louder and obnoxious than normal people most likely due to attention issues and the insatiable desire for everyone to think that they're awesome. Regular people just let their skills do the talking.

 

[Bertylicious]

Honestly I don't have a problem with so-called "jerks" as long as they're funny or at least insightful.

A forum where everyone is "calm and nice" would be pretty sterile and boring.

Anyway, everybody in the world is a "jerk" at some point or another.

 

[Eric the Orange]

I think these "jerks" are just attracted to anywhere with a form of competition.

Well that may explain MobA games and XBL, but It doesn't explain Blizzard fan forums.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

You're always going to have a vocal minority in any community - and the larger the community, the louder the vocal minority has to shout in order to be heard.

This is why the powers that be invented the 'mute' function.

 

[Lionsfan]

Because reasonable people don't feel the need to yell about everything and always argue. Just think of it like a party. Just because two guys got really drunk and started yelling about politics doesn't mean that everyone at the party likes to get really drunk and argue politics

 

[Patrick Buck]

Empty vessels make the most noise, I think it how it goes...
Eh, every person is a dick sometimes.
And people only really notice that, well, more than anything else. It's sad, but true.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

People have been saying the community here has been falling apart because of all the new arrivals. The truth is the jerk to normal person ratio hasn't changed that dramatically. We just see more jerks amongst the crowds of normal, interesting people and because they are a very visible minority we assume they speak for a large part of the group. Unconsciously maybe. I don't know. All I know is that communities do change with time and population growth. It doesn't necessarily it has gone downhill.

 

[Firstmark_Bannor]

Honestly I don't have a problem with so-called "jerks" as long as they're funny or at least insightful.

A forum where everyone is "calm and nice" would be pretty sterile and boring.

Anyway, everybody in the world is a "jerk" at some point or another.

I could not disagree with this anymore if I shouted it from my roof. Calm and nice is not boring, nor is being a jerk funny and very rarely do they have any manner of insight at all. And justifying it by saying "well everyone is a jerk sometimes" does not make it ok. That's the same sort thing as saying if everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you? Being a jerk is something to be actively avoided. And while you are technically correct in stating that everyone is jerk sometimes, those are opportunities to look at your actions and rectify them. And that's called building character.

 

[Stu35]

*snip* Calm and nice is not boring, *snip*

Fucking is.

Now, whilst I'm not saying people need to be "jerks" (as I understand the word, it's very American) in order to be interesting. Nor am I saying that everyone who is calm and nice is boring.

What I'm saying is, if we were all calm and always nice to each other, the world would be fucking boring.

Maybe I'm one of these "jerks", I dunno, I like to sit in the pub and argue pointless things with my mates (recently it's been who's the hardest out of the Avengers, I've been fighting Thors corner against a lot of Hulk fans). I love playing Rugby, and the inherent violence, contest, and sometimes downright nastiness that comes with it.

These are things that make my life a little brighter - calmly discussing who's the hardest out of the Avengers would not be nearly as fun as downing a shot on arbitrary rulings made by a mini-council who were themselves sworn in with tequila. Nor would removing sports from the world be interesting.

Now, you may simply want to spend your life sat reading books, calmly discussing their merits with your equally bookish and quiet friends - thats fine for you (it's also an example, not an accusation, if you're not that kind of guy), but me and my friends like to inject a bit of noise and contest into our lives.



Ultimately though, this all comes back to how you define "jerk"... To me it's basically a nice way of calling someone a ****, to you it might simply mean anybody who's a little obnoxious from time to time.

 

[Eric the Orange]

So EC put out this episode today and it seems relevant to the discussion (At least the XBL part).

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/harassment

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Sort of. Really I would say that the people who get noticed are the ones who are entertaining. Being a jerk can be entertaining, but so can just being funny. Just look at this site. I'm pretty certain the most easily recognized member right now is Daystar, and they certainly aren't a jerk.

 

[Fractral]

People have been saying the community here has been falling apart because of all the new arrivals. The truth is the jerk to normal person ratio hasn't changed that dramatically. We just see more jerks amongst the crowds of normal, interesting people and because they are a very visible minority we assume they speak for a large part of the group. Unconsciously maybe. I don't know. All I know is that communities do change with time and population growth. It doesn't necessarily it has gone downhill.

