Have you made enemies?

Originally Posted by ClaireBear

I have gotten into a few disagreements online. Online forums are full of "know it alls" who think thier opinion is the only opinion that matters. Anyone else that comes up with a good point they try to discredit, so that thier view seems more important or right or whatever. I usually just state my opinion and ignore whatever they say.

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I have had people that argue against facts too. That does drive me insane!. I have seen people be so confrontational on another board that they were arguing both sides just to disagree with another poster. Being the instigator I am I had to point that out to the person......LOL it didn't go over well. But I figured if they don't don't like it then


Oh and clairbear, Bean is the cutest little thing.....PLEASE post his photo in the fur pictures thread "photos that make you smile". Everytime I see your siggy I just want to snuggle that little pooper head.

Dragoriana your little calico girl is Darling too!. Yepper cute kitty pictures do wonders!

Originally Posted by LSULOVER

I have gotten upset on one of the race boards that I used to go to. There was this guy on there that was a horses behind. He said something to me one time and I got upset by it and he knew it too, but then a bunch of the other people that were there were upset with him because he had been ugly to me. That was the same board that I first met Neet.

But normally I get along with everyone, the other boards that I belonged to were not as big as this one, so everyone knew everyone better.

But I LOVE this site.

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Well, that guy is STILL a horse's butt, and the sites that he belongs to have suffered for it. The same old crap from the same piehole....

We had some good times on those boards, but we moved on. And Mark followed us, so we must not be the problem!

Originally Posted by Natalie_ca

The internet is a fascinating thing. However, it also breeds a whole different type of bully. There are people in this world that are polite and considerate and kind in their daily lives, but they do a 180 degree turn on the internet and become school yard bullies, picking on those who they find will react to them, and those people end up being puppets with the griefer being the puppeteer.

My advice is to just ignore those who you don't get along with and pretend they don't exist. The problems they have are their own and nothing to do with you as a person because they don't know you. They are just sad, and unhappy and often depressed individuals who have to knock someone down in order to pick themselves up. And it's not isolated to any one community. It's all over the internet.

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Now that is a very good statement, Linda. The boards LSULOVER and I were talking about is a perfect example of a good thing gone wrong by the bad acts of a few people....

Been there, done that! lol

I'd prefer not to get into details, but I can come off as being cold online, especially in a heated debate. I try to remove emotion from it, to keep the facts in front and it tends to put people off.

But that's not even the tip of the iceburg of what has happened to me. Even though it's almost been a year, the whole situation still upsets me because I was portrayed as an untrustworthy person because a group of people didn't like that I stood up for what I believed, and someone else managed to get information and I was dubbed a "leak." Afterwards, a couple of people from that group asked me what happened, and I told them, and then they went back to those people and told them what I had said, essentially just pretending to be "friends" in order to get information.

So, while I was the one being portrayed as "untrustworthy," they had goons deceive me. What a hypocritical world!

On one fandom board we were having a goofy contest and we were all sending our entries to one person who was sort of the judge. We all sent in our stuff and nothing ever happened so I emailed her and asked when the stuff was going to get posted. She went all postal on me.

I was told later by people that she was experiencing all sorts of legal/money/stress/mental/etc problems.

I got over it, cause, well... she was nuts

I've never had a really bad experience on a forum. I have felt put off by an incident here a while back, but that's over and wasn't really a big deal. Things get heated sometimes, but that's life.

Originally Posted by emrldsky

Afterwards, a couple of people from that group asked me what happened, and I told them, and then they went back to those people and told them what I had said, essentially just pretending to be "friends" in order to get information.

So, while I was the one being portrayed as "untrustworthy," they had goons deceive me. What a hypocritical world!

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Yep, all very high school and way to full of drama for me. lol

I frequent a site which has a seperate forum for open, no-holds barred flaming. Hugely entertaining to read, but nothing I'd want to be immersed in.

Meh. Probably. As long as I haven't personally offended someone I don't really care if they consider me an enemy though... I think on a grammar forum a while back I made "enemies" with a troll. But. Linguists and prescriptivist grammar mavens are natural enemies... so I'm not very worried about it.

I don't think there are any real enemies here! What could you do, say "My cat could kick your cat's butt?" We all love cats and the people who come on here posting about nasty anti-cat things... *leave* quickly

I don't tend to take anything online as seriously as real life though. A lot of times you get someone who is just somebody trying to rile our hackles and they'll realize it won't work and move on!

