[m0nastic]

It would appear that you hang around on a different internet than I do. I'm envious.

The internet I frequent is populated by people who love to forward stories around, post links to Facebook (with comments like "I can't believe how stupid this guys is", and do the same on Twitter. Web sites which showcase said stories, and maybe if they're very lucky, mainstream news will cover them as well.

I pay about $80/month for internet. I'd gladly pay twice that to access the internet you use.

[DTrejo]

Make different friends. That's all there is to it, I'd say.

[adamc]

Sorry, clicked down when I meant to click up...

[danik]

It's not that I don't see that happening but it's always from people I don't know and never talked to in real life or on the internet.

I have this strong feeling it's a loud minority. It's the same with real bullying, the bullies think they behave normal but the majority think they are bullies.

edit: changed majority to minority:)

[m0nastic]

I think you're probably right. I think people don't necessarily associate ridiculing someone on the internet with bullying (in many cases because the target of ridicule isn't there interacting with them).

[danik]

Sure me and my friends talk shit about people that has been exposed doing stupid things on the internet, but we do it in private. We don't ridicule in public. I think that's the difference.

[epochwolf]

> It would appear that you hang around on a different internet than I do. I'm envious.

It's all who you associate with. I've seen my share of bullying online and done some of my own that I deeply regret.

During my first year on the internet as in interactive participant I was exclusively surrounded by furries[1]. After that I ended up programming bots[2] for deviantArt's chat network. That ended after being I was banned for discovering and exploiting security holes. (my bad, I haven't done that since)

Since, I moved on to help moderate an art website[3]. That didn't work out because there wasn't well defined rules for moderators. I still have great respect for the current admins. I left moderating on good terms. Then I moved on to hanging out on irc with system administrators, iOS developers (I'm a rails guy), a ruby on rails community, and a chatroom of former usenet users that are at least 40 years older than I am and are published authors. I'm working on building my own art website[4] so who knows who I'll end up being around next.

After being banned from deviantArt, I've made it a point to not tolerate douche-baggery in any form in myself or others. Most of the communities I hang out with now encourage respect. If you want to change, there are hard decisions to make. I was lucky and a deviantArt administrator made the decision for me.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furry_fandom

[2]: http://botdom.com/wiki/Dante

[3]: http://epochwolf.storm-artists.net/

[4]: http://epochwolf.com/tag/singleforestcom