rionaleonhart | It's 2023 And I'm Here To Talk About EZboards.

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It's 2023 And I'm Here To Talk About EZboards.

Lately, I've found myself thinking a lot about an online interaction I had about twenty years ago, which really shaped my approach to online interactions in general.

When I was fourteen or fifteen, I was a moderator on a now-deleted online forum called Final Fantasy Fanatics. One day, a newcomer made a post in allcaps. I left a very condescending 'witty' comment about turning capslock off (something like 'okay, you see all those buttons with letters in front of you? now look to the left...') and went about my day.

The next morning, I saw I had a private message from the newcomer, titled something like 'Being rude'. I assumed she was reporting rudeness from another member and opened the message. I was deeply shocked to see she was scolding me for being rude.

I couldn't take it in. Rude? I wasn't rude. I was a polite person; it was something I took pride in. She thought I was rude? I was just trying to be funny. I would have to explain that this was a misunderstanding.

And then I reflected on what I'd said. And, no matter how I looked at it, I had to admit it: I'd been rude.

I apologised, and she accepted my apology. But the incident stuck with me.

From that exchange, I formed principles for online interaction that I've tried to stick to ever since. The people you speak to online are still human, and, no matter how funny a putdown might be, it's still putting someone down. It's always tempting to be funny on the Internet, but it's more important to be kind. I've tried to put kindness first since then when speaking to people online; I hope I've succeeded.

The way she told me off stuck in my mind as well. I'd made fun of her in front of an audience - the other users of the forum - and she could very reasonably have replied in that public thread to tell me I was being rude. But she didn't. She contacted me in a private message; she didn't threaten my reputation by calling me out in front of everyone.

I wonder sometimes if I'd have felt the need to dig my heels in if I'd been publicly called out, rather than reflecting, acknowledging I'd behaved badly and apologising. I think it's a lot easier to resolve things peacefully in a private conversation, where you don't have to worry about looking like you've lost in front of people.

This is something I think about a lot with regard to platforms like Tumblr and Twitter: platforms where it's hard to conduct an argument without broadcasting it to all your followers, which I think stokes a lot of viciousness. On Dreamwidth, if you disagree with someone, you're more likely to discuss it with them in a comment thread in their own space, where nobody else will be notified; it's easier to have a civil conversation.

I don't think that person stuck around the forum for long; I don't remember her username or any details about her, and I'd have no idea how to find her. So I can't thank her personally, but I'm grateful to her. I think, by changing the way I approach online interaction, she had a really positive influence on my life.

I don't know if there's a point to this entry. I think there are discussions to be had about how we treat other people when there's a screen between us, and how modern social media is designed to fan the flames and encourage audience participation whenever an argument breaks out. But, ultimately, this was just something that happened that was important to me, and I'd like to record it somewhere.

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Oh yeah, I can see that helping you learn in a way that a harsher or more public response might not have. Because people, especially as teenagers, tend to have at least a moment of acting on a poor impulse without really thinking about it. Getting nothing but praise tends to encourage people, and harsh responses to something not intended harshly tends to make people double down and dig in. (It's much harder to admit you are in the wrong if it's associated with public humiliation, or with believing it's the sign of some deep horrible flaw.) Having direct, but respectful and proportionate communication about a moment of poor behavior makes it easier to learn, and harder to dismiss.

I really do think that in addition to the general impact of communicating with people through screens, the "everything is public under nearly any circumstances" way of communicating messes with people. It's in front of an audience, and even if it's two people willing to be reasonable, there's the question of what the audience will do with something like a concession or an admission of wrong.

Yeah, it felt horrible at the time, but it was a lesson I needed to learn. I'm really glad that I learnt it in a quickly resolved private conversation rather than in a drawn-out public argument, where other people might have got involved or come away with a negative impression of me.

Yeah, not having the risk of public shame makes it much easier to deal with.

I'd say it's lovely you got to learn it so early in your online life.

My mother always taught us that there was nothing that needed to be said that couldn't be said in a polite way and I've tried to bear that in mind even online but it's not always easy because 'tone' is so difficult in comments.

I used far more 'smiley faces' and the like online than I would eve do offline.

I'd say it's lovely you got to learn it so early in your online life.

Agreed! It was a really valuable moment, and my online experience and relationships might have been very different without it.

Tone can be tricky, it's true! I don't use smiley faces much (although I can see that they're useful), but I often find myself relying on exclamation marks to help myself sound friendly.

