With all my bitching about political correctess, you may ask yourself, why do we need to be more politically correct online than we are in, suppose, face to face conversations.

This is of course, for a multitude of reasons, I’ll try to describe them, hopefully it will start making sense.

1. The more people out there the more likely you are to offend one of them.

This is very true and very real. If you’re talking to just one person, you’re not likely to offend them, as you’re talking to just one person. Talk to ten people, and the chances of you offending one of them is greater, as we introduce diversity. Introduce more diversity and more people, we become more and more politically correct out of necessity as we increase the scale.

2. Replying is as easy as typing an address to begin with.

“lol u suk im offended” takes less keystrokes than blogging about it, typing up an article or heaven knows what. Thus, feedback is immediate, and quite often stupid.

The diplomat is a common creature with the ability to understand social situations, sense opportunity and support its own interests.

Anyway, my point is, it takes skill and understanding to get it right. The key to being diplomatic? Agree with everyone. Don’t express opinions unless you’re asked for one, and then just say you accept everything, but this is “just you.”

We all have ideas, we’re all radical in our own way (yes we are), the only question is how well we know to express it. This is especially important in a tiny little community, e.g. forums.

My suggestion: less is more. Nobody likes you if you have an opinion about everything, even if you’re right and say what they all think is true, you’ll always see more opposition than support - not because that’s the way it is, just because that’s the way of nature - social nature.I’ll quit internet forums at some point, just not now, just hold on there.

I’m very sick of trying to be diplomatic.

Basically forums are horrible things, yes, I’ve said it before. I’ve been trying to be diplomatic for a while, and it didn’t quite work out as a great option. Why? People take the internet way too seriously for their own good.

1. Don’t count on people’s sarcasm detectors, they’re always broken.

Sorry, everybody takes sarcasm seriously. Suppose there was a thread about ice-cream, and you said that this thread promotes weight-control, somebody will be kind enough to let you know you’re a retard. Somehow, somebody will take your post seriously, and start hating you.

Yippie.

2. The best response is no response.

The best thing you can do to yourself, if your posts are taken out of context, is just not reply. At most, reply only to the stuff you like and ignore the rest (i.e. filter their post). The problem is, occasionally, people are stupid. Unfortunately, somebody has to tell them, no? WRONG, you’ll be starting flame wars and just making their stupidity more obvious.

3. Everybody thinks you’re flaming them or trolling their threads.

In a forum, every single user thinks their way is not merely correct, but is the manifestation of pure truth. Their posts are infallible, therefor, if you post something that seems to contradict them it can’t possibly be true, it must be a troll.

4. Trolls will be fed.

The old “do not feed the troll” motto is a great one. Unfortunately, nobody besides you gets it. Trolls will receive more replies than they could possibly imagine.

5. The more successful users are the ones who say nothing but yell “BACON!” with all their might 

This is an interesting one. Those who understand the forums know that there’s no use in expressing opinions, instead, they just say crap, post drunk, and make stupid “jokes.” They’re the same conservative bitch who’d support a WWII style killing machine.

6. The less successful users have something to say, they just do it wrong.

Opinions! Less-than-successful users have those, that’s WHY they’re “less than successful”. Nobody likes them because they say what’s right, but by the mighty gods, they know a thing or two.