Boys will be boys??

Coriander
Coriander Posts: 1,326
edited November 2009 in Commuting chat
I am often astonished at how quickly threads that start as perfectly innocent discussion points descend into personal vitriol and invective.

Now, my discussion point is:

Is this how boys debate (the, admittedly few, girls on here seldomly seem to get involved in quite the same way)?

Or is this to you just a good, heated, but interesting, discussion?

Is that how boys discuss things with their mates in the pub while we women talk about feeling, kittens and embroidery?

Or is it an internet thing and the absence of face-to-face contact means people lose all sense of proportion, civility and sense?
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Comments

  • CiB
    CiB Posts: 6,098
    It's what we do. Live with it.

    :wink:
  • iPete
    iPete Posts: 6,076
    edited November 2009
    Coriander wrote:
    Or is it an internet thing and the absence of face-to-face contact means people lose all sense of proportion, civility and sense?

    This.

    Reading comments on news articles is especially worse, you'd think that the population either want cars banned or cyclists hung, goes for every topic... X-box or playstation, Canon or Nikon...

    btw the answer IS cycle, playstation and canon, everyone else is wrong :wink:
  • nicklouse
    nicklouse Posts: 50,675
    i think it depends on the topic.

    RLJ
    Helmets
    Cycle routes

    are not discussion topics.

    they tend to become ........... well i think we know.
    "Do not follow where the path may lead, Go instead where there is no path, and Leave a Trail."
    Parktools :?:SheldonBrown
  • Cafewanda
    Cafewanda Posts: 2,788
    kittens? :shock:


    I tend to think it's playground behaviour enacted online with any boundaries removed.

    Sometimes they are hellafunny and sometimes I just shake my head and move on.
  • BentMikey
    BentMikey Posts: 4,895
    We are programmed differently!!
  • R_T_A
    R_T_A Posts: 488
    Boys argue by picking up on a tiny nuance (i.e. weakness) of an argument and go for the kill. It's the pack mentality and what we do socially in order to get the alpha male in the group.

    A more work-oriented one is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forming,_storming,_norming_and_performing

    A lot of it is like pub banter too. Just look at it as a more grown up version of "Your Momma" insults.


    :wink:
    Giant Escape R1
    FCN 8
    "Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
    - Terry Pratchett.
  • unscarred
    unscarred Posts: 208
    It's not a universal boy thing. It always seems to me that when a thread descends into a shouting match all but two or three individuals desert it and go and read something else. I know I do, the arguments get boring quick.

    It might be more common in boys. If so I'd suggest it might be down to the differen ways men and women use language. Men tend to use words as individual tools to convey a discrete unit of information. Hence the use of 'quote and riposte' you see so often.

    Women on the other hand tend to use words as emotional intesifiers, and meaning is therefore conveyed by the whole conversation in context - doesn't lend itself to a text based argument quite so well.

    Debate on the internet has largely been replaced by argument. For some people a simple disagreement with a point of view becomes a personal attack, and they feel the need to defend themselves.

    (Please note the qualifiers in the above sentences)
    FCN 6 in the week on the shiny new single speed.

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  • Wallace1492
    Wallace1492 Posts: 3,707
    People would be different in real life, but in real life it is doubtful if you would chat to many of the peopel that "hotly" debate the issues.

    Everyone will be passionate to a level about a particular subject (mine is Eclipses!) but when you get some entrenched view, the pack closes in for the kill.

    What is annoying is when people just claim they are right and can in no way be influenced or admit there is another side. Think you know what thread I mean....

    A lot however is good open, honest debate, and I an happy to hear opinions on things, and re-asses my thoughts.
    "Encyclopaedia is a fetish for very small bicycles"
  • Jay dubbleU
    Jay dubbleU Posts: 3,159
    I'm afraid I'll ague about anything - problem is I tend to wind people up deliberately - you can spot that face to face - harder to do so in print :wink:
  • MonkeyMonster
    MonkeyMonster Posts: 4,628
    Coriander wrote:
    Or is it an internet thing and the absence of face-to-face contact means people lose all sense of proportion, civility and sense?

