You may or may not know this, but initially I was against adding a message board to Two Stroke Motocross.
Just like every other human on the planet I have my opinions about message boards, based on experiences that were not so good. In so many cases I've read stuff that was just terrible on so many levels. Some complete slander, some lies, and much of it extremely disrespectful.
I wondered why this situation could be so bad, until this morning.
Usually I follow the back-links on my site, just to see what folks are saying about two strokes. This morning I followed a link back to a site that shall remain nameless, and found a post in where the author insinuated an article on my site might not be true. He didn't come out and say it but he certainly implied that it was not true.
So after being a lurker (a reader that does not contribute to the conversation) for almost a year, I felt inspired (pissed off actually) and wrote a post to defend the article. At least in my mind I hoped that is what it would do! LOL
Well the guy writes back, not only does he ignore the question I asked, but sidesteps it. In effect asking me to prove myself by answering a couple of his questions.
Honestly I saw red!
I was so mad, that I wanted to rip him a new..... well ... um.... well I was really upset. Lucky for me I needed to drive to the city just when I would have been typing some idiotic comeback, to show this guy I was right. While driving in the car I had a coupe of interesting thoughts.
First one was, no matter what I wrote, this guy will either side step it or turn it around and make another snide remark. That would probably get me even more upset. Even after coming up with a dozen come-back ideas to write in my defense, I felt that not one of them would "convince" this guy of anything different. His mind was made up and closed a long time ago.
Which made me think, I didn't have to defend myself at all. Which made me feel much better.
Then came the doozy... this guy was baiting me so that I would fight with him on the forum.
Why would someone want to do that? Then I looked around and saw all the ads on the message board. Did you know that, that when you own a web site, you can charge for advertising based on the number of impressions that your site gets? The more "hits" on the site the more money you can make.
Once I thought that, I realized something very interesting. Could it be that these forums purposely hire, set up or ask friends to post things that gets people's emotions boiling, just so they can get more traffic to their site?
It's possible that they don't give a hoot one way or the other about what is written on their board! As long as lots of people visit their site and they are able to charge as much as possible for advertising.
Of course this is only my opinion and it could be crap. But what if I'm correct?
Well whichever is true, I thought of a few tips for when you are cruising the internet message boards. Feel free to use these or ignore then, it's up to you, but they may just keep your blood pressure in check!!
1. Always be respectful... every single time you post. This one tip will probably be more than enough to make your message board experience a wonderful one.
2. If someone accuses you of something, calls you a liar or blasts your opinion, ask yourself is this guy serious or just trying to bait me and drag me into a forum fight?
3. If they're serious, I'd feel bad for the guy, he probably has low self-esteem and he's trying to make himself feel better by putting you down.
4. If they're attempting to bait you, ignore them. No..... I mean not just ignore them, never answer them when they write anything, directly to you or not.
For the most part these guys are bullies. They goad you into a fight in order to show you (and everyone else) how superior they are. Or they purposely mis-understand your meaning and turn it around on you. Usually while dripping with sarcasm and self righteousness.
Now some people just do this because they are emotional, having a bad day or something is not going very well in their life. Give normal people (like me and you?)
a chance to apologize. Ask them what they meant by what they wrote. If it was an honest mistake, let it go!
It's so easy to misunderstand the written word. Unless you are a writer by trade or have a knack for writing, it can be difficult or impossible to express some emotions via the written word. Give folks a break.
On the other hand you have the guys that live for this stuff. If they disagree with something, they are right and everything you write is wrong. Not only that but they speak down to you, like they are better than you. At least in their minds they think they are better.
These are the guys to ignore.
Why do I say to ignore these folks? Because when they can't engage you in the sport of one-ups-man-ship, a game in which you will never win, one of two things can happen. They will get bored with you and leave you alone. Or they will continue to write crap on the board, "yelling" because you don't answer them. At that point, it's time to feel sorry for them.
My feeling is that these message board bullies chase away the interesting folks that could offer some excellent insight. I've seen them do this to folks in the industry. Folks that took time out of their busy lives to add something to a board, but they get attacked by those who need to feel superior and the Industry folks just leave.
That's why I resisted diving into starting a forum. I won't allow that to happen here.
Hence the rules on this board are very short and to the point. Be respectful. Disagree or hold different opinions in an adult manner without attacking others. Otherwise your post will disappear. Do it often enough and you will be banned.
What do you guys think?
