Internet email lists and bulletin boards are not very good mediums for serious communication. Lists quickly get too large and result in a lot of in-box clogging chatter.
Bulletin Boards are, in theory, set pieces and you can skip over sections, authors and topics, but in reality they tend to become dominated by Internet Trolls and Internet Whores, creating a kind of "Gresham's Law" of the Internet in which the bad players tend to drive out the good.
What is an Internet Troll?
An Internet Troll, according to Wikipedia, is someone "who enters an established community such as an online discussion forum and intentionally tries to cause disruption." As a general rule these folks have small pointless lives and are hungry for attention -- any kind of attention. In some cases, they are even plants by opposition groups seeking to disrupt online communities.
Along with internet trolls, you also have Internet Whores who think they have to "click and treat" every comment, picture, joke, or inquiry made by anyone else on the internet. As Wikipedia notes,
"Some forums feature a points system that allows members to add to the points of another member by propping that member. (Alternatively, members can also detract points from another member by negative propping, or (more simply) negging, that member.) Some view the practice as a booster of member contributions, while others view it as unnecessary and a frequent cause of dispute. In any case, on some forums a culture of 'prop-hoing' has developed as some members become increasingly desperate for props."
How can you tell if someone is either an Interet Troll or an Internet Whore? One good indication is by how many posts they have contributed to a forum. If someone is logging thousands of comments on a forum, they are most likely doing little more than hurling insults, posting stupid questions (a common tactic of Internet Trolls), or clapping their hands at every comment, picture and thought (a common tactic of Internet Whores).
I recently ran an experiment on a likely Internet Whore by simply knocking a few points off their "karma rating" to see what would happen. The response was predictable: they signed on to the board as another person and then scurried over to add more "props" next to their name in order to boost their "karma" rating.
Much amused, I knocked a few more points off to see how far this "prop-hoing" would go. The other side scuried to rebuild the lost props -- a bit like a panicked ant protecting its nest after a boot kick had scuffled it flat. In the end, I think this person created at least three or four "sock puppet" registrations on this board solely to boost their own "karma" rating -- the very kind of thing you would expect an Internet Whore to do.
Whores do indeed work hard for the money. Prostitution is a sad thing, however. Imagine having to engage in an elaborate subterfuge in order to create and protect "karma points" on an anonymous bulletin board. Has a human life actually been reduced to this? Apparently. Time to leave the poor creature alone I decided; there is no reason to torture the ants beyond all reason -- that' the work of a Troll.
The Internet Troll is the opposite side of the same coin as the Internet Whore -- someone who hurls invective and raises up division in order to cause as much disruption as possible. Internet trolls count their success in negative karma points -- their goal is to generate as much attention as possible for themselves by creating as much negative energy as possible.
There is often a kind of odd symbiotic relationship between an Internet Troll and an internet forum creator. While the Troll creates disruption and harms community, the people that run internet bulletin boards often count success by the number of "hits" their board tallies up in a day, a week, or a month. The more that personal invective is thrown about and the more that inflamatory topics are broached, the more traffic will come to the board (at least for a time) since some people like to watch fights, while others will be intent on defending their honor, and still others will try (against all odds) to engage in rational discourse.
Board creators often fan the flames of dysfunction by allowing people to sign on to boards anonymously or with fake names and temporary email accounts.
Over time, the dysfunction on poorly moderated internet forums tends to grow and Gresham's Law come into play in full force as fewer and fewer knowledgable and experienced folks continue to post. As you approach a tipping point, Internet Trolls will begin to answer their own abusive missives, while Internet Whores will begin posting puppy pictures and gratuitously congratulating every winner of every show in a 15-state area hoping someone will come back to play the game.
There is probably no salvation for internet bulletin boards as they are currently structured. The reason for this is pretty simple: controversy and fence-fighting are promoted to the top of board discussion where they are given both status and immediacy, while rational discourse and useful tips and advice are quickly buried under the weight of invective, disagreement and mindless chatter.
If you create a system that rewards noise rather than content, you get more noise and less content. Which pretty much describes most internet bulletin boards.
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