If it's looks volatile I stay away. This is why I tend to lurk months or even years before joining forums. Fan forums of any kind are generally best avoided.

I've stepped on a few toes in chat rooms before, I can't say I made anyone mad enough to consider me an enemy. Not that I'd know anyways, out of sight out of mind for me.
I do know that sometimes people may misunderstand me, bad word choice or maybe just being too direct (I try to avoid that).

I did have one occurrence that involved someone I was friend's with online for 3 years or so. I stand up for myself and my views and will not bend to anyone else. The person must have took offense when none was meant and started making snide remarks. I called them on it many times. They eventually crossed the line and I said "that's it, I've had enough" and proceeded to completely ignore the person the best I could. Being ignored made the person PO'ed. They tried a few little things to ruffle me. Unfortunately, we share several mutual friends, because of that incident and the person's hold over them, I can no longer really trust most of them.

Originally Posted by Natalie_ca

The internet is a fascinating thing. However, it also breeds a whole different type of bully. There are people in this world that are polite and considerate and kind in their daily lives, but they do a 180 degree turn on the internet and become school yard bullies, picking on those who they find will react to them, and those people end up being puppets with the griefer being the puppeteer.

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I've found chat rooms to actually remind me of wolf packs, rabid ones in some cases. There's always one person calling the shots, others to back them up, and the one person that takes tons of grief just to be part of the 'pack'. Every few months or maybe after a year or two someone (usually #2 or #3 in popularity rank) 'overthrows' #1 and takes their place. There's always other undercurrents too.
Sort of creepy to watch but sometimes I like analyzing things.
I wonder if there's been any research over chat rooms or forums and the clique/packs that form and how they evolve.

You mean there's other forums besides TCS?

Heck yes, on sites like Livejournal and other forum-ish places I've made 'internet-enemies'. I'm more opinionated on LJ instead of here, and people have got mad at me for it. For the most part, we've come to terms with it but there are sites I've stopped going to because of these people.

Originally Posted by StarryEyedTiGeR

I have to add - one thing i love about TCS is- no matter what you argue/discuss -if it gets a little upsetting- all you have to do is post a picture of a cute kitty to cool everyone down

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thats true!

Originally Posted by Zissou'sMom

I don't tend to take anything online as seriously as real life though.

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I think that's where the term "It's just the internets!" comes to use.

I'm lucky to say that so far I haven't had that experience. I try to be considerate of other's opinions and remember that we are all here mainly to share our precious furbabies. Everyone here on TCS has been really wonderful!
I'm not perfect and neither is everyone else. I can understanding venting, I know, because I do it, but I also think everyone else has a right also. But, I can not tolerate or approve of just vicious attacks out of no where. If someone apologizes they should accept it and move on. Not be childish and try to lower their standards or make others look bad. I know that half the people will either like me or not. Just because they may say bad things about me, does not mean I need to do it also. Even though I may get hurt at times, at least I know that I have not lowered myself to their standards.
All I can say is that you've reported this person, put them on your ignore list, and done all you possibly could. Since you have a lot of support and you feel comfortable enough to go back, I would. If not, email the friends you've made on that other forum. But do not subject yourself to someone who isn't worth your time and energy. Most likely they do not have anything good to say about themselves so they are lashing out at others. Good luck and I hope I have been able to help you some.

Back in the early days of the internet, I went looking for places to chat and fell into a live-chat room where any subject was fair game, anybody could join in, and there was no way to tell who anybody was. I liked it because some of the regulars were very intelligent people who challenged me intellectually, and because the nature of the place was such that I didn't have to worry about upsetting or offending anyone... everybody there was bigger and louder than I could ever be! I found that comforting.

But there were also bullies such as others here have described, and they preyed on new people, baiting and humiliating them. I began to step in and try to rescue the victims of these attacks -- usually by inviting them to join in whatever conversation I was part of, and encouraging them to just ignore the bullies.

In this way, I became well-liked in the room, and served as a hostess of sorts, I guess. When I was around, the tone of the room was more civil. But this didn't sit well with the bullies, and I was often baited and insulted myself -- which hurt, but I never let them see that, of course.

Finally, after several months, an all-out attack was mounted against me. Suddenly there were impostors in the room pretending to be me, but saying monstrous things I would never say. In those days, people were naive about what's technically possible on the internet, so a lot of them believed the impostors really were me, and many people became unwilling to talk to anyone using my name.

