Jousting Online

The best in this kind are but shadows:
and the worst are no worse, if imagination
amend them.

-Midsummer Night's Dream(5:1.210)

Although my experience of newsgroups, message boards and blogs is not particularly extensive, I have certainly noticed the storm and fury that often attends exchanges between posters. There are many reasons for posting your words online, and apparently for some the major reason is to smite very roughly those with whom you do not agree, or simply do not like.

The depth of venom and the extended time line of such exchanges make you want to ship prozac or paxil, stat, to the participants. Abraham Lincoln was half right when he claimed that the world would little note nor long remember what was said at Gettysburg; nobody remembers Edward Everett's speech. There are few Lincolns posting on message boards, though. Nobody much remembers last week's flames, except for obsessional participants therein.

Attacking posts by persons for whom you have contempt seems very much like tailgating an annoying car, to me. To have contempt for the skill or judgement of a driver or a writer on an ephermal forum, why surrender your independence of that person? Tailgating is likely to involve you in a highly unpleasant experience; engaging in pointless flame wars has the same result.