In the real world, grown ups know how to interact with each other.
In the anonymity or blackness of the net, you have only the e-mail-address or pen name of your partner in front of you. You are not able to visualize him as a human being with his special and often lovable characteristics. You can transmit your words to him over thousands of miles in a second, but you cannot see if he frowns or smiles reading them.
Being playful or playing games is an important part of our well feeling. But having fun is something to be shared. If I sat alone all day in my room laughing tears about jokes I invented, you would call an ambulance, not ask me for the source of my amusement. Simultaneously shared fun is not yet a possibility in the online world. I have no control over what mood my emission causes in my counterpart. Some are convinced that the other part must understand that they speak with their tongue in their cheek, when they say something not so nice or intelligent. That may function in face to face conversation, but on the net no one can recognise where they have their tongue, and what they are doing with it. No valid argument.
To make it short, the invisibility of our net partners can cause "online disinhibition", making us either tell much more about the secrets of our life, than we would at eye contact, or treating the other as an inferior being. No threshold of shame to worry about in the big void. The worst form of online disinhibition is called "flaming".
Why is it named flaming? In World War II troops used flame throwers to reduce enemies to half of their physical size. Flaming on the net is not that dangerous, but it can destroy an important platform of communication, the forum itself.
Forums are constructed in a not very fire resistant way. Its participating members are divided into: Beginners, Advanced members, Full members, Silver, Gold and Platinum members, Knights and so on. In the blackness of the net all humans are equal. We do not distinguish us by fancy titles. We can win respect only by what we write.
But to move up in a forum's hierarchy depends not on the content of what you write, but on the number of your entries, even if each post is as short as the remark: "Now Burger, that was real cool what you wrote."
This reminds me of the children's contest - who can piss highest up a wall. In a street gang this might give the winner some respect. But Internet users don't have the notion as seeing other users as concurring peers. (Pun intended).
Membership hierarchies promote vanity, and from vanity it is only a short step to online disinhibitation.
What they do is create a dunghill where they can sit; raise their red crown and craw, instead of supporting a useful communication effort.
What works on the intake could also be applied to the output. I do imagine that if one could introduce a kind of mind watcher application into the mainstream forum programs, user's interaction might improve. Except maybe for those participants who enjoy to pee high on a wall.
