I'm sorry I implied that you justified cruelty, that wasn't part of your point. And, I'm actually only deeply emotionally invested in friends and family, too. I might have gone overboard on the emotional, bleeding into the cyberbully arena.
My primary issue is the, "it doesn't matter," as a correct choice. It might be the correct choice that it doesn't matter if someone calls you a fag on the internet, you should shrug it off and carry on, or ignore it altogether. I read angersocks answer as basically saying it's OK to go into online communities and disrupt them because they don't matter, but they do. People wouldn't take time to type all this stuff out, to talk to each other, to engage, if it never mattered.
A community works to create an atmosphere and an environment, if it didn't matter they wouldn't try to maintain it. I do believe that the communities we create online matter and its a wonderful thing when a community can maintain itself respectfully. I guess I just feel that discussion and exchanging ideas is important face-to-face or online, and we should invest enough to show respect.
My primary issue is the, "it doesn't matter," as a correct choice. It might be the correct choice that it doesn't matter if someone calls you a fag on the internet, you should shrug it off and carry on, or ignore it altogether. I read angersocks answer as basically saying it's OK to go into online communities and disrupt them because they don't matter, but they do. People wouldn't take time to type all this stuff out, to talk to each other, to engage, if it never mattered.
A community works to create an atmosphere and an environment, if it didn't matter they wouldn't try to maintain it. I do believe that the communities we create online matter and its a wonderful thing when a community can maintain itself respectfully. I guess I just feel that discussion and exchanging ideas is important face-to-face or online, and we should invest enough to show respect.