Darragh McManus takes solace in the fact that most internet chatters are law-abiding and the bad guys are well policed.
Wednesday 19.06.2002
15 news/features
Chatroom cranks can log off but they can't hide
Darragh McManus takes solace in the fact that most internet chatters are
law-abiding and the bad guys are well policed
THE image of the average habitué of internet discussion boards is
usually of spotty, socially-awkward nerd with thick glasses and an
unhealthy Lara Croft obsession, using the web as their only means of
communication because they’re incapable
of holding a normal conversation.
As is the case with most stereotypes,
this is totally inaccurate.
Charlie Taylor is editor of
www.nua.ie, a resource which charts
online trends and demographics and
maintains that the profile of the typical
discussion board member has changed
immeasurably in recent years.
“I think the stereotype of the internet
geek used to be true. But there are
so many people online now and it’s so
mainstream, you can’t really say that
anymore.
“For example, my step-dad and
grandparents would use the internet
and message boards. It’s a great social
outlet for the elderly and others. Discussion
boards are a big part of internet
culture now.”
The global range and diversity of discussion
boards is enormous. Literally
every interest is catered for: from technology
to music to bad television to
wacky stories of sexual encounters
with famous rock stars (I came upon
that one purely by accident, I swear).
In Ireland, things are a little more sedate
with old reliables like sport, politics
and films among the more popular
subjects.
“No matter what your hobby, however
obscure, you can always find
like-minded people on the internet to
discuss things, find out information,
whatever,” says Taylor. “Sport and television
are very popular subjects and
music would be huge as well – pretty
much all the music sites, like Q magazine,
have a discussion board.
“One Irish site in particular,
www.boards.ie, would be very popular
because it has so many different sections.
Part of the reason discussion
boards have become so big is because
people like to bitch and spread gossip
without saying who they are! But that’s
a minority: most of it is harmless, just
people coming together to chat about
shared interests.”
There are problems, of course, both
in maximising the personal enjoyment
to be gleaned and in dealing with darker,
nastier elements. Charlie Taylor
points out that many people are discouraged
from joining because they often
must sign up for membership,
which can involve giving your e-mail
address and subsequent problems with
junk mail. Also, some boards are updated
very irregularly, for various reasons,
which obviously makes them less
attractive to the casual browser.
But this sort of difficulty is trivial
compared to the unpleasantness that
can be encountered among the wrong
crowd on the wrong site. Mike Fagan
is Chief Executive of IE Domain Registry
Ltd (IEDR), which keeps track of
.ie websites, and says that they have received
complaints in the past about unacceptable
online behaviour.
“One of the steps for anyone making
a complaint would be to ourselves. If
someone told us that, for example, a
competitor was making unreasonable
claims on a site, we would intervene by
asking them to shut down that particular
page.
“We also get a lot of complaints from
women who’ve had very salacious and
threatening comments made on discussion
boards. There are some very
hot-blooded, fanatical people out there
and, regardless of what the topic is, the
internet seems to bring out the worst
as well as the best in them.
“In a perfect world, we wouldn’t
need moderators, but as long as the
nasty minority is there, we have to
control it. When we get phone calls
from people who’ve received threatening
e-mails, we tell them straightaway
that’s something for the Gardaí.”
According to Mike, anonymity on
discussion boards “should be guaranteed.
It’s an unspoken rule that names
and addresses aren’t published. The
very least something like that would do
is raise eyebrows and we would be very
unhappy about it. We’d also remind the
ISP (Internet Service Providers) that
they are liable for everything that’s
p u bl i s h e d .”
Obviously, though, not everyone online
is a creep, weirdo or bully; the vast
majority of users, it seemed to me after
extensive trawling through the myriad
of active sites, are people who enjoy
chatting with others of similar outlook
and interests and perhaps feel freer in
doing so behind the inscrutability of a
nickname. There’s nothing wrong with
that and it’s actually very healthy.
As the old saying goes, “It’s good to
talk”, whether it’s through the voice or
the keyboard.
Site for sore heads
For the purposes of this article, I
conducted a sort of “social experiment”
to try and get a feel
for the kind of people and attitudes
prevalent on Irish discussion
boards.
Political boards were thin on
the ground, so I turned to the
true national passion – sport. I
sent a willfully silly, mildly inflammatory
post to three different
boards – one for Gaelic
games, League of Ireland soccer
and rugby – ending with an ironic,
“Any comments?”
The results were diverse, to
put it mildly. The patrons of the
GAA and rugby sites took my
wind-up fairly well, either jokingly
telling me to get lost or arguing
against my point.
One contributor pointed out, to
my embarrassment, that I had
made a fundamental error about
the rules of rugby (d'oh!).
It was a different story on the
soccer site, however. The first respondent,
perhaps understandably,
told me to “f**k off” and it
was all downhill from there.
Doing absolutely nothing to
dispel the image of them as embittered
paranoiacs, the denizens
of this site proceeded to source
where the original post had
come from, going so far as to
print the name, work address
and telephone of one of the Irish
Examiner’s technical staff.
As a charming coup de grace,
a message was sent to the
e-mail address through which I
had registered, demanding I get
my “sorry ass online”, presumably
to debate the issue in a
calm, measured fashion.
