I would love to see a nice and friendly community only one single time, but I fear the internet just makes people assholes.
When a community is founded, you need strict forum rules to make people used to a certain behaviour, and then enforce it strictly. That way, after some time, when the wrong persons have already be sorted out, you will have a backbone for the community which consists of friendly persons who care for each other, and this would hopefully create an atmosphere which acts contagiously on new members. And I bet this is possible, because all of us who are active in several forums know that your behaviour changes from forum to forum.
All I know is that perhaps I haven't always been the nicest person some time ago, but now I try to stay friendly and respectful, and - most important of all - I try to understand the opinion of others.
You don't need to
feel their opinion, but at least having an idea what they mean and understanding that it can be fun/right is important. I find model trains boring as hell, but at least I can understand how someone can enjoy creating a small world with his own hands, his dexterity and his patience, realxing while doing so and enjoying one's peace. I also don't feel any urge to free climb mountains or do bungee jumping, but I can also understand that the adrenaline and having survived this extreme experience can create and enormous push of joy, making you finally feel alive again after a long time.
Most people can not understand such things by default, neither can I, but I am confident if most of them would TRY it, they would quickly understand what is driving the others, and suddenly their opinion isn't as strange or awkward or wrong any more as it used to be a few moments ago.
The other side of the medal is to accept that you are not always right. If you read my posts carefully, you can see they are full of "in my eyes" "I think" and "in my opinion", as I try to not state my opinion as fact. When I think something is a fact I point it out that way, usualy by adding "That's a fact." at the end. Another good hint is to not tell people they are wrong, unless you can't avoid it. Better say "I think differently" or something like that. And even if I have to say they are wrong, I often try to explain that I understand how you can get to that wrong opinion. That way people don't lose their face and are more open for other (=my) opinions. And the same applies for myself. I don't like hearing that I am wrong, because this implies I am stupid. And if someone calls me stupid I have to defend myself and prove that I am not. That's why my opinion HAS to be proven to be right. And this is where constructive discussions usually end.
Another big problem I see is the modern "lazyness" on the internet. People are not willing to read or to think about certain matters, some time ago I read somewhere that if people try to find some information out of curiosity they give up if they don't find it within 15 or 30 seconds of googling. That's the reason for posts like the first two answers in this topic, which actually deserve a "-" from me, but I won't, because, you know, I'm a nice guy
That's the problem I suffer from. I like to post "finished" products/thoughts, so that everyone who reads through it knows what I mean. I want to prevent misunderstandings, and sometimes I seem to mention quite obvious things, but from my own experience I know that while reading you are not always concentrated, or fully engaged with trying to understand what the person wants to say, that sometimes you don't get implied information. This usually leads, like in this case, to my famous walls of text. It's a goddamn miracle (AND SHAME!!!
) I still don't have a custom title.
I guess there is little to do about. You can suggest people to read "How to make friends" by Dale Carnegie, it's not a weird ass self help book for losers like I imagined when I saw it and read into it for the lulz, it's the basic concept of living with others and should not only be set book in school, instead of all those ancient domestic novels, it should be the base of an entire school subject which is called "social behaviour" and taught from 1st to 8th grade or something like that. The man wrote this at the beginning of the 20th century, in the days of Rockefeller, Roosevelt and John Dillinger, and still ALL of it applies to our modern society.
Other than that a few forum rules would be nice, like making "Lol didn't read"- and "tl;dr"-posts an offense leading to a mute, but I guess people would feel hindered in their freedom of speech and trolling
