On toxicity in forums

[Tridus]

"Give a man a mask and he'll become his true self."

"The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching."

[Sylvina]

"The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching."

I thought it was having power.

"Nearly All Men Can Stand Adversity, But If You Want To Test a Man’s Character, Give Him Power"

Abraham Lincoln

[NolLacnala]

While I assume no one would deliberately be aggressive on forums for no reasons at all...

Not to worry, the mods will let you know with a two week suspension for first time infraction for telling a votekick abuser to get votekicked. Seems I forgot irony isn't a thing overseas.



The "might ruin someone's day" stems from a current issue in our society where too many people have forgotten the second part to the old "sticks and stones" adage.

[Miste]

stems from a current issue in our society where too many people have forgotten the second part to the old "sticks and stones" adage.

That sticks and stones thing is utter nonsense is why. It is simply a placebo saying to try to help people cope with the negative emotional and mental affect verbal abuse can have.

Words have power. Words can never hurt is a lie we teach kids to try to tell themselves to bury the hurt and attempt to ignore it.

Not everyone has a strong mental state to cope with verbal abuse. I am not saying this about your situation btw just about that sticks and stones thing you mentioned.

It is a useless adage and just tries to sweep aside the problem of verbal abuse and the damage it can possibly cause to the victim of it.

[MoroMurasaki]

That sticks and stones thing is utter nonsense is why. It is simply a placebo saying to try to help people cope with the negative emotional and mental affect verbal abuse can have.

Words have power. Words can never hurt is a lie we teach kids to try to tell themselves to bury the hurt and attempt to ignore it.

Not everyone has a strong mental state to cope with verbal abuse. I am not saying this about your situation btw just about that sticks and stones thing you mentioned.

It is a useless adage and just tries to sweep aside the problem of verbal abuse and the damage it can possibly cause to the victim of it.

Miste I don't think I've ever disagreed with you before, my brain doesn't know what to do. If it softens the blow at all know I made a character on Primal today so that I can someday run something with you!

Also I use 'you' in some of this post, it is not referring to you or any specific person, just the reader.

I strongly believe that equating (or even comparing) verbal abuse with actual physical harm is fundamentally wrong. There are certainly people out there in the world (and internet) who are so effected by words, spoken or written, that it can drive them to mental instability but the fault in that situation is still with the person who is letting someone else get to them that way.

Extreme cases of bullying aside there is just no comparison between someone harrassing you/calling you names/being 'a dick' online and walking up to you on the street and punching you in the face.

Do rude or insensitive comments sting sometimes? For sure. Part of growing up is learning to decide who you let close ebough to hurt you though and if your list includes forum users for a video game that you have never even met in real life then I think you need to evaluate your prioroties.

In the end I am very much behind the "sticks and stones" statement, especially when refering to annonymous online interactions. I am also proudly someone with "thicker skin" for this kind of thing and I don't think that automatically makes me a bad person. In my opinion telling someone they need to develop thicker skin is showing them compassion - better they hear that from me and give it some thought than prance through life unaware until they encounter someone actually meanspirited.

[Miste]

In the end I am very much behind the "sticks and stones" statement, especially when refering to annonymous online interactions.

I strongly believe that equating (or even comparing) verbal abuse with actual physical harm is fundamentally wrong. There are certainly people out there in the world (and internet) who are so effected by words, spoken or written, that it can drive them to mental instability but the fault in that situation is still with the person who is letting someone else get to them that way.

It is fine if you disagree, but I was mostly talking about in all aspects and not only online.

The last part of the "sticks and stones" statement is "words can never hurt me".

Words can never hurt is a lie and that is why I hate that saying and I really feel it has no place anywhere even online. Maybe some people in the world are completely immune to anything anyone ever says to them, but the thing is not everyone is and you have to take into account emotional and mental maturity which not everyone online, just as in real life, is an experienced adult either. You also have to take into account current mental state.

I am not saying that online we shouldn't try to tell people to ignore people who are cruel to them online and use tools to avoid those people like blacklists, but the thing is not everyone has the ability to ignore it completely. So you might be asking for someone to "get a thicker skin" when they simply aren't able to. Like I said not everyone has a mental state tough enough to handle it. Is online the best place for these people? Probably not...but the internet is used for so many things in today's world.

So I still hold the opinion that that saying is useless and it just tries to sweep aside the problem and I strongly disagree that the person who is not immune to verbal abuse is the one at fault. It is not their fault if they cannot handle verbal abuse.

I simply interperet 'sticks and stones' to mean 'words are not violence, if you take issue with someone's harsh language first appreciate that they are using language to express themselves instead of violence'. I really just have a problem with dismissing 'sticks and stones' out of hand. It is (to me) an important lesson to remember in terms of everyday life.

Words can be violence. Verbal abuse or physical abuse, both are forms of violence against a person. I have personal experience on why words can be violence which I won't get into.

I strongly disagree. No one should "appreciate" verbal abuse just because it isn't physical abuse. One is physical harm which you could argue "hurts more", but emotional and mental harm can hurt just as much and also can have just as much long term scars as physical.

I don't think it is an important lesson to teach a lie. Like I said "words can never hurt" is a complete lie.

I understand where you are coming from with the life lesson thing, but we need something better than this, old, dated, and really bad lie.

We need to advocate the truth, not a lie. The truth that sometimes words may hurt you, but you have to remember how important you are to your family, loved ones, and so on, and realize that the person trying to hurt you with those words doesn't matter; you matter. You have the power to overcome the hurt, not lie to yourself or others that the hurt doesn't exist.

[Angell]

>calls P2P game forums toxic.

Go and try F2P game forums or the games themselves. Then we talk whats toxic.

Thin skinned children everywhere nowadays. This is the only thing that irritates me beyond reason in ffxiv: how everyone is getting catered upon and they get spoiled to infinity.
Sure it's all great and nice and flowers and rainbows everywhere with sunshine in the background. Then you go cry to the mods/gms over the smallest argument.

Pathetic. I blame the SJWs for this spoiling.

[MoroMurasaki]

Miste's thoughtful (but very long) post.

I think the bottom line of our disagreement is that we have different functional definitions of the words hurt and violence. I still stand by my meanings for them personally but I understand coming from your views on them why the 'sticks and stones' adage seems outdated and detrimental. Due to some irl experiences with both sides of this coin I understand that my view may be the less common one but that doesn't sway my beliefs in the slightest.

I also don't think that either of us is going to convince the other to switch to our views on hurt/violence so the way I see it we're basically at an impasse.

Ultimately bad people are bad but we are all responsible for ourselves and our actions, be it online or irl. I don't think that one person taking offense from the harsh words of another person is exclusively on either party there - the poster of said words chose to post them and the reader chose to allow them to effect their mental state. If you are incapable of managing yourself in either of these ways (again excluding extreme bullying/harrassment) then perhaps you need to wait on this type of activity until you can.

[LittleSparrow]

snip

I think it's absolutely hilarious that out of all the people on this forum, you have something to say about toxicity on forums.

[MoroMurasaki]

I think it's absolutely hilarious that out of all the people on this forum, you have something to say about toxicity on forums.

I'm happy to have helped make you laugh!