When the attacks escalated to threats on me and my family, a friend of mine tried to use his computer skills to identify the attackers. He got far enough to learn that it was most likely just one person running seven computers at once, and he or she seemed to be in western Canada.

This made sense, because the attacks and impersonations were always interspersed with destructive comments from seemingly uninvolved parties who appeared out of nowhere. The person orchestrating all this was clearly brilliant, technically savvy, extremely inventive -- and perverted beyond words. (I don't even want to describe to you the vileness of the things that were said.)

This person was stealing my identity and destroying my reputation. I took it very deeply to heart. I stayed in that room night after night, trying to keep people from thinking this evil doppelganger was really me. Finally, the very best friend I'd met in the room sat me down (virtually) in private chat and said, "Let's get out of this place." He said it wasn't worth the pain it was causing me, and we should just go find someplace else to chat, and invite a few of our friends from the room to join us if we wanted. "It's time," he said, "to shake the dust of this room from our heels."

It was a hard decision for me, but as soon as we were out of that treacherous place, I felt so much better. That friend is still my friend today, and I'm eternally grateful to him for helping me learn the valuable lesson of Knowing When To Quit.

There are better controls in chat rooms and forums now, thank goodness, and it would be harder for someone to so thoroughly torment a person these days... but the internet is still full of shadows and ghosts and boogeymen. The only real safety out here lies in a willingness to disengage, disappear, and never look back.

Years ago, when they had the ROSIEO'DONNELL TV WEBSITE, there were a couple of men who for some reason took a dislike to me, no, I hadn't done anything to him, but they were always snipping at everything I said no matter what.

To the best of my knowledge, I haven't made any enemies on any forums I've visited. On the one hand, I'm a little surprised by this, because I'm opinionated and loud-mouthed and ... well, arrogant. On the other hand, though, I try to be respectful in my posting and hope that when I comment on someone else's post, I'm commenting only on what they've said, and not on them as a person. I like challenging other people's thoughts and opinions, but I prefer to do it in a way that will make them think, not walk off in a huff because I've insulted them on a deeply personal level.

Of course, someone out there could have a major hate-on for me and I'm just too oblivious to notice it.

There was one person ... on this site ... who I kinda sorta maybe considered an enemy. She no longer posts here -- she took off after other people called her on some of what she was saying -- but when she did post things, she was just so outlandish that I had to challenge what she was saying. She was also blatantly, unabashedly, unapologetically racist, and I just couldn't tolerate that. She actually kinda scared me. But now she's gone, so *shrug* whatever.

I do argue with people on TCS. And I like discussing controversial subjects and playing devil's advocate. But I have always found that the people with whom I've disagreed have always been really quick to intelligently defend their own arguments and are very slow to take personal offense at anything I've said. In a few cases, I've had PMs from people (and sent a few of my own) where potentially hurt feelings were dealt with before any problems could start.

(Oh, and as an aside, Zissou'sMom get bonus points for using the words "prescriptivist grammar mavens" in a sentence.

I'm envious of that linguistic marvel.)

I make and break enemies wherever I go.

C'mon, put 'em up, PUT 'EM UP!!!!

I'm also extremely arrogant - I used to have a Tshirt that read: I'm not arrogant, I'm just smarter than you are.

Seriously, flamers and trolls are all over the place, on just about every forum I've been to (TCS is a wonderfully rare exception, along with another site that I moderate on) and they are generally people with low self esteem who can "hide" behind their words, and are truly not worth the time spent debating with them.

I admit that I have fallen victim to a troll baiting me in the past, but the more I post on forums the less often that happens as I am now able to recognize them and simply refuse to reply to any of their posts. Some forums have an "ignore" function which I love, you can actually set it so that you don't see their posts, and therefore don't get into any issues with them. After a while they get frustrated and go elsewhere to find people to upset.

Trolls really do seem to thrive on making people upset - I guess it's a sort of cyber bullying, like the mean kid stalking you on the way home from school.

Recently on a baseball forum I was called a really bad name. On these baseball forums you always talk about your favorite team and this guy came over from another team to bash us. Others told him to get off the board and I reported him to the moderator, I have not seen or heard from him since lol. The best way to control this is to report that person, that would be the right thing to do.