Actions and Reactions

[Ashrem]

Postulated: Online gamers are terrible for treating game developers and moderators as though they are mindless automatons that ought to be perfect

It's de rigueur for players to leap all over game team-members in order to vent their frustrations, whether-or-not the team members had anything to do with it, and whether-or-not the frustration has a logical source, without giving any thought to the humanity of the people on the other end. Is it a coincidence that Aider quit his post as manager (after six years with Inno) a day or two after a handful of players went bonkers over an incorrect date for the end of an event? Maybe. I doubt it. Human beings respond negative to negative stimulus. We make decisions that we would not otherwise have made in response to feelings of being rejected by others, even if those others are anonymous strangers on the internet. I have no doubt Aider would have moved on to something else at some point, but in the absence of player frustration, I have significant doubts it would have been this week.

Is access to the internet actually increasing bad behaviour by individual people, or is it simply bringing them together in larger numbers for frequently so that existing tendencies are more visible, and therefore appear to be multiplied?

 

[samidodamage]

existing tendencies are more visible, and therefore appear to be multiplied?

I'm going with this explanation. I work with the public in a customer service capacity, and people in general are nuts. Somewhere they took the saying 'the squeaky wheel gets the oil' and turned it to rudely aggressive instead of politely assertive, and I doubt most even know the difference. Encountering these types of customers is at least a daily event and usually more than one/day. No matter how many ways I try to explain that I have no control over these websites that pull ads for properties we haven't managed in a decade just to increase their traffic, it's somehow my fault that I can't lease them a unit in one of those properties. And they maintain that stance in spite of anything I say. If we lease a property that's on our website as available late on a Friday afternoon, I am guaranteed to get yelled at and threatened with a lawsuit for false advertising on Saturday because the data entry person won't get the information to correct the website data until Monday morning. Like I said, people are nuts.

 

[shimmerfly]

As we know, the internet gives the anonymity that is the last excuse to not only be rude but unkind as well.
But on the other hand as Sami suggested, people are getting nuttier every day. There appears to be a huge decline in empathy and brains! 'Anything goes' sort of morality where rudeness abounds. It can be found anywhere in real life and does appear to be worse ( as I get older and less tolerant)
I doubt that Aider leaving is connected to this recent scuff over dates...my opinion only.
I give him enough credit to have something great going on and that is just a coincidence. Why don't we ask him rather than put blame on anyone? It seems simpler to me. Self awareness instead of a group mentality? Just pondering 'out loud'.

 

[Ashrem]

You're welcome to ask. My point of view comes from the position of a pessimist. I don't have any expectations that we'd get a fully revealing answer. Aider is a professional. Even professionals can get frustrated by how the public behaves toward them. Changing jobs is not unusual. Changing companies after six years is a little more unusual. The coincidence of him announcing it within a couple of days after complaints about event dates (which is admittedly, a significant error) is a very large coincidence.

whether or not the two are related, it is possible for them to be related. I'm making the point that we often treat CSRs as not being people like us who's livelihood depends on what they are doing.

 

[DeletedUser5800]

As with everything else these days, it's not really that people are worse but that we have more ways to notice them.
Example: My wife has worked at Starbuck's for over a decade and had to deal with every kind of rude on pretty much a daily basis, she comes home and vents to me and that's the end of it, she also had to send an employee home today for being rude to someone else and that was the end of that, BUT she gets to take a 4 hr race sensitivity class next week because a handful of idiots did something stupid in another state and it made national news.
The point is that a large number, if not a majority, of people were always completely out of line but now there are more ways to see, spread and have a record of it. If humanity suddenly seems in decline it is merely because it is being shown to us more than it previously was... which I would like to think would ease it in a better direction but as we pessimist well know it most certainly won't. More likely to your point it is having some opposite affect as greater states of depressiveness paired with group mentality slowly spins the downward spiral as new self norms become acceptable.
So anyway, I guess I would say we aren't really getting that much worse yet just more seen, but worse is definitely getting teed up and ready to happen by the mere observation of itself.

 

[Ashrem]

I agree with most of that, but will note that 30 years ago the only option for support was a choice of in person, mail, or phone. CSRs weren't subject to the whims of 300 random anonymous people who can rant without anyone ever knowing who or where they are. I think that is the thing that makes support generally unique in the internet age, and specifically for online gamers, who are used to getting their two cents in immediately, without the need for some hold time to cool down.

 

[DeletedUser5800]

I think that is the thing that makes support generally unique in the internet age, and specifically for online gamers, who are used to getting their two cents in immediately, without the need for some hold time to cool down.

Oh I agree that now pretty much anyone involved with any customer anything has to hear things people used to just grumble at home and that this particular internet environment is the proverbial spear tip for nerd rage trolling... but I don't think attitudes are necessarily changing, at least not much, just the ability to instantly post things to the person that would indeed have in another less tech. scenario been said to the nothing. I think it will only get worse from now until the apocalypse (I vote solar flare) but is currently still predominately just in the infancy of exposing all of us for the animals we are.