I don't know exactly what's caused it, I think to some degree with the rise of social media as a whole and there being now this whole generation of people who have grown up with that there's been this cultural shift and the way people interact with each other in general has just changed completely, though I can't speak for twitter since I've never used it but I am so done with tumblr and its weird and toxic atmosphere where far too many people have become way, way too comfortable with treating attacking and invalidating marginalised people's identities and/or denying their oppression and abuse (or, as they prefer to call it, "discoursing" about those) as some sort of fun hobby that couldn't possibly have incredibly damaging real repercussions, and telling people to kill themselves/die over the most bland and harmless things like very often just for shipping two fictional characters. I'm a mod on a bisexuality advice blog on there and one of the latest examples of this toxic online culture was some anon telling us to "die in a fire" simply for being kink positive. And while there have always been these sorts of unpleasant hateful people around and people have always sometimes just made a mistake in the way they interact with others, this just seems like it's become very much normalised and routine now and it wasn't like that even like 10 years back. Too many people now just don't seem to care that those are real actual people they're talking to and they don't learn anything from their mistakes and I hate how it has ended up like this.
(Hi! I don't think we've interacted in years, I largely gave up on livejournal and then dreamwidth years back what with almost everyone I knew abandoning them but in part because of how toxic an environment tumblr has become I've come back here now. It's good to see you're still active on here.)

this just seems like it's become very much normalised and routine now and it wasn't like that even like 10 years back.

It does feel like there's been a shift. I think in some ways it's been caused by the format of social media nowadays: not just the way arguments are very public, encouraging the audience to take sides, but also the way everything is thrown together in the same place. On Tumblr, you can look up a fandom tag and see everything everyone is saying about that fandom, which in many ways is convenient, but which also means you can't escape the things you don't want to see. Which means that people's behaviour shifts from 'I won't see this ship I hate if I don't go looking for it, so I just won't go looking' to the much more damaging 'I won't see this ship I hate if I drive the shippers out of the fandom'.

It's good to see you back here; hello! It's not the most active social media site, but I'm really glad Dreamwidth exists. It's good to have a place where you can write long-form blogs and have conversations without anyone trying to sell you something.

This is interesting! I've always defaulted to showing affection through sass and my style of humour is very dry. In previous interactions (both RL and online), I've heard repeatedly some variation of, 'I found you super cold at first', or, 'I thought you didn't like me, then I realised that's just how you are'. I've reached a place where I'm appropriately equipped to modulate exactly how I present myself based on the other person's comfort level... although sometimes I don't always get it right, and it took thirty years to get here. There's definitely a learning curve of - oh, X will not find Y funny, now I know that for next time. Because the last thing I want is to hurt someone's feelings, or possibly create a situation where they feel uncomfortable.

I think people take too much solace in the (admittedly decreasing) anonymity of online communication. There's a freedom there that can allow people to be the worst version of themselves, which can create an echo chamber - they only ever see their own worst behaviour reflected back at them. That eventually creates the illusion that it's acceptable, when it absolutely isn't.

I like this post. I probably would have made a scathing anti-capslock joke myself way back when.

Edited (typos!!! ... done now, promise) 2023-03-09 16:55 (UTC)

I've reached a place where I'm appropriately equipped to modulate exactly how I present myself based on the other person's comfort level

I think you've judged well when it comes to our acquaintance! I definitely remember a moment of realising 'huh, when did Jes start mocking me all the time? ...hey, I think that means we're friends!'

There's definitely a learning curve of - oh, X will not find Y funny, now I know that for next time.

Yeah, I've definitely had moments of making what seemed in my head to be an innocuous joke or comment, realising it landed badly and making a mental note for future interactions. In a weird way, it calls on similar skills to writing fanfiction; you build up a mental profile of someone's character and how they'll react to particular things.

I definitely remember a moment of realising 'huh, when did Jes start mocking me all the time? ...hey, I think that means we're friends!'

It was when I figured out you could take it. I may have applied the exact same level of loving disdain I used with my friends in Glasgow - thinking on it now, I'm glad you have the fortitude of a Scot!

it calls on similar skills to writing fanfiction; you build up a mental profile of someone's character and how they'll react to particular things

oooOOOH that's a smart take. sucks that when i'm interacting with an actual human in real life i'm devoting too much processing power to attempting to be a person to be able to actually take in what they're doing...

This is definitely an interesting conversation.

