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>Welcome to the Internet. If you do something, chances are someone hates you. You know, this is really what we have to keep in mind, or at least try to any way

>Welcome to the Internet. If you do something, chances are someone hates you. You know, this is really what we have to keep in mind, or at least try to any way. Doesn't stop it from stinging a bit when it happens though. Especially when they are the first kind of comment you receive when you show a project in a public forum. I usually expect a couple of 'Fuck you. My eye's are bleeding from your coding." style comments anytime I show a project publicly, but there are still times that it catches me off guard. For instance, not even code related, I once asked on Reddit for a couple of people to help beta test a Skype plugin I was working on. At that time, I had never written a threaded piece of software before, and had no idea how it would perform when a bunch of users were accessing it simultaneously. I wanted a larger test pool than the two or three of my friends who were online at any given time allowed. So I made my post, and received almost entirely negative feedback from it. To the point that I was completely unprepared for. I got stuff about what a loser I was, and even PMs about how I should just kill myself now for being such a loser, etc, etc.. It seemed like once the first negative comment popped up, the bandwagon effect took over, and suddenly it was an inbox full of hate. So I sat there in my chair, wondering what the hell just happened, what I did to all of these people people to cause such hostility, and on top of that, I sat there wondering why I even cared what a couple of assholes on the internet said. I didn't want to care, or be that guy who was bothered by "the mean people on the internet," but dammit I was a bothered by the whole thing.

Bockit 14y ago
Not related at to code at all but your comment about catching you off-guard reminded me of a comment chain I was a part of on reddit. There was a comment about assigned seating in movies and I replied with how I liked the system and why, and then the reply to me was something along the lines of, "Remind me to never hang out with you.". Water off a duck's back to me but it did give me a moment's pause and I recognised that if I weren't used to such behaviour it would have affected me. It reinforced a feeling I have that, sadly, you can't seem exist in communities on the internet without being ready to put up with unanticipated 'hate' (for lack of a better word). I know many people who given time to become more experienced, would benefit greatly from various aspects of the net, but I worry they wouldn't last a week before they decided it was something they never want a part of.
phatbyte 14y ago
If I've learned one thing is that the Reddit community is not friendly. I swear to God, there must be a underground competition to who can bully and troll more users there.
- goostavos 14y ago
  On the main subs, I think it is that there has been a down tick in the average user age. Being on the site and not being logged into my account feels quite a bit like visiting my 14 year old little brother facebook page. Just kind of base-line, 14 year old funny. My point being, I think a percentage of the trolling may come from that demographic. It's not rare to run across account that literally was set up just to hurl insults and racism. I just imagine that there are a group of 14 year olds sitting on the other side which boast to each other about how much negative Karma their 'troll' accounts have. In other areas, I think it's that some people just take karma far too seriously. I used to spend a lot of time in the language specific learnprogramming subreddits. It seemed like a nice way to help the 'community,' without having to do the race to the answer game that you do on stackoverflow. I learned that some of the most unbelievably childish people hang out in the language specific threads so they can play 'expert.' I ran into a couple of users that would downvote every answer in the thread that wasn't theirs. I sent one a message about reddiquette and that fact that he's really being a bit of a dick in our small community, but his response was to downvote all of my posts, and say that all other answers were wrong but his (they weren't). Needless to say, it seemed a waste of effort to continue to post if everything was just going to be buried thanks to some guy's e-ego.

Bockit 14y ago

Not related at to code at all but your comment about catching you off-guard reminded me of a comment chain I was a part of on reddit. There was a comment about assigned seating in movies and I replied with how I liked the system and why, and then the reply to me was something along the lines of, "Remind me to never hang out with you.". Water off a duck's back to me but it did give me a moment's pause and I recognised that if I weren't used to such behaviour it would have affected me. It reinforced a feeling I have that, sadly, you can't seem exist in communities on the internet without being ready to put up with unanticipated 'hate' (for lack of a better word). I know many people who given time to become more experienced, would benefit greatly from various aspects of the net, but I worry they wouldn't last a week before they decided it was something they never want a part of.

phatbyte 14y ago

If I've learned one thing is that the Reddit community is not friendly. I swear to God, there must be a underground competition to who can bully and troll more users there.

goostavos 14y ago
On the main subs, I think it is that there has been a down tick in the average user age. Being on the site and not being logged into my account feels quite a bit like visiting my 14 year old little brother facebook page. Just kind of base-line, 14 year old funny. My point being, I think a percentage of the trolling may come from that demographic. It's not rare to run across account that literally was set up just to hurl insults and racism. I just imagine that there are a group of 14 year olds sitting on the other side which boast to each other about how much negative Karma their 'troll' accounts have. In other areas, I think it's that some people just take karma far too seriously. I used to spend a lot of time in the language specific learnprogramming subreddits. It seemed like a nice way to help the 'community,' without having to do the race to the answer game that you do on stackoverflow. I learned that some of the most unbelievably childish people hang out in the language specific threads so they can play 'expert.' I ran into a couple of users that would downvote every answer in the thread that wasn't theirs. I sent one a message about reddiquette and that fact that he's really being a bit of a dick in our small community, but his response was to downvote all of my posts, and say that all other answers were wrong but his (they weren't). Needless to say, it seemed a waste of effort to continue to post if everything was just going to be buried thanks to some guy's e-ego.