Without going too much into detail, I often find that on forums with a lot of US users the tone of voice is a bit one sided and too focused on keeping good social stats. It’s a cultural thing that I run into in my professional life too. And to be completely honest, usually it’s white and privileged people. Especially in the tech world.
However there are many exceptions to this so I’m absolutely not trying to stereotype anyone from the US. A lot of my friends are from the states and I don’t run into anything that I mentioned above.
In the end how you communicate depends on your upbringing and social climate. People that were raised in an authoritarian household are more likely to police others online, whereas people raised in a more dialogue centric household will be more willing to emphasize with options that are not their own.
I’m very allergic to people dictating and policing how other people should or should not respond online. It always reminds me of relationships in which one person eventually stops saying things to keep peace because the other person will police them if it doesn’t align with their point of view. Not a very healthy way of communicating.
Anyhow, that’s why I like Elektronauts more as I feel that people are here to discuss gear, not build up an ego through social group status.
To be fair, I actually feel/felt this “US/UK policing tone of voice” very present over here. At a point the discussion shifted towards it rather than on the topic itself.
That’s the only actual thing that makes me wanna stay away from here/Internet, when the moral values take over the possibilty to discuss, even though it’s in a different tone of voice than the dominant people in the place are used to/willing.
Ha! Funny how our views differ. I’ve thankfully only noticed it occasionally. But then again feeling policed is also an individual experience so I can fully understand others have a different experience here than I do.
I think we also have to accept and remember that people have difficulty expressing themselves and doing so online makes it even harder to understand the intent of what someone is saying.
People discuss gear but (1) they do it more politely than nearly every other online space where gear is a focus and (2) the balance between “tools to make art” and “I just think they’re neat” is tipped far in favor of “tools to make art” - which tempers some of the vitriol as there’s examples of great art made with virtually anything. The latter thinking is fertile ground for tribalism, and tribalism tends to lead to unpleasant interactions.
I’m just glad it’s not full of angry mostly retired people complaining that a Syntakt can’t play Jump.