First of all, for the light-hearted: I'm glad to see you also were a member of a Final Fantasy forum back in the day, it doesn't surprise me at all! The one I spent my time is also a now defunct forum, but I don't think it was the same one: I believe mine may have been Final Fantasy Addiction? Most of the users were in their upper teens (as in about 17) or young adults and I was 12, and they used to laugh at me a bit as I acted more mature than they did and didn't get involved in a lot of joking about. (Not because of any sort of moral highground, but I am quite a serious person, and was really gravely serious when I was 12: I struggled to interact anyway due to ASD!)

Moderation of forums is definitely an interesting topic. There's definitely an element of playing up to an audience, but who is that audience? And a lot of the time we don't necessarily realise we're being unkind or rude; I've had my share of online interactions very early in my internet days that retrospectively I realise were quite rude, but genuinely wouldn't have occurred to me.

Going to be vague here, but I used to be a forum moderator for an extremely large game forum whose messageboards were, at the time, extremely busy. I learned quite a lot about how I wanted to approach people, and from working out what areas I was strong at moderating versus other areas, I developed my own style of moderation that was fairly informal and non-threatening sounding, and warned in very light hearted ways so that when I was dealing with that same community (who could be extremely volatile) when I went "That's enough, drop it" (aka. still fairly unformal but now abrupt and clear) they knew a line had been crossed before I had to go further. To moderate effectively where I did you had to survive a trial by fire and earn the respect of the posters for them to tolerate you moderating them in the first place - it was definitely an experience that taught me a lot although it was extremely draining as I cared so much I couldn't separate well from it sometimes. I also took a fairly hands off approach at times, deliberately leaving some of the technical rule breaking as it suited me for them to think I wasn't aware of it while it tipped me off on what/where/who to keep an eye on and aware of any ongoing incidents.

When I was still a relatively young internet user I developed my own internet philosophy and I still go by it today: "Before you post something, ask yourself would somebody punch you in the face if you said it in real life? If yes, don't post it online." Served me quite well!

I actively avoid Tumblr so can't comment on how that works, but I do have some familiarity with Twitter, and I think that Twitter profiles are more like public performances than an interaction. Same with stuff like Facebook: it's different to something like a messageboard where fans of something may get together; it centres on an individual rather than on, say, a hobby. It's made worse with Twitter with being able to search and so coming across random people, as well as it generally being inconvenient for things like fandom as Twitter lives in the moment, very much - if you look something up a week later it may be buried. Or it may not be, and it may be picked at and shamed. Very different to forums. I consider them completely different beasts and when I talk about social media, I don't mean forums - they're their own category for me.

Stuff like Twitter also often ends up either an echo chamber where everyone only hears people fawning over how right they are or toxic where people mock or dispute those opinions, but never in a "let's have an intelligent discussion" way, always in a case of one-upsmanship as if they're trying to see who gets the most likes while doing it. I honestly think being able to upvote things is half the problem: it becomes competitive.

I feel like the internet is much more toxic than it was when I was growing up. I think it's partially to do with the type of platforms people flock to having changed (and them being more interaction based), the internet now being a part of most people's lives (as opposed to it being taboo and geeky when I was young) and people growing up with internet where the parents haven't and have only come to it later and there's a genuine lack of understanding of what goes on, what repercussions your actions may have (from a young age, even affecting employability etc), and of there needing to be a conversation about how to treat people. Age restrictions often don't help as people don't heed them and since they shouldn't be on those kinds of sites anyway, netiquette simply isn't taught at a young enough age. It should be taught before any interacting with the internet is done. And I can tell you as someone who works in a school, platforms such as Snapchat and Whatsapp cause absolute heaps of trouble and it often spills out offline and parents getting involved or people not realising that what they've sent is readily available to view. This happens from a lot younger than people would think and can cause huge issues and police involvement - we've had to get community police in before in relation to online conduct.

The internet is very important to me and it's sad to see the way people interact on it nowadays. I'm grateful for places like this to come and have a friendly chat.

PS: Unrelatedly, how did you find the latest Zodiac Trial route?

-timydamonkey

Your thoughts on moderation are really interesting! The forum I moderated was relatively small and people mostly knew each other, so everyone generally behaved themselves; I didn't have to worry too much about tricky moderation challenges.

Before you post something, ask yourself would somebody punch you in the face if you said it in real life? If yes, don't post it online.

Very wise!

Twitter lives in the moment, very much - if you look something up a week later it may be buried.

