Aggressive message boards
 

I had a really weird experience today - I'm used to using this message board where you can ask any question and be sure people will help you out, be polite and generally be respeectful that some people know less and others more. Anyway I went on an Illustrator message board thinking the same type of attitude would prevail but got ripped into by some of their regulars - degrading my knowledge base, my software version, and refusing to help me out.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? Is it something to do with designers? Or more to do with it not being a real name message board?

I have unfortunality had similar experiences to you on other boards. I think this board is extremly well run. The fact that real names are used people can't hide behind a nom-de-plume and snipe and gripe.

This board is a credit to Chris Hurd and his fantastic team of moderators.

Well done guys.

Many thanks for those sentiments, Owen.

-gb-

In my other life I am a coral-keeper (aquarist is the term i believe :P ). Those boards are some of the most aggressive and obnoxious gatherings of people you could imagine. Think of a 'mac vs. pc' or 'xl2 vs dvx' debate with 13yr olds... it's ridiculous. It's certainly because everyone there is anonymous, or at least can hide behind a screen name. This site is more tame because our names are here for everyone to see.

Any board where there is nerdism involved can become nasty. This is where people think they are such experts on a subject they don't have to bother listening to another opinion, where a dispute over a tiny bit of trivia takes on an unsupportable scale.

I'm on plenty of boards where lack of moderation is an issue. I really do think in the worst of them it comes down to real names and active moderation.

While your passing the applause around, give yourself the clap too. Wait... What I mean to say is, it isn't just the board's upper level management that is deserving, but the pro's that come here as well. It is the users that fill out the experience, and complement the mods. Everybody, take a bow!

There are boards where things remain respectful even without real names. I think it's partly about moderators who do their job than anything else. Of course there are moderators who cause more problems than they solve even on boards that are fairly civil. I ran into that situation recently. I believe it's a matter of respect on the part of the regulars to a big extent. People can stifle a flame war just by ignoring the people who are trolling for trouble and I think some boards have a lot of people who do this. Those seem to be the best boards IMO.

My only problem with using real names is that I have encountered some real kooks that vowed to track down people that disagreed with them on anything. Some of them idolized mass murderers and others claimed to be famous for being violent. I don't see any of that here obviously or I wouldn't be here. I just know I've seen people that acted this way that lived close enough to me that I didn't want them knowing my real name.

I'm a regular on a few forums (mod on 2 of them). As a moderator, my work on indietalk.com and sticktowhatyouknow.com is mostly just deleting duplicate posts and spam. I've seen moderation here handled very professionally as well...that's one of the reasons I stick around. I live in a low crime neighborhood as well because I choose to :)

The community has alot to do with how it deals with problems...if the regulars refuse to participate in flame wars and they give useful, friendly advice, the rest of the community tends to follow suit. As anywhere else, a community is defined by its members and their adherance to the mores of the community. This board tends toward professional answers even from the amatuers and hobbyists (as do all the others I frequent). I stay away from boards that don't fit this mold.