    +1

    You can usually see that the crowd who have actually met, rarely rage at each other apart from the bear baiter DDD but then we just remark on his girlie thin legs in the pub :D
    Le Cannon [98 Cannondale M400] [FCN: 8]
    The Mad Monkey [2013 Hoy 003] [FCN: 4]
  • desweller
    desweller Posts: 5,175
    Wallace1492 wrote:
    Everyone will be passionate to a level about a particular subject (mine is Eclipses!) but when you get some entrenched view, the pack closes in for the kill.

    It is amazing how enraged people can get about seemingly mundane topics though. Chain lubrication is one of the weirder ones. There was a really impassioned supporter of compacts over doubles a few days ago too.

    There is certainly a tendency to disassociate what is read on here from real people I think. The commuting forum seems to attract the more level-headed interwebbers though, fortunately.
    - - - - - - - - - -
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  • DonDaddyD
    DonDaddyD Posts: 12,689
    DDD

    I was wondering when someone would mention me. I like debate, in a big way (I date a lawyer cross examinations get the blood going). Debate and argumentative is how I'm programmed, I am however, respectful and socialable.

    I don't think I've truly raged ever, there is difference between writing frustration and actually being frustrated. As an ex-girlfriend once told me, you cannot detect tone from text, unless described.
    Food Chain number = 4

    A true scalp is not only overtaking someone but leaving them stopped at a set of lights. As you, who have clearly beaten the lights, pummels nothing but the open air ahead. ~ 'DondaddyD'. Player of the Unspoken Game
  • Tom Butcher
    Tom Butcher Posts: 3,830
    I don't think it's a male/female thing - go on forums with plenty of women and they are equally as argumentative. Maybe there is less willingness for men to be quite so aggressive with women and vice versa - so on a forum like this which is male dominated it might be that most responses to and by women are a bit more civilised.
    it's a hard life if you don't weaken.
  • woodyonthebeach
    woodyonthebeach Posts: 583
    Cafewanda wrote:
    kittens? :shock:


    I tend to think it's playground behaviour enacted online with any boundaries removed.

    Sometimes they are hellafunny and sometimes I just shake my head and move on.

    How true
    The doctor said I needed to start drinking more whiskey. Also, I’m calling myself ‘the doctor’ now
  • DonDaddyD
    DonDaddyD Posts: 12,689
    The comic book website I frequent is full of the most argumentative men (and women) I've come across ever.

    Also nothing is off limit: Superman is a metaphor for jesus, Captain America would have been a republican, Wolverine can smell gay etc everything and I mean everything is open for a discussion (most of them started by me).

    Then there is the personal insults, sweet lord it'll have you laughing for days.

    Then on a good day in a good thread where the argument cannot be settled with insults and issue referencing of cannonical comics a guy/gal will dig up his her collection going back years, scan said image and then start using the images of that to prove and win the debate.

    Now that's great internet discussion.
    Food Chain number = 4

    A true scalp is not only overtaking someone but leaving them stopped at a set of lights. As you, who have clearly beaten the lights, pummels nothing but the open air ahead. ~ 'DondaddyD'. Player of the Unspoken Game
  • the_village_idiot
    the_village_idiot Posts: 150
    lets be honest debates never acomplish anything anyway
  • tailwindhome
    tailwindhome Posts: 18,925
    Debate?

    It's a bit more like

    David Mitchell
    “New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!
  • deptfordmarmoset
    deptfordmarmoset Posts: 3,118
    I posted on the Today programme thread trying to find a middle way between two increasingly polarised positions. While that thread degenerated into 2 sides outmocking the other, my post didn't generate any interest or response - in fact, it was already redundant because people had already established their own battle positions and had zero interest in the middle ground. At least, that's how it struck me.

    Personally, I think it's a shame - I don't know whether my idea had promise or was completely inept and naïve.

    There again, I'm oldish and I also grew up as the middle son in a family where oldest and youngest sons were always fighting.
    Looking for a cycling buddy?
  • Clever Pun
    Clever Pun Posts: 6,778
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QyYaPWasos&NR=1&feature=fvwp
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  • Porgy
    Porgy Posts: 4,525
    Coriander wrote:
    Or is it an internet thing and the absence of face-to-face contact means people lose all sense of proportion, civility and sense?

