[lbo-talk] How To Keep Hostile Jerks From Taking Over Your OnlineCommunity

[Tayssir John Gabbour]

On 5/17/07, Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
> To sum it up, flame wars and trolling on the internet are produced not by
> personality failures of human actors, but by the medium failure, that is,
> the inability of the medium to convey the essential part of human
> communication - emotional communication.

I think there have been solid advances in social software. For instance,
<http://reddit.com/>
offers surprisingly reasoned conversations despite being very easy to
post on, and despite many different opinions. Future forums could
improve further; there's always more room for improvement. The
medium's new.

In the real world, there are many situations where reasoned discussion
is almost impossible between people. For example, many disputes are
resolved through violence.

Tayssir