elsewhere: underestimation and civility

[iainpj]

Something of a side note: you see the same sort of thing, if considerably more muted, when women and minorities try to point out that, even within something as unreal as a superhero comic, women and minorities seem to get singled out for special sorts of unreality. Comic book geeks everywhere complain that superhero comics are unreal (granted), that we should be grateful that we have any sort of representation at all (the response to that would be unprintable and unhelpful, so I won't), that we're too sensitive, and so on and so on. I suppose we should be somewhat grateful that, on the whole, comics people don't quite descend to this level. Not very often, anyway.

grim amusements / May 7, 2007 / underestimation and civility:

...It would be interesting and instructive, if appalling, to know precisely what Amaechi meant by "unbelievably, viscerally, frighteningly negative". Given that it seems to have been even more negative than he was expecting, I'm guessing that it was probably something like the type and level of negativity that Kathy Sierra has been experiencing

[...] As a gay man who has just declared that, aside from being somewhat closeted during his career, his gayness made no real difference in being able to play or really in how his teams related to him, he's suddenly become a very visible threat, for people who view masculinity in certain ways. And I'd be willing to bet that if he and Kathy Sierra compared threatening messages, they'd find that they were essentially the same. After all, if you view gay men as not being properly male/masculine, then it makes a sort of twisted sense to use the same threats against them as you would against women.

[...] I don't understand why anyone would feel that communicating over the internet requires less civility than communicating in person or over the phone. If anything, it would seem to require more civility, if only because you don't have facial or vocal cues to determine tone, to help you understand how something is meant. (Granted, I'm pretty sure that threats to rape you and yours and kill you are the sort of thing that wouldn't necessarily be improved by hearing them in person.)

I freely admit that my reaction to people who feel that the internet gives license to be rude and obnoxious is something along the lines of: These days, there's a tolerably decent chance that you'll meet someone in real life who can attach your face to comments you have made about them, at them, about or at someone they know, and they will judge you for it in ways that you won't like. Saying "But it was just the internet!" won't help." Alternatively, I'd like to shorten that to, Oh, just grow UP! Or possibly something even more pungent and expletive-laden.

But that would be uncivil of me, wouldn't it?