It Takes a Village Idiot: The Jerks of Online Forums

[Willie99]

While trying to figure out what I want in my new PC, I found this article. Some good chit man, and very appropriate too.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/163734/it_takes_a_village_idiot_the_jerks_of_online_forums.html

Discussion forums are magnets for some of the jerkiest people on the 'Interwebs'. We profile a dozen of the most common and annoying forum jerks--from 'The Antagonist' to 'The Conspiracy Theorist'.

Illustrations by Mike Reed; Story by JR Raphael, PC World
<script type="text/javascript">timestamp(1240747200000,'longDateTime')</script>Apr 26, 2009 8:00 am











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[Willie99]

5. The Antagonizer

Comment forums are made for divergent viewpoints and intelligent, spirited debate. The Antagonizer, though, takes things to another, more primitive level, resorting to personal attacks and insults in what may be a nostalgic flashback to carefree bygone days as a third-grade bully.

 

[Willie99]

6. The Moderator

Taking a slightly subtler approach to making visitors feel unwelcome, the Moderator maintains an air of superiority as he bunkers down each day on a particular site's comment section or message board for another 16-hour stint as archivist-in-residence. He's the cool kid--the site vet who's been around for a long time and knows what's what. Leave a message that repeats something someone else said 16 months ago, and he'll let you know about it within minutes.
"Um, yeah, Newbie0314, we talked about that back when NeverTouchedAWoman24 brought the subject up last May. But thanks for contributing, lol."
Treating the forum as his own private gated community, the (self-appointed) Moderator seems to have adopted as his personal philosophy the Pythonesque commandment "Every thread is precious." To keep each discussion safe and pure, he will treat any commenter who has fewer than 200 messages to his name as an undocumented invader who doesn't deserve a spot on his beloved forum. All of this, we assume, from the comfort of his parents' basement.

 

[Willie99]

my personal favorite

10. The Conspiracy Theorist

This edgy fellow detects conspiracies (or the shadows of conspiracies) in everything he reads, and he has no compunction about publicly sharing his off-kilter suspicions. The Conspiracy Theorist is often convinced that he's under constant surveillance by the government--for some reason they've singled him out (and even more mysteriously, they haven't bothered to terminate him yet, despite his constant blabbing)--and he sees signs of schemes in the strangest places. A story about iPhones might inspire him to share how Apple is using "Q-waves" to trace his thought patterns. A blog on the best browsers could trigger a rant about the time he opened Internet Explorer and saw a toxic waste symbol on his home page.
I don't pretend to understand how this quirky character's brain works. I can only hope that the tin-foil hat he presumably wears most of the time (though not shown here) helps prevent all those weird waves from escaping his head as well as from entering it.

 

[Willie99]

12. Johnny One-Word

This character seems to hate everything about the publication whose forum he frequents, and yet he seemingly never misses a chance to read and comment on a story. (He gets his name because of his tendency to express his dismay in comments of a single word: "Lame." "Whatever." "Wrong." "Fail.")
It's sad, really: Here's Johnny One-Word trapped by his own loneliness and real-world social ineptitude in an online community dedicated to reviewing and discussing content that he consistently despises. It's like a guy who hates water but spends all his time fishing because it's the only place where he knows he can find other people.

 

[quantumleap]

Shall we start assigning RX poster names to the categories?

 

[gtc08]

im an antagonizer. its fun to do .

 

[Willie99]

im an antagonizer. its fun to do .

I'm gonna pass on this one

 

[Willie99]

shall we start assigning rx poster names to the categories?

idk

 

[gtc08]

is this it? are there any more?

 

[whalewager]

pretty funny stuff...I think I have hit on every one of them

 

[Willie99]

is this it? are there any more?

click the link in the OP, there are 12 or 13

 

[festeringZit]

im an antagonizer. its fun to do .

Gtc08 =

<table id="entries"><tbody><tr><td class="index">1. </td> <td class="word"> Oxygen Bandit </td> <td class="tools" id="tools_894094">
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>
</td> <td class="text" colspan="2"> Demeaning description of a human, who is of no use or benefit for our planet and/or society. As do all humans during their lifetime, he/she will always use oxygen to survive, but because of the nature of the human, they will never use this resource in a constructive, positive, or useful manner. Therefore they are deemed as stealing oxygen from earth’s atmosphere, i.e an Oxygen Bandit. Can be used in similar fashion as: scum , pathetic , loser
</td></tr></tbody></table>

 

[barman]

HEY! I don't live in my Mom's basement!

Sincerely

The Late Night Moderator