One of the things I really appreciate about Dreamwidth is the ability to fairly easily go back to look at someone's earlier entries, or see what they posted on a particular day, or see everything they've posted about a particular subject. It's a site that values the past. I think I sort of took those features for granted back in the Livejournal days, and then fandom moved to spaces that didn't have them, and I was really confused by their absence.

Your observations on Internet use among kids are also really interesting. We got the Internet when I was around eleven, and it's so hard for me to imagine what it's like to have access to it earlier than that.

I'm very glad I can provide a space for chatting!

Unrelatedly, how did you find the latest Zodiac Trial route?

It is a joy and a privilege to hear Rooster speak, as I'm sure he'd agree. Mouse's 'Please be less enthusiastic about our murder plot' is one of my favourite lines in the game.

I thought there were some really interesting interactions between Mouse and Ox on that route, too. I'm looking forward to his route; he's a bit of an enigma at the moment, and I'd like to learn more about him.

Edited 2023-03-09 22:24 (UTC)

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One of the things I really appreciate about Dreamwidth is that everyone can (and does) just go on at great length about some very niche topic they're interested in, and there's no judgement for it.

It's great! Dreamwidth is a place where the typical post frequency is much lower than, say, Tumblr or Twitter, so I can talk for six weeks straight about Person of Interest without feeling like I'm inconveniencing anyone; if someone who's following me isn't interested in Person of Interest, all they have to do is scroll past one of my posts every couple of days. As a website, it's equally suited to 'look, I'm bouncing between fifty different fandoms at any given time, you might be familiar with a couple of them if you're lucky' and 'hey, if you're looking for Auron content, you've come to the right place'.

I felt such a wave of nostalgia for the Old Internet reading this post! Which is perhaps not quite your point, but maybe is adjacent to your post... I was never much for forums (extremely shy) and actually started talking to other people on Livejournal, but I did hang out on a now-defunct Animorphs forum for a little bit. Forums are interesting places and I feel a little sad that they by and large seem to have died out of internet and fannish culture. Maybe it's the circles I'm in and they're more prevalent than I think.

Anyway - I could so easily have been that teen making a snotty remark too! It sounds like overall that was a really positive interaction for you though... I'm touched by the story.

I did hang out on a now-defunct Animorphs forum for a little bit.

I'm delighted that Animorphs was also a part of your early Internet experience! My first real online presence was actually hanging out on a forum for a Pokémon/Animorphs fic series called Pokémorphs; I must have joined when I was eleven.

Forums are interesting places and I feel a little sad that they by and large seem to have died out of internet and fannish culture.

It's a shame! Everything's gathered in the same few places these days; you don't really get the smaller communities of forums any more. I suppose there are outliers like the Something Awful forums that are still going, but that's a big place with its own particular culture.

Reddit is perhaps similar to old forum culture in some ways, but it doesn't allow conversations to go on perpetually in the same way; posts will get pushed off the front page and won't be bumped up by a new reply. I suppose Discord is a sort of return to smaller communities, but they're closed and private; you can't just stumble across a discussion being had on Discord in the way you might with a forum. The modern Internet is very all-or-nothing; either you're behind a closed door or you're broadcasting everything to everyone.

"And then I reflected on what I'd said. And, no matter how I looked at it, I had to admit it: I'd been rude.

I apologised, and she accepted my apology."
This is such an impressive thing to do and a great way to be, especially considering how young you were at that point. It's SO EASY to get defensive, I honestly used to do it until well into my 20s (I'm in my late 30s now).

"It's always tempting to be funny on the Internet, but it's more important to be kind."
I know humor is subjective in the first place (in addition to funny putdowns being the popular type of humor right now), but I always find laughing WITH people to be a lot funnier than laughing AT people.

"This is something I think about a lot with regard to platforms like Tumblr and Twitter: platforms where it's hard to conduct an argument without broadcasting it to all your followers, which I think stokes a lot of viciousness. On Dreamwidth, if you disagree with someone, you're more likely to discuss it with them in a comment thread in their own space, where nobody else will be notified; it's easier to have a civil conversation."
This is one of the main reasons why I CAN'T do social media - I kept trying for a decade and at some point I had to admit that I just can't. I hope the people who feel at home on social media are happy and don't get affected by this negativity too much, but I'm apparently just not physically able to be one of those people.

I'm sort of impressed teenage me managed to realise she was in the wrong, too! I feel that I could easily have handled that interaction in a much worse way.

