Together, online and off.
There are only so many online forums and/or listservs that a person can be involved
with, and I passed that number long ago. Happily, I've learned to at least partially
limit my participation in many of these, though my various jobs require that I
be more involved than I'd like.
Most of the forums with which I'm associated, however, are made up of people who
are in contact with each other not only via the forums, but also in their daily,
face to face, lives. This means that the non-internet restraints on heated arguments
are held over into our forums as well, and on the whole the atmosphere is very
calm.
For over a year I've been a passive reader on one list where there seems to be
only limited non-internet contact between the participants. On this list tempers
occasionally flare up, and a couple of very active members have even been known
to leave for at least a few weeks. When they return, I get the feeling that someone
has contacted them outside of the list and tried to convince them to come back.
Go to: How to lose an online argument.