Drama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Post marriage Ray puts up with drama for about 8 seconds.

No...I don't see any correlation, Melita....nothing out of the ordinary. Read some interesting profiles, though - should do that more often. Someone should probably help Pep with his choice of words and phrasing....there's a bit of indication of drama to come, in that phrasing....but we generally cut slack for the ESL group....so no biggie.

I am pretty much the same in RL, inworld, and the forums.

In SL I'm a *bit* more extroverted than I am in RL because people are slower to respond. Maybe it's just typing speed. And I do make an effort inworld to talk without thinking.

The big difference with the Forums is the permanency of them. If someone says something stupid, rash, or ill-considered, it becomes permanent as soon as someone quotes you. AND it's easier to misunderstand. Even when I'm reading someone who is as careful a writer as Pep - it is not always clear what the TONE of the message is.

I'm pretty reactive, so if you talk to me, I talk a lot back. But if I'm reading the forum, I laugh or cry or get angry, just like I do when I watch TV. And I stop myself, like maybe 50% of the time, from posting something I *know* I'll regret.

I haven't had much drama of my own, but I get drawn into other people's dramas. I'm trying to back off that. But sometimes I read a contentious thread and form an opinion (they are free and require no special knowledge) and then fight with myself. "Don't post it! Why do you want to step into that?" (Like that one about "should LL enable griefers" - I've been standing on the edge of that one for days, looking down into the pit.)

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Yeah I agree. It's much easier to get drawn into the drama in the forums despite the fact that most people probably behave similarly in the forums and in-world. There's so much noise in the forums from all directions and not everyone is able to read every single thread. We all have our good and bad days and the one snarky comment you may have made could easily leave an erroneous impression on a casual reader as being indicative of how you always behave or be completely misinterpreted. At least debating issues in-world gives you a somewhat better idea of what that person is like due the immersive qualities of SL, where tone might be easier to interpret than in the forums.

Actually, I still really suspect that most people ARE more ... hmmm ... not hostile, exactly, but "in your face" on the forum than in-world, maybe because there is that much MORE anonymity and distance here.

Except me of course. I'm EXACTLY the same here.

Well ... except maybe a bit more "earnest."

And verbose.

Haha ya that is kinda true. It's like when people say "Oh you'd never say that to my face in real life" could probably apply to SL as well, where being immersed makes it a bit more difficult for a lot of people to be quite as direct and mean spirited when you're "avatar to avatar". Even though so many people have said they act the same in this thread, I think you're right given the inherent distance and anonymity that the forums affords seems to bring out the inner biatch we all know we have inside us.

I am much less diplomatic in rl.

Pep (Ask a question, get an answer, pay for it. )