>Communities and attitudes

I know there have been a lot of discussions about “community” in the various URU/Myst/Cyan related forums, blogs, what have you. I’m going to bring it up again, but from, I hope, a different viewpoint.

See, I have a problem with my attitude about others in the community. Let me clarify right up front, I’m not just talking URU/Myst/Cyan etc. I’m talking about 99.9% of the on line communities out there, doesn’t matter if it’s MMO related or not. What’s my attitude problem? My problem is just this, that I expect everyone else to act towards me and anyone else in the community just as they would if we were face to face.

Yep, that means manners people. Little things like respect. Simple words like please and thank you go a long way in benefiting us in our every day lives. Why not in the virtual community too? The things I read, in game or in forums, just appall me.

You should be ashamed of yourself. If you wouldn’t act like that in front of your family any other time, what makes you think it’s appropriate behavior now? Just because it’s virtual and you’re anonymous? Think again. It’s really not that difficult to find out who a virtual persona really is. Honest. What’s to say that one day you decide to go to a “con” of some kind. Can be Mysterium, a comiccon, whatever. You proudly put your on line alias on your name tag. 5 minutes later you wake up with a broken jaw and some dude standing over you. What do you think just happened? Guess you weren’t so anonymous after all. (BTW that really did occur to someone I know.)

In the interest of keeping this short and not a lecture, I’ll just ask one thing from everyone in any virtual community: If you wouldn’t say it if you were standing in front of a group of your peers or parents, don’t post it on the internet. Respect for yourself and your fellows within the larger community pays off in the long run.

Please and thank you.