the actual reason people flame online at any forums is that it's easy. i read an article in some computer magazine that was talking about now-ancient BBS boards. there would be horrendous and vulgar posts, as well as a lot of flaming. being a now-ancient BBS board, everybody that had access was an adult and middle class, so behaviour would be expected to leaps and bounds better than it was. the problem is that because forums do not require truthful information, but information that is valid, it is wide open to anonymity.
in a book titled something like The Lucifer Effect, an experiment was held modeling a prison with a environment, dress-code, etc. that fostered anonymity ("guards" got aviator glasses & identical uniforms, prisoners had numbers instead of names on their uniforms, etc.) the project basically came close to the Abu Ghraib (if that's how it's spelt) fiasco and was shut down.
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i left for a while because school started and i wasn't allowed on weekdays and i wanted to get game-time in on weekends. but i was pretty much on the way to becoming the ass you may or may not know me as anyways, so i suppose i should probably work to be more civil. this place is great brain food.