...and I now feel really bad for joining this forum. I know how it is to be in both positions- the established userbase seeing their forum change because of the new users and the new users wanting to make their mark and change it to suit themselves. Naturally some of those new users are going to be jerks; you can only hope that they leave eventually, and the nice guys stay on.
Anyway, as people have already said, it is a vocal minority who just seem like they are the majority. Although, on XBL it seems like the majority of gamers are actually jerks. Part of the reason I have everyone perma-muted. Not sure how it is on PSN, never played that with a mic on.

 

[Firstmark_Bannor]

*snip* Calm and nice is not boring, *snip*

Fucking is.

Now, whilst I'm not saying people need to be "jerks" (as I understand the word, it's very American) in order to be interesting. Nor am I saying that everyone who is calm and nice is boring.

What I'm saying is, if we were all calm and always nice to each other, the world would be fucking boring.

Maybe I'm one of these "jerks", I dunno, I like to sit in the pub and argue pointless things with my mates (recently it's been who's the hardest out of the Avengers, I've been fighting Thors corner against a lot of Hulk fans). I love playing Rugby, and the inherent violence, contest, and sometimes downright nastiness that comes with it.

These are things that make my life a little brighter - calmly discussing who's the hardest out of the Avengers would not be nearly as fun as downing a shot on arbitrary rulings made by a mini-council who were themselves sworn in with tequila. Nor would removing sports from the world be interesting.

Now, you may simply want to spend your life sat reading books, calmly discussing their merits with your equally bookish and quiet friends - thats fine for you (it's also an example, not an accusation, if you're not that kind of guy), but me and my friends like to inject a bit of noise and contest into our lives.



Ultimately though, this all comes back to how you define "jerk"... To me it's basically a nice way of calling someone a ****, to you it might simply mean anybody who's a little obnoxious from time to time.

Believe it or not I've had a very similar conversation to that, And I argue for Cap'n mopping the floor with the rest of the avengers. Not because I'm patriotic, believe me that term has only been used to describe me with massive irony quotes on, but primarily because of the shield. But that isn't the point.

Calm and Nice doesn't not preclude a good debate from time to time, nor does it prevent one from enjoying sports.

I used to wrestle quite a bit when i was in school and I went to the state finals for it. And during the entire time between my matches I remained clam and nice, during my matches on the other hand... well I wrestled 100lbs over my weight for the challenge of it, and if you've ever seen a fat dude suddenly put into a cradle where he's literally being smothered by his own roles of lard. It can be called many things but nice isn't one of them.

AS for my interaction with friends we hold our own council of sorts, although we are sworn in with Vodka and/or whiskey rather than tequila. And we've held trials debating who is more bad-ass between all manner of people, very seldom strictly from books, ranging from "who wold win a fight between Virgil from DMC and Teresa from Claymore" to "Who's got better stealth, Solid Snake or Adam Jenson" and so on and so forth.

You must never confuse friendly banter with being a jerk. Being a jerk is done solely for your own amusement with the intent of annoying and enraging someone else, Friendly banter on the other hand is a little more amorphous but well meaning all the same. It's got a lot to do with the intent behind it.

One of my favorite phrases to use upon losing a debate is "Damn yous, Damn yous all to hell."
Anyone who gets the reference gets one free internet.

 

[Keoul]

I think these "jerks" are just attracted to anywhere with a form of competition.

Well that may explain MobA games and XBL, but It doesn't explain Blizzard fan forums.

Raids and PvP? when you reach lvl 85 it's practically all you do, and these people need places to coagulate so off to the forums!

 

[doggy go 7]

have you heard of the silent majority? the point is that people tend to be quiet when the agree with something, and they know that most others agree with them as well. The minorities speak up louder, as they have a different thing to say to the established opinion, and therefore are more keen to express it.

HOWEVER in the examples of the forums that you're looking at, I think it's a mix of people who own headphones for their x-box are generally more hardcore gamers, and if you're a kid, you think hard-core and adult and fitting=acting like a prick, and swearing a lot, and provoking people is just fun.