It's impossible for everyone to change their behaviour, because that's too many people. Some people are just assholes and don't care. Or they're idiots and don't understand. Nothing we can do about that. Most people are alright, but with 8 billion people on the planet even a small percentage being an asshole means a lot of assholes.
For the most part, the people who care already care (you, me, most others commenting here) are not really the problem.
So ultimately the only thing you can do as a maintainer is set your own boundaries for yourself. And the original message in that thread ("there is no activity, what are your plans?") is a fair question, although the follow-ups are not.
All of this is true for a lot of the internet by the way. The best thing of the internet is that anyone on the planet can talk to anyone else on the planet. When I was a kid I did some ham radio with scouting, and you could talk to people from places like Russia and the US. Wow!
The worst thing of the internet is that anyone on the planet can talk to anyone else on the planet. You're constantly exposed to a seemingly never-ending stream of assholes and idiots, and a single asshole can ruin the day of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people every day. Maybe this is just 1% of people, but 1% of 8 billion is 80 million.
The internet is full of assholes. Its an unfortunate truth. There is also unfortunately not a whole bunch that can be done about it (short of going full dystopia).
The problem is you're basically saying to re-train every person who uses the internet to behave in a way completely different from what they're used to. If you think you can do that, by all means try.
But don't be surprised when you find out that your expectations and their expectations were different, and you're the one they blame, and they outnumber you by a lot.
I look around at every. single. internet community on the planet and I struggle to find a single one that isn't full of assholes. Including the very space I am on right now.
And yet - when I step outside and go talk to people and hang out with my friends they suddenly recede into the shadows. Sure, here and there somebody will be an asshole but for the most part everyone is nice, helpful, and (especially in my friends group), welcoming.
This includes people I disagree with politically. I think we should able to turn the internet off for everyone for arbitrary amounts of time. Don't really know how to reconcile this for those who need it like the disabled, medical, etc...
My point is, I fundamentally disagree with this article.
But... an infinite number of people aren't reading every page on the web, all the time. Even on Reddit, you're only really interacting with the limited subset of users who choose to comment, out of the limited subset who read a thread - which is still possibly bigger than a circle of friends, but smaller than any significant fraction of the human population.
There is the perception that "the entire world" is watching you on the web, criticizing your every move, but that's not a fact.
As long as whoever is doing it is continuing, it's still alive. The key lesson of the Internet, learned from the punks, is reified in Rule 34: You're Not The Only One. There are an infinite number of long tails.
Can you make infinitely scalable money at it? If that's the only thing that concerns you, no. Go away. Every community is better off without you.
If you love it, can you make some money at it? Maybe, but you're likely to love it less if it becomes your livelihood.
Self-policing on the internet by and large rarely works out well. Before long, most of the interesting people are driven out by the assholes, and the only other people left hanging around the assholes are the morons and bottom-of-the-barrel trolls.
Yet another human
bemoaning the fact that
when myriad humans
randomly get together on
the internet, some folks
are clueless, some folks
are not nice, some folks
write poorly, etc.
There are things that can
be done to improve
online discussion. But
expecting everyone to be
equally knowledgeable,
savvy, etc is simply not a
reasonable expectation.
There aren't a tonne of environments on the internet today, though: there's effectively one.
It's generally: normal people thrown into a garbage dump with a few psychotic basket cases, some attention-seeking ten-year-olds, some bots, viral-marketers, narcissistic grifters... all with pseudonymity, and scant moderation.
If you were to lock twenty Tom-Hanks-level-affable people, into a room with three people who continually rant, push buttons, interrupt you, tell obvious lies, and spout inanities, eventually you'll have 23 badly behaved people.
The design of the internet, especially its current incarnation, incentivizes stupidity and vitriol.
Folks on internet fail to understand that there are people on the other side of terminal and some civility is warranted. All of us should discourage uncivil behavior by non-participating in a silly conversation.
No one needs to change anything. The internet existed for years without this being an issue.
If you encounter someone on the internet who is annoying you, most platforms give you the option to block them. You do that, then move on with your life. It's not hard.
Being terminally online and complaining about other people complaining is an even less healthy way of life, yet I keep seeing more and more of it as time goes by.
I don’t really understand the link between your post and the article, but I might have a context free theory:
In the real world annoying people can only annoy so many people at once. On the internet everyone has to read when an annoying person is posting constantly into the group chat. Annoying people simply can take up more oxygen.
Now for the contextful thing: there are loads of communities that aren’t filled with assholes! Check out subreddits for some of your hobbies, maybe a discord/irc channel for something you like, a relatively small community… there are nice places on the web!
If that's true, then why are you on the Internet in the first place? If you have no care over what other people are doing and don't care if other people care about you, what utility can the Internet have whatsoever?
+1 This is exactly the issue. There are many, many people out there that don't feel like something is a problem until it literally bites them in the ass. This applies on and off the Internet.
There is only so much people can care about in their day to day. This mentality you are displaying ignores reality and will end up biting you one day when something you expect to happen does not come true because you're living your life on the internet too much.
I have a german blog who totally pushes this attitude forwards. It's called 1337core.de. A self-irony netculture blog. It is much about hacking, script kiddies, anonymous, fail netpolitics. Kind of stupid but my stupid thing.
But seriously i think this problem comes from the lag, that we don't see the people we are talking about in front of us. It's just a device. No feelings. We hate in this machine and get no direct feedback. We have to learn that the people we are flaming about are living in this world and can propably read it. I have made this mistake a couple of times but i learned and use it alone for joking.
If you want to understand this problem you have to understand psychology, the interface-feedback-problem and group dynamic.
i just think its dumb how people want to "change" the internet, or anything for that matter. its not a tamable creature, its anarchy and chaos and humanity in all of its glory, good or bad.
it bothers me when people say we need to take something off the internet... no really, we dont, it was put there for a reason, no matter how misguided that reason may be. hate speech, no matter how distasteful is still free speech. dont want to see it on reddit, dont look for it! i mean quite frankly, if you are fat and self conscious, going to a "fat haters" forum is probably going to end poorly for you.
as for her statistic about 40% of internet users saying they have been bullied... welcome to the real world lady! run that same quiz in a random highschool and i'd bet its double that percentage... people are mean. why should the internet not reflect real life? art imitates life.
it also bothers me these people saying we need to change hiring practices and other such nonsense. many things self regulate, leave them alone.
For the most part, the people who care already care (you, me, most others commenting here) are not really the problem.
So ultimately the only thing you can do as a maintainer is set your own boundaries for yourself. And the original message in that thread ("there is no activity, what are your plans?") is a fair question, although the follow-ups are not.
All of this is true for a lot of the internet by the way. The best thing of the internet is that anyone on the planet can talk to anyone else on the planet. When I was a kid I did some ham radio with scouting, and you could talk to people from places like Russia and the US. Wow!
The worst thing of the internet is that anyone on the planet can talk to anyone else on the planet. You're constantly exposed to a seemingly never-ending stream of assholes and idiots, and a single asshole can ruin the day of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people every day. Maybe this is just 1% of people, but 1% of 8 billion is 80 million.
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