As you say, it's very easy to get defensive, and it can be hard to take a moment to step back and look at the situation as it really is. I think it might be even harder on modern social media platforms, where it can feel like there's a lot of pressure to react to things straight away before the narrative spins out of your control.

Your 'stay well clear' strategy is probably a good one! I use Tumblr a little, but I can't handle Twitter at all.

I'm impressed that at 14/15 you had the maturity to reflect that deeply. One advantage of communication by text - you can read, re-read, and re-re-read before responding. I think at the point in time you're talking about, people still did that. Now, we're more normalised to just REACT - say it right now - don't pause, don't reflect - move on to the next thing. Having that lesson early has affected all your online communications since - imagine if it hadn't happened.

One advantage of communication by text - you can read, re-read, and re-re-read before responding.

Very true! I'm glad I had the time to reflect before writing my reply, rather than just going with my first kneejerk response.

imagine if it hadn't happened

I do wonder about this sometimes. I hope I wouldn't have behaved too badly, but who knows? I'd almost certainly have got into more needless arguments.

You know, I was thinking as I read this post how grateful I am to you, Mandy, and the other folks who modeled good online (& general interpersonal!) behavior for me in DSL and its successors when I was a bitty college Rina.

You make a great point about the conditioning to REACT - FB, twitter, and the like live and thrive on outrage, and I'm finding that a lot of that outrage falls apart if you look at it for more than a second. I'm trying to learn to put a thirty-second time out on anything I want to say so I can think about what it is, and whether it's worth it.

i too am very impressed that teenage-you did actually have the maturity and grace to reflect and apologise rather than getting defensive! i think it took me much longer to reach a similar position of "kindness first".

(interesting confounding factor is that i didn't really have internet access until my late teens, unlike most of my weird/geeky/lonely peers, so i feel a bit like i've always lagged behind in my online socialisation - i was getting deep into the novelty of tumblr-sjw-ness in my late twenties - but, like, i'm pretty sure you can learn to apologise for being rude in real life also ;) )

interesting confounding factor is that i didn't really have internet access until my late teens

I'm always interested by how people interact with the Internet differently based on when they came to it! I started using the Internet when I was around eleven; like many households, we got Internet access around the turn of the millennium.

I'm fascinated by the question of how parents nowadays decide when to give their children access to the Internet, given that that wasn't really a decision previous generations had to make. I don't know what it's like to start using the Internet at, say, seven or eight. I theoretically know what it's like to start using the Internet at eleven, but that was a very different Internet, with much less focus on video, brands and interaction; what's it like nowadays?

This is something I think about a lot, too, especially in this current social media climate wherein everyone is so quick to the razor-sharp attack that it's difficult to have a civil conversation. As someone who has a deep fear of saying the wrong thing or ever coming across as thoughtless or rude, I think the difference in publicity and speed between, say, Twitter and Dreamwidth is why I hardly use Twitter and why I really, really love it here.

I may take days, even weeks, to reply to posts on my friends lists, but I need that time to really think about what I want to say in reply, the best way to say it - because I never want rush straight in and end up coming across as annoying or rude. Thankfully, everyone on Dreamwidth has been nothing short of patient and lovely, which I could not appreciate more :D

I mean, I even worry after I make a post to my own journal if its tone or contents might bother anyone - especially if it's a more emphatic post, or one where I'm being more opinionated than not. Even if I'm speaking to a general audience, there's always the chance I might hurt someone's feelings or put someone down, and I never, ever want that.

Years ago I had an online interaction that closely mirrors the one you recount having had on EZboards, and it did a lot to shape my approach to online interactions, too. I have a Twitter account but I mostly use it for browsing; I'm much, much happier to have all my online conversations here, where everyone tends to be thoughtful, friendly, and above all, kind.

I feel Dreamwidth is much more accommodating than other social media if you want to take some time before you reply to things, which I really appreciate. There's no 'you have to reply now, while it's still relevant' pressure. I've never been a fan of instant messaging or other methods of online communication that demand an immediate answer; it's nice to take a moment to think.

Dreamwidth also allows you to be careful in your phrasing in a way that's tricky on, for example, Twitter, where the tight character limits don't offer much space for clarification. Of course, it's possible to be misinterpreted anywhere, but I feel it's particularly easy to be misinterpreted on Twitter.

Years ago I had an online interaction that closely mirrors the one you recount having had on EZboards, and it did a lot to shape my approach to online interactions, too.

I find it strangely reassuring to hear that other people have had similar experiences!

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It's 2023 And I'm Here To Talk About EZboards.

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