Real Life and Horrible People

By Draginol on April 28, 2012 9:56:07 PM from

JoeUser Forums

Draginol

Moderator

Join Date 03/2001

+96

I have a standing opinion about people who take their forum disagreements into “real life”: They’re horrible people.

This evening I was surfing the net and found someone who had been recently subjected to someone who disliked them on an Internet forum going out and taking out ads with their real name, address, etc. for the purposes of harassing them. The person who did that is a horrible person.

The irony, however, is that the victim of the harassment was someone who flamed me for stating that the people who disliked me on an internet forum who went on to trash my book on Amazon and in a stand alone review were horrible people.

I can empathize that it’s hard to accept that ones friends might be horrible human beings. But anyone who takes their dislike of someone into “the real world” is a horrible person. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of an excuse for it.

If someone’s pissed you off on some forum then step back, take a deep breath and deal with it – on that forum.

Forgiveness is more difficult in the virtual world, but whether it's virtual or in reality, important either way.

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You realize that the internet is full of actual people and is, in fact, part of the real world? It's not a separate entity. If you defame me on the internet, it's the same as if you did it in print on a billboard. It's still a tort in real courtrooms - there isn't some special internet court that will handle them.

As for harassing someone, well, that's just wrong in and of itself. People who harass others are horrible. It has nothing to do with whether or not a forum flame war started it or not.

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