Tolerance

[sabray]

Tolerance is like hair. Everyone has some. Some peoples tolerance is retreating. Other people have it up the wazoo.
You can't have to much but you can have to much in the wrong place. It can be transplanted. It can grow thin. If you have a boat I can sell


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[BandB]

Originally Posted by sabray

Tolerance is like hair. Everyone has some. Some peoples tolerance is retreating. Other people have it up the wazoo.
You can't have to much but you can have to much in the wrong place. It can be transplanted. It can grow thin. If you have a boat I can sell


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Probably tolerance wasn't the best word. Tolerance of the rights and opinions of others was what I wished to address but the real words more easily understood perhaps should have been personal attacks, meanness, rudeness, demeaning other members.

I personally have lots of hair and lots of tolerance of the views of others. However, my tolerance of personal attacks, meanness, rudeness, demeaning and putting down others, and name calling is not as high. I don't like hurtful things being said to others in person or online.

There are other things in the world I don't have tolerance for such as murder, crime, bigotry, and abuse. So I didn't universally mean tolerance, but rather tolerance for the rights and opinions of others as exhibited through treating them with respect.

[Andrew Troup]

Originally Posted by socaldmax

Oh, absolutely!

I've seen as few as 5 or 6 people just destroy a website with incredible attacks on others. But the point is, let's say out of an entire website, you have 20 who have acted rudely at one time or another. According to this study, out of 6 different reasons for people to act rudely or overly nicely, only 1 of those had to do with people using a different name and feeling that those posts weren't really from them (a ridiculous excuse.)

....

You have a strong point, I think, on reflection.

In one of the cases I was referring to, just two people brought the website down, one by being obsessed about one idea, and the other by being obsessed with attacking the first guy.

"Guy one" used both his own names (including given name Jon), and the other guy used his given name, Cliff.

In the other case, a single guy brought the website down. He used both his own names (given name Norman)

It was obsessive behaviour which was I think the greatest problem for all three people, and it I'm guessing it was their obsessions which disinhibited them. Nastiness was an intermittent weapon, rather than what they set out to achieve.

[Andrew Troup]

I think that ad-hominem nastiness does not bring a website to its knees, the problem is more that it drives away people who find it repellent, and so it prospers and eventually becomes the norm.

Sailing Anarchy is doing just fine. Some decent people stick around there, because they have a high threshold, or good filters, or something.

I wonder if they have more racing sailors than cruising sailors. The former always been a more cutting-edgy "real bloke" culture, where vile insults can be a ritual of affection.

A maxi yacht skipper who didn't share that cultural stamp once confided in me that he regretted having to hire some guys, (with the necessary knowledge and chutzpah to cope with the massive loads), overendowed with the 'mongrel', which the small talent pool in those days sometimes drained down to.

I don't personally care to become inured to the level of nastiness at SA, but maybe if I had better filters, I would learn to.

It would be interesting (but perhaps not interesting enough) to see how many of the vile abusers on SA were using real names.

[Andrew Troup]

Originally Posted by socaldmax

....If using an alias really allowed that many people to post whatever rudeness entered their minds, we'd see a lot more rude posts here......

I thought the proposition being argued was the opposite: that people attaching their names would be inhibited from posting abusive posts.

The way of testing my proposition would be the opposite of yours, and arguably more rigorous:

My test would be

"what proportion of abusive posts bear a real name", vs
"what overall proportion of posts bear a real name."

which could be compared with the same ratios, but for posts under an assumed name.

Of course, in both cases, we would have to look at posts BEFORE the moderators got to them.

I think they are largely responsible for what you rightly point out is the lack of "rude posts here", partly by direct action, and perhaps more significantly by what's often called the "Broken windows" effect.

[rgscpat]

A blogger's call for tolerance, made today:
rebel heart | Meaningful Mommy


And an updated article from a family cruiser and writer:
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/lif....html?mode=jqm

[Gadagirl]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

I don't personally care to become inured to the level of nastiness at SA, but maybe if I had better filters, I would learn to.

Ahhhh. I seldom even read over at SA aside from the design threads commented on/started by Perry. As far as growing up in an environment that develops thick skin, bonding through sarcasm and creative insults, try NJ. Still I'd not survive more than a post there.

[IdoraKeeper]

I am try to inject humour in threads that have gone bad. Cf is valuable to me. Example: I needed to know what stainless I needed when having chain plate bolts fabricated. Got the correct answer in 5 minutes. Not gonna get that stuff if everyone is grousing about politics or beating up on some one who screwed up.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

I think that ad-hominem nastiness does not bring a website to its knees, the problem is more that it drives away people who find it repellent, and so it prospers and eventually becomes the norm.

Sailing Anarchy is doing just fine. Some decent people stick around there, because they have a high threshold, or good filters, or something.

I wonder if they have more racing sailors than cruising sailors. The former always been a more cutting-edgy "real bloke" culture, where vile insults can be a ritual of affection.

