> This ignores the rampant racist/sexist comments often made on IRC/BBS
Nice straw man argument you got there...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
But I'll take the bait...
> Anyone who spent a good amount of time in these communities know it was a problem...
Interesting.
I've been on IRC for decades, and while any online forum has the feature where trolls are capable of making awful remarks for the lulz, it's been my observation those are outliers, and NOT an actual problem for focused communities.
> So yes, the idealism is there. No one knows who you identify as in a text channel unless you let them.
hrm... yeah, there is a dichotomy there, but not the false kind, more of the ying/yang kind. The same feature that fosters diversity is the same feature that allows for trolls.
> But it does not remove the fact that these communities could often have bigoted pockets.
There is no reason to practice fatalism here, or characterise rare events as common place. This is probably a variation of another fallacy called reductio-absurdism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
Ultimately IRC has admins, moderators, and the ability to mute other people. That is why good prevails over evil on IRC, and why IRC has remained the place for smart people to connect online for so so very long... longer than any other mode of chat communication.
Nice straw man argument you got there...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
But I'll take the bait...
> Anyone who spent a good amount of time in these communities know it was a problem...
Interesting.
I've been on IRC for decades, and while any online forum has the feature where trolls are capable of making awful remarks for the lulz, it's been my observation those are outliers, and NOT an actual problem for focused communities.
> So yes, the idealism is there. No one knows who you identify as in a text channel unless you let them.
hrm... yeah, there is a dichotomy there, but not the false kind, more of the ying/yang kind. The same feature that fosters diversity is the same feature that allows for trolls.
> But it does not remove the fact that these communities could often have bigoted pockets.
There is no reason to practice fatalism here, or characterise rare events as common place. This is probably a variation of another fallacy called reductio-absurdism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
Ultimately IRC has admins, moderators, and the ability to mute other people. That is why good prevails over evil on IRC, and why IRC has remained the place for smart people to connect online for so so very long... longer than any other mode of chat communication.