Are IT people happier when they are fighting? OSNews, episode 2 can be downloaded as an MP3 (3.02 MB) or a Ogg Vorbis (4.77 MB) file. Our podcast is located at osnews.com/files/podcast.xml.
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Member since:2006-01-01
I think it's possible that the amount of "fighting" in forums is dependent on the how esoteric the subject matter is. As if there's a cut-off where even the people that don't know what they're talking about in general but will try anyway, won't touch it. For example, the more "technical" subjects here become, the less people actually comment on them at all. When they do there will be a few overtly uninformed comments and a few pet rants, but the discussions don't seem to fall into cycles of genital waving. It's when topics focus on accessible, predictable material that the most comments are generated and people embarrass themselves. If the topic article includes flamebait it just exasperates the problem, by encouraging people to angrily respond in the forum immediately to tell everyone just how stupid the writer is.
Member since:
2005-06-30
that's rich. Maybe if certain websites don't encourage fighting purposefully publishing sensationalist articles or create headlines intended to provoke heated repoonses ... surfer eyeballs are precious and websites would whore themselves in anyway possible to become popular.
I have noticed a pattern that website forums that has the most arguments is usually a reflection of the type of articles published by the website administrators. If there is a lot of flamewars on a certain site, usually not a suprise, its by design.