A maxi yacht skipper who didn't share that cultural stamp once confided in me that he regretted having to hire some guys, (with the necessary knowledge and chutzpah to cope with the massive loads), overendowed with the 'mongrel', which the small talent pool in those days sometimes drained down to.

I don't personally care to become inured to the level of nastiness at SA, but maybe if I had better filters, I would learn to.

It would be interesting (but perhaps not interesting enough) to see how many of the vile abusers on SA were using real names.

What you described in your first sentence is what I saw on one website. They never banned anyone, rarely deleted a post or thread (mostly just to half-assed protect the owner from libel litigation) and quite often the "mods" on that site only deleted posts critical of their total lack of moderation, while they themselves led attacks on the less popular members.

The site listed your join date and member #, a lot of people assumed that number was how many active members there were but the reality was the cream of the crop had left the site over the endless bickering and intentional button pushing. The remaining members were the bottom 20% of the barrel, and every single thread devolved into an elementary school shoving match or fake humblebrag to try to bolster their popularity, which seemed to be the most important issue to most. It was a mostly social site, but it drew out the worst in everyone.

I do have "filters", but they clog up with too much nastiness. I can ignore most stuff, but why subject yourself to the dregs of society if you don't have to? I go to the high noise websites, do a quick search for the valuable info, and leave. No sense drowning in the low signal to noise dreck that inhabits those places. It keeps my blood pressure down, and I spend enough time on much nicer forums, like this one. I figure I only have 24 hrs in a day, why waste any of it on websites full of rude, boorish people?

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Horror Hotel

You missed the memo that "real" cruisers are not conservative.

I don't know...
I've seen 'Cruisers' of all types cruising the dark side of town checking out the latest available in young and old Ukrainian, Polish, Jamaican and many other women in short skirts.. the Mercedes drivers are the most welcomed..

But.. being a Seaman one see's all sorts..

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

I thought the proposition being argued was the opposite: that people attaching their names would be inhibited from posting abusive posts.

The way of testing my proposition would be the opposite of yours, and arguably more rigorous:

My test would be

"what proportion of abusive posts bear a real name", vs
"what overall proportion of posts bear a real name."

which could be compared with the same ratios, but for posts under an assumed name.

Of course, in both cases, we would have to look at posts BEFORE the moderators got to them.

I think they are largely responsible for what you rightly point out is the lack of "rude posts here", partly by direct action, and perhaps more significantly by what's often called the "Broken windows" effect.

I think you're right about how the theory is phrased, but it's still the same correlation. Roughly, using your real name = polite posts, using an alias = rude posts.

I like to delude myself into thinking that I edit my posts based on what my mother would think. The reality is that she doesn't have a computer. LOL But I still don't see any point in being nasty, it just brings it out in people and comes back you three times worse.

[SaltyMonkey]

U r all wrong.

Real cruisers are monkeys

[Andrew Troup]

Originally Posted by socaldmax

I think you're right about how the theory is phrased, but it's still the same correlation. Roughly, using your real name = polite posts, using an alias = rude posts.
...

I don't think the second claim follows neatly from the first.

It would be nice if we could invert the proposition:

1) “using your real name = polite posts” to

2) “using an alias = rude posts”

and then refute 1) by contradicting 2), with the observation that

3) “Here we have aliases and yet we don’t have rude posts”



But if the rules of logic permitted that, they would also permit refuting the proposition “Condoms prevent babies” by observing, with hands on hips, that “We've not used condoms, and yet we have no babies”

(via the unstated inversion: “No condoms = babies”)

In both cases, we’re leaving something unsaid, in the original proposition.
We’re not saying “Real names are the ONLY THING stopping nasty posts”, just as we can’t say “Condoms are the ONLY THING preventing babies”

And it seems to me a couple of Other Things stopping (most) nasty posts here, are the cultural norms on the forum, plus (and I would say, partly in consequence of) the moderators and the policies they operate.

So I don’t think this forum is a useful place to test either proposition 1), or 2)

(let alone propositions about condoms and babies!)

[boatman61]

Doubt real name or Boatman61 affects my posts... when I've had a few and wanna be rude.. I am...
Any Mod will verify that

[Mike OReilly]

As I keep saying, this research has already been done. We don't have to speculate, defer to common sense, or pray the the gods of logic. There is plenty of behavioural research to show there is a correlation between poorer behaviour and anonymous identity.

It's a tendency, not a binary on/off switch. It would have no impact on some individuals (winking at you Boatie ) And of course real names will not remove all bad behaviour. But evidence shows it will reduce the overall amount of uncivil activity. I've posted some links before. Just do a search. It's not that hard to find the references and research.

The argument against the use of real names says that it will have no impact. If that's the case, then even the opponents have no reason not to try. If it will have no impact, then it changes nothing. If it has a positive impact, then we've made some gains.