The vi vs emacs flamewars were intense. I've seen literal death threats thrown out online over which assembly language to use, or PS2 vs XBox flamewars. Trolls, even back in the day, would try to trick people into clicking pornography on children video game forums.
People have always been assholes online.
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Offline, casual racism and stereotypes rule. Which is why people focus so much on dress and mannerisms, so that your first impression is "correct", and you have a reasonable social interaction. How you talk, or stutter, or accents, or skin color, etc. etc. It matters more often than not.
It "shouldn't", but it does. These things seep into the online discussion space.
In America the majority raises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion: within these barriers an author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent it if he ever step beyond them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an auto-da-fe, but he is tormented by the slights and persecutions of daily obloquy. His political career is closed forever, since he has offended the only authority which is able to promote his success. Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to him. Before he published his opinions he imagined that he held them in common with many others; but no sooner has he declared them openly than he is loudly censured by his overbearing opponents, whilst those who think without having the courage to speak, like him, abandon him in silence. He yields at length, oppressed by the daily efforts he has been making, and he subsides into silence, as if he was tormented by remorse for having spoken the truth.
-- De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, published in 1835.
Not really. Lived in the 90s in the US, people were even more tight-lipped because dissenting opinions on a lot of things were not even mentioned in the first place.
The vi vs emacs flamewars were intense. I've seen literal death threats thrown out online over which assembly language to use, or PS2 vs XBox flamewars. Trolls, even back in the day, would try to trick people into clicking pornography on children video game forums.
People have always been assholes online.
------
Offline, casual racism and stereotypes rule. Which is why people focus so much on dress and mannerisms, so that your first impression is "correct", and you have a reasonable social interaction. How you talk, or stutter, or accents, or skin color, etc. etc. It matters more often than not.
It "shouldn't", but it does. These things seep into the online discussion space.