Since when does anonymity give people the right to be total jerks?! Internet rant.

UGH! Quote from another forum:

Sorry to be a **** here but it's just what I do.

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Wait a second.. so you KNOW what you're about to say is going to be rude, you KNOW it's not constructive, but that's "just what I do"?!

I've been really sheltered and/or lucky on these forums; it's only every now and then I get a snarky comment, but it's like.. seriously? Seriously? I went into a NaNoWriMo chatroom for the first time in about two years and was pleasantly surprised.. the next day, people were being the biggest jerks ever for no other reason than they thought it was entertaining. Passive aggressive, and picking on things everyone was saying because they thought that other people weren't "experienced enough writers".

WHY do people think it's okay to be a complete jerk to total strangers? When all said stranger did was ask a question?

It's like.. Random ordinary person + total anonymity = total jerk face.

UGH UGH UGH.

Welcome to the internet. Some day these people will learn there is no such thing as total anonymity. Very few people can hide themselves that well online, meaning that the average person's IP is out there for anyone who wants it to see. It's a simple matter from there to trace it or if one knows how - damage a person's pc.

In a more constructive sense. You can also put IPs into firewalls to block them, and in certain chats and forums - ban by IP.

Originally Posted by Fiery

UGH! Quote from another forum:

Wait a second.. so you KNOW what you're about to say is going to be rude, you KNOW it's not constructive, but that's "just what I do"?!

I've been really sheltered and/or lucky on these forums; it's only every now and then I get a snarky comment, but it's like.. seriously? Seriously? I went into a NaNoWriMo chatroom for the first time in about two years and was pleasantly surprised.. the next day, people were being the biggest jerks ever for no other reason than they thought it was entertaining. Passive aggressive, and picking on things everyone was saying because they thought that other people weren't "experienced enough writers".

WHY do people think it's okay to be a complete jerk to total strangers? When all said stranger did was ask a question?

It's like.. Random ordinary person + total anonymity = total jerk face.

UGH UGH UGH.

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Yup you've been sheltered here. I run some large forums and some mid-sized. The largest has 4 million posts and over 40,000 members. It's lightly moderated (i don't believe in censorship so I only moderate things that are illegal). The things people say are unreal. See what happens (at least this is my opinion) on most forums is people with a chip on their shoulder but don't have the guts to express it in real life flock to forums where they can show that side of them without repercussion.

That's my thought anyway. But don't take that as a bad thing. It's a VERY good thing.

Originally Posted by strange_wings

Welcome to the internet.

Some day these people will learn there is no such thing as total anonymity. Very few people can hide themselves that well online, meaning that the average person's IP is out there for anyone who wants it to see. It's a simple matter from there to trace it or if one knows how - damage a person's pc.

In a more constructive sense. You can also put IPs into firewalls to block them, and in certain chats and forums - ban by IP.

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all routers nowaday come with firewalls. Windows Vista also has built in firewalls by default. It's not very common you could simply attack another PC, and if you don't know what you're doing it would be VERY difficult.

Not to mention that as a user, you can't see anyone's IP. You'd need to be a moderator, and even then the forums can be set to not display that.

Even if you got the IP there isn't much you can do. They're assigned dynamically now, so every so often they're changed. If you have ever thought you'd report someone to their ISP for abuse? Don't bother. They'll never respond or even consider the issues. As a service provider for small and large business customers I have had this request frequently. Even when I had logs showing attacks on my customers, with precise information and solid proof, not a single one would even return the contact request, let alone do anything.

There are so many people out there, and so few of them are concerned. Not to mention the truth of the matter is there's much more sense in blocking the attack than trying to punish those doing it. I'd bet 99.9% of attacks are never reported, and of that one percent that are, 99% of them are never even responded to.

^Not everyone needs routers, and most people do not use Vista.
And I wasn't referring to forums so much as chat. Depending on where/what's used it's easy cause problems for someone. Take people that aren't careful with their IRC settings for example. If you already know what ports are open....

My IP hasn't changed since the account was opened.

almost every internet service provider deploys modems with routers built in.

But I wasn't referring to chat, or IRC becuase the topic is forums and XP has a firewall built in too. lol

No big deal, there's just very little concern of any kind for PC attacks by posting on a forum

At least you know negative feedback isn't accepted here

Originally Posted by fastnoc

and XP has a firewall built in too. lol

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And not everyone uses XP - which has a useless firewall anyways.

The point was - You are not anonymous online and eventually some people make mistakes. If you really think you are, you can keep deluding yourself - but you're not.

Yeah people think they are anonymous on the internet so that they can be jerks and school yard bullies. The internet and not having to be face-to-face and risk getting punched in the nose, gives them a false sense of security and courage.

However, the internet is not as anonymous as people like to think, and people have actually been tracked down and prosecuted for their school yard bully tactics.