In my years of work with communities and forums, there happens to be a varying amount of reactions with regards to how people react to finding out that I deal with them. Some people nod and smile, blissfully oblivious to the work that is entailed in the herding-cats mentality with which to approach online communities. Some people think I’m mildly insane for taking on the responsibility of dealing with them (and I have to admit, some level of crazy is required for this work, but that is another post for another day). Yet others take the “better you than me” approach, wisely understanding what it takes and knowing that they’d probably road rage it out if it was them.
But if there’s one constant among some of the reactions and thoughts I hear about online forums, it’s plain jane vanilla fear. When I see someone who served in our military who has walked into fire and brimstone put up their hands and surrender when it comes to forums, that says something. When the reaction I get when I invite someone to come onto a forum is the kind of wide-eyed apprehension reserved for Stephen King’s “IT”, that also says something. And they are definitely saying something when they tell me that they swerve from forums faster than they do an overturned beer truck on the highway.
In some respects, I get where the forumophobia comes from. After all, if the internet has taught us geek types anything, it’s that the freedom and openness with which people can express themselves means some rather…well…colorful methods tend to present themselves. I sort of see it as a way to expand my profane vocabulary and enrich myself, but hey – to each their own. In addition to this, I think that a lot of people are intimidated with the sheer size and scope of some of the larger and more popular communities that exist on forums. There’s a sense that even though we are faceless anonymous people online for the most part, that people do want to be recognized and understood on some level for their expressed opinion. When you post the one reply in a forum thread that has paragraphs and proper syntax in the midst of a bunch of “I LIKE ANGELIA JOLIE. DOES ANYONE ELSE LIKE ANGELINA JOLIE?!” type posts, it’s easy to think that you’re just going to get lost in the shuffle. And finally, there’s the varying levels of bullshit that people are willing to put up with. Even though I’m a perpetual optimist, I also know that I’m a sort of oddity in the land of online personas and those who read them. For the most part, lots of people fear dealing with forums because they’ll simply become a hassle and inconvenience to sort the wheat from the chaff.
To the fearful holders of forumophobia, I do have to say that it isn’t really as bad as it seems even in the largest communities. While it’s certainly possible that you might have a bad experience with a forum poster that simply chooses to be more of an ass than what Kim Kardashian has in her trunk, there’s also the possibility to make connections you normally wouldn’t. Part of this is, to be honest, being selective with what you read. With very few exceptions involving large 42 point font and bright pink text, it is well within your power to ignore anything that doesn’t seem like it’s going to turn out well in favor of other posts. Heck, it even applies to whole sections of forums. If in the grand community of 50+ forum sections you only want to visit 1 or 2, that’s fine. There’s no need to be intimidated by huge swaths of forum posts when you have the choice as to which ones you wish to read.
In this same respect, establishing your own identity on a forum and being recognized doesn’t take much from a productive member’s standpoint (it doesn’t take much from a troll’s standpoint either, but I’m assuming my readers don’t want to be hated worse than Vanilla Ice on a reality tv show). Participating in selected discussions, providing your opinion intelligently, and responding only to the people who you feel engaged with are all ways to get people to see and understand your point of view. Post frequently and intelligently enough and folks start realizing the value of you putting in your two cents. In this, you become valuable to a forum community, but on terms you choose.
Finally, for those who have a low tolerance for bullshit, you’ll be heartened to know forum tech has come a long way towards protecting users from it. The discerning geeky forum administrator has a variety of tools at their disposal to enforce rules, suspend or ban users, or implement features that keep everyone from turning on each other Lord of the Flies style. Users themselves have ignore functions, reporting tools, and in some cases even the means to delete or edit something that they don’t care to deal with. Whether you’re an enormously tolerant person like me or you’re the type who brooks no quarter for foolishness, a good forum has the things you need to ensure you don’t have to be afraid of being tortured by the bad content.
It might still be hard, despite these tips, for anyone to pay any attention to online forums. But I think that there are more than enough people out there (certainly more than a fearful forum visitor thinks) that care enough about the generation of online content that they want to make forums welcoming, community-building, and dare I say it, fun. Forumophobia is an understandable reaction to the invitation to participate in online community- it just doesn’t have to be all that bad.
