[dklassen]

I'm a member of several large boards and people can get down right mean sometimes. Don't know why some have to be like that but it is what it is.

One of my favorite motorcycle forums (66,000 members, over 6 million posts) has two boards down at the bottom called Jo Momma and Exploding Heads. Posts are moved to Jo momma that start to get too strong. Exploding Heads are for people who completely lost it in a post. Some are unbelievably brutal. Some even strive to get their post moved to Exploding Heads like it's an award or something.

When you are in a public forum you are dealing with thousands of varying levels of education, opinions, personalities, political backgrounds, personal histroy and experiences, age, moods, etc, etc, etc. Add anonymity to that and you can see where some people can go.

The one thing you CAN'T do is take things personally. Recognize it is what it is and skip to the next topic.

TOTV is tame, even in the political board.