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People have civil discourse in IM/IRC/SMS all the time and none of those media are seen as naturally aggressive. People in real life don't monologue all that o

People have civil discourse in IM/IRC/SMS all the time and none of those media are seen as naturally aggressive. People in real life don't monologue all that often and most communication is "short form".

netruk44 4y ago
IM and SMS aren't public forums where people you don't know can barge in with their own take on what you just wrote, though. IRC can be, but it would be very difficult to have a grasp on every IRC conversation happening everywhere so you could respond to something you find incredulous. Unlike Twitter, which incentivizes people carrying on infinite numbers of asynchronous conversations, and encourages people to find them by bringing up 'interesting' ones on the timeline.
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  I think you've found the real problems, none of which are "short form" messaging: I agree with you that there's an aggression to a public forum where message can be commented on by everyone and every past message is "fair game" for "fresh" conversation. Those do seem to lead to plenty of aggression. In the heyday of blogs, long form posts weren't immune to those effects either and that's why blogs invented things like spam checks and comment lockdowns and comment moderation tools.
mr_gibbins 4y ago
I think there's a degree of civility brought about by IM, SMS in particular as you normally know the person, or have interacted with them long enough so that you consider them (and they consider you) part of your 'circle'. IRC - on specialist forums perhaps there is some civility because everyone in that forum is likely experienced and interested, so mutual respect and good manners reign. But when you put together a heterogeneous group of people with no defined clear goal for the group and mix in anonymity by default, you get 4chan. It'd make an interesting sociological study, which factors (privacy, anonymity, interest group, etc.) correlate with aggressive online social groups.

netruk44 4y ago

IM and SMS aren't public forums where people you don't know can barge in with their own take on what you just wrote, though. IRC can be, but it would be very difficult to have a grasp on every IRC conversation happening everywhere so you could respond to something you find incredulous. Unlike Twitter, which incentivizes people carrying on infinite numbers of asynchronous conversations, and encourages people to find them by bringing up 'interesting' ones on the timeline.

WorldMaker 4y ago
I think you've found the real problems, none of which are "short form" messaging: I agree with you that there's an aggression to a public forum where message can be commented on by everyone and every past message is "fair game" for "fresh" conversation. Those do seem to lead to plenty of aggression. In the heyday of blogs, long form posts weren't immune to those effects either and that's why blogs invented things like spam checks and comment lockdowns and comment moderation tools.

mr_gibbins 4y ago

I think there's a degree of civility brought about by IM, SMS in particular as you normally know the person, or have interacted with them long enough so that you consider them (and they consider you) part of your 'circle'. IRC - on specialist forums perhaps there is some civility because everyone in that forum is likely experienced and interested, so mutual respect and good manners reign. But when you put together a heterogeneous group of people with no defined clear goal for the group and mix in anonymity by default, you get 4chan. It'd make an interesting sociological study, which factors (privacy, anonymity, interest group, etc.) correlate with aggressive online social groups.