    I've been on another forum where the women behave far worse than the anyone on here - so I think it's an internet thing combine with the fact that men probably have a lower threshold for macho/ competetiveness/ aggressive type behaviour.
  • feltkuota
    feltkuota Posts: 333
    Mostly water off a ducks back to me. Get bored of the arguments, even the ones I start!
  • greg66_tri_v2.0
    greg66_tri_v2.0 Posts: 7,172
    This place is nothing. Arguments here are less heated than what should be on the telly in the day room at an old folks home.

    The Lavender Room on Slowtwitch is a good place to see some proper fights. Anything about right wingers being war-mongers, left wingers being commies, God existing/not existing, abortion, gay marriage, holy craparama - they're off.

    Bottom line is that you're never going to change anyone's mind by scribbling away in an internet forum, so if the task is hopeless, at least have fun on the way. At someone else's expense. :P
    Swim. Bike. Run. Yeah. That's what I used to do.

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  • il_principe
    il_principe Posts: 9,155
    DonDaddyD wrote:
    DDD
    As an ex-girlfriend once told me, you cannot detect tone from text

    Tell her to read more books...
  • Porgy
    Porgy Posts: 4,525
    Il Principe wrote:
    DonDaddyD wrote:
    DDD
    As an ex-girlfriend once told me, you cannot detect tone from text

    Tell her to read more books...

    you're just trying to start an argument aren;t you?
  • il_principe
    il_principe Posts: 9,155
    Porgy wrote:
    Il Principe wrote:
    DonDaddyD wrote:
    DDD
    As an ex-girlfriend once told me, you cannot detect tone from text

    Tell her to read more books...

    you're just trying to start an argument aren;t you?

    Nice try Porgy :D
  • shouldbeinbed
    shouldbeinbed Posts: 2,660
    Greg66 wrote:

    Bottom line is that you're never going to change anyone's mind by scribbling away in an internet forum,

    I didn't used to believe this but you're so right :wink:



    I'm told if you want to see vendettas and venom look at some bits of mumsnet.
  • DonDaddyD
    DonDaddyD Posts: 12,689
    Porgy wrote:
    Il Principe wrote:
    DonDaddyD wrote:
    DDD
    As an ex-girlfriend once told me, you cannot detect tone from text

    Tell her to read more books...

    you're just trying to start an argument aren;t you?

    I've too much respect for the man.

    The ex' I was referencing wanted to be a English teacher, smart and educated too, went to Uni in Wincester...
    Food Chain number = 4

    A true scalp is not only overtaking someone but leaving them stopped at a set of lights. As you, who have clearly beaten the lights, pummels nothing but the open air ahead. ~ 'DondaddyD'. Player of the Unspoken Game
  • Porgy
    Porgy Posts: 4,525
    DonDaddyD wrote:
    The ex' I was referencing wanted to be a English teacher, smart and educated too, went to Uni in Wincester...

    Did she read books?
  • DonDaddyD
    DonDaddyD Posts: 12,689
    Porgy wrote:
    DonDaddyD wrote:
    The ex' I was referencing wanted to be a English teacher, smart and educated too, went to Uni in Wincester...

    Did she read books?

    To be fair the context she was referencing was MSN messenger of which many times things have been misunderstood and arguments (not me this time) would occur.

    I relate it to the internet because there are time I write something, whether here or elsewhere and people are accusing me of fuming, rage or whatever. Generally speaking if was that stressed it would be easier to turn the webpage off.

    I argue because it's fun and I'm often bored as work is easy. I never subject those I respect to it though.
    Food Chain number = 4

    A true scalp is not only overtaking someone but leaving them stopped at a set of lights. As you, who have clearly beaten the lights, pummels nothing but the open air ahead. ~ 'DondaddyD'. Player of the Unspoken Game
  • rhext
    rhext Posts: 1,639
    Coriander wrote:
    I am often astonished at how quickly threads that start as perfectly innocent discussion points descend into personal vitriol and invective.

    Now, my discussion point is:

    Is this how boys debate (the, admittedly few, girls on here seldomly seem to get involved in quite the same way)?

    Or is this to you just a good, heated, but interesting, discussion?

    Is that how boys discuss things with their mates in the pub while we women talk about feeling, kittens and embroidery?

    Or is it an internet thing and the absence of face-to-face contact means people lose all sense of proportion, civility and sense?

    That's a ridiculous question. You smell!

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