h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hopefully this thread will not spontaneously combust, especially given the nice bit of poetry above.


Now H2G2 is a wonderful site, based on an idea from wonderful writings, from a wonderful creative genius.

However, it is open to the public, and as such, not everybody will agree on all topics. Most of the time this is pursued in friendly debate.

However, there are a few people on site who, for want of a better expression, get right up my nose. People who don't know half as much as they think they do but believe they are always right, people out to cause trouble and people with poor/no interpersonal relationship skills. No matter what counter arguments are posted, how coherent and well thought out, will always maintain they are right and call anyone disagreeing with them stupid, ignorant over and over. There have been a few threads where I have witnissed this phenomena, and it is all I can do to stop myself from doing virtual violence upon these people.

Ignoring sometimes isn't an option, because they sometimes seem to haunt you in your favorite places, sometimes in discussions you are really interested in.

In the past I have tried ignoring postings when I saw the name of the poster, but others keep referring to the post. I have tried unsubscribing from the convo's but other flames keep popping up. Fire has a way of spreading, I guess I need a good extinguisher.

WHat I had done (partly for this reason) was take a hiatus from site. A nice cooling down period. I had fully intended on not coming back, but this place is just too damn addictive.

What are your coping strategies? How do you remain onsite without losing your rag at other researchers? How do you keep sane (scrap that last one, none of us are

I find flamers, irkers and spammers hilarious now, for some reason. I used to get angry and speak out about them, but now I realize many of them just want attention, and I always laugh - because it's funny to me and I can't justify getting mad at someone for wanting attention.

I just see an odd humor in it and generally respond with a mocking post (my personal favorite is F82769?thread=364569&skip=40&show=20#p4641565). It works for me anyway. I haven't lost my temper here for months.

Life's too short to be angry Find the humor in the irksome people.

Maybe I've been incredibly lucky, but I've never come across anyone like that on h2g2. (At least not that I can remember)

Kiltedjedi, I'm sorry that you had such a bad experience with these nutters that you felt you had to leave. Glad you decided to come back. I like the verse too!

I like your approach Jodan. If I ever come across one of these people, I'll keep that in mind.

This issue became important in another forum I post to when we were invaded by a particularly unpleasant and persistent person. Ignoring him eventually workled, but only when ~everyone~ in the conversation ignored him. As long as one person responds the troll is encouraged.

Trying to reason with someone like this is impossible and only makes matters worse. For a time namecalling reared it's ugly head, but that just fed the flames. Total shunning was the only effective tool.

He was eventually put on pre-mod and that helped. But it took quite a while. I really hope we don't have that problem here.

H