 

[Ashrem]

Oh I agree that now pretty much anyone involved with any customer anything has to hear things people used to just grumble at home and that this particular internet environment is the proverbial spear tip for nerd rage trolling...

I'm not sure where to call that. On my scale of "is there more bad behaviour, or are we just seeing it more?" I don't know where to put grumbling that people used to just keep to themselves at home. I think that is more bad behaviour. I guess it comes down to whether the individual considers grumbling at home (vs in public) as bad behaviour or not?

 

[DeletedUser]

Oh I agree that now pretty much anyone involved with any customer anything has to hear things people used to just grumble at home and that this particular internet environment is the proverbial spear tip for nerd rage trolling... but I don't think attitudes are necessarily changing, at least not much, just the ability to instantly post things to the person that would indeed have in another less tech. scenario been said to the nothing. I think it will only get worse from now until the apocalypse (I vote solar flare) but is currently still predominately just in the infancy of exposing all of us for the animals we are.

This whole thing, but, I vote asteroid.

 

[shimmerfly]

I believe that we do see more due to social media now but there's a feeling I get that people want to be seen more, now that they can. Gives them more gumption. I can't believe I just used that word.
Animals! All of you! Where's the cake?
I vote for Explosion. Asteroid would be good

 

[DeletedUser]

I believe that we do see more due to social media now but there's a feeling I get that people want to be seen more, now that they can.

Entropy and cheap thrills. They can gleefully spew their vitriol at whomever they choose without any sense of responsibility for the results.

Animals! All of you! Where's the cake?

Um...*slowly pushes empty cake box out of sight with foot* What cake?

I vote for Explosion. Asteroid would be good

If this is an alternate reality in the Marvel Multiverse, I vote Galactus.

 

[DeletedUser5800]

I guess it comes down to whether the individual considers grumbling at home (vs in public) as bad behaviour or not?

I do, it's the same whether anyone knows or not. A persons reactions to any given thing at any given time are the sum of the persons experience and in essence the entirety of their being. Now if you want to delve into pre-determinism negating any of this that's one thing but if you start at the position of people having some choice and control over their actions then I would propose that the observation of the action changes nothing about how they should be judged other than more judges bearing witness to it. Now one could say that being merely reactions ourselves to the suffering and weight of our own existence and tech. going a good ways towards relieving more traditional suffering we by our own natural instinct create a new world of strife just to relieve the boredom, and I would say that's true, but simply as a question of if we are getting worse, I don't think we are, just exploiting new avenues for which to spread our inherent need to grind against each other in an effort to feel some measure of perceived personal superiority lest we be forced to admit the meaningless of this entire existence. But you know, that's like a whole level deeper than anyone ever wants to go.

 

[Laochra]

Since there isn't one, I post my own in response to every previous post!

 

[Laochra]

Here's some more....just don't tell @SoggyShorts

 

[samidodamage]

hear things people used to just grumble at home

I think that is more bad behaviour.

I think it's more bad behavior, too. And I've found myself guilty of it with instant access. When I've 'popped off' at someone like that, and realize it afterward, I take the time to respond once more and apologize for my comments. Even if those comments were based on facts/truth (loosely based anyway, ie: a mistake was made, but I insinuated the person was intentionally stupid/lazy/not doing their job/etc), that doesn't excuse my rudeness and an apology is called for IMO. That's something I see more of now as well, what I call 'hiding behind the truth just to be a ______' *insert any word CSR's mutter under their breath here*.
That said here you go @shimmerfly

Spoiler

 

[shimmerfly]

Marvels...ous!

 

[DeletedUser]

I do, it's the same whether anyone knows or not. A persons reactions to any given thing at any given time are the sum of the persons experience and in essence the entirety of their being. Now if you want to delve into pre-determinism negating any of this that's one thing but if you start at the position of people having some choice and control over their actions then I would propose that the observation of the action changes nothing about how they should be judged other than more judges bearing witness to it. Now one could say that being merely reactions ourselves to the suffering and weight of our own existence and tech. going a good ways towards relieving more traditional suffering we by our own natural instinct create a new world of strife just to relieve the boredom, and I would say that's true, but simply as a question of if we are getting worse, I don't think we are, just exploiting new avenues for which to spread our inherent need to grind against each other in an effort to feel some measure of perceived personal superiority lest we be forced to admit the meaningless of this entire existence. But you know, that's like a whole level deeper than anyone ever wants to go.

Existential Blues.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Here's some more....just don't tell @SoggyShorts

 

[Laochra]

@SoggyShorts You did it again Soggy!!!

 

[DeletedUser]

Too bad we can't have custom forum titles...instead of "well-known member", @SoggyShorts could be "The Cake Man".