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Vast majority of people do not participate in online communities, but why do you?
- Thread starter tzhu07
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Most people are afraid to be scrutinized and then immortalized at that... since, as we all know, the Internet does not forget.
Why me? I try to help others when I can and if I am wrong I learn as well.
Why me? I try to help others when I can and if I am wrong I learn as well.
Well, it depends on a number of matters. Moreover, I suspect that as in any other walk of life, people find a community that they feel comfortable with and decide to join that.
This is the first online community I joined, and the first where I participated as a member of an online community. As with many others, I had bought an Apple computer, and - as a 'switcher' - I had questions and came here seeking answers. Thus, I lurked for a while before joining with a view to getting some answers to Apple based questions.
And, as I liked what I saw, I stayed.
The only other online community I am a member of is LinkedIn, and that is purely for professional reasons. I am not on FB or anything of the sort, though Twitter does have its appeal, and colleagues recommended that I consider joining it.
This is the first online community I joined, and the first where I participated as a member of an online community. As with many others, I had bought an Apple computer, and - as a 'switcher' - I had questions and came here seeking answers. Thus, I lurked for a while before joining with a view to getting some answers to Apple based questions.
And, as I liked what I saw, I stayed.
The only other online community I am a member of is LinkedIn, and that is purely for professional reasons. I am not on FB or anything of the sort, though Twitter does have its appeal, and colleagues recommended that I consider joining it.
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Because reality bites. In reality I'm the Imp, but on the Internet I'm the giant of Lannister.
For me, it's the fact that you can almost always find somebody whom is willing to talk about what you want to talk about, no matter how obscure or controversial the topic.
I don't know about anybody else, but most of the people I meet "in real life" are usually not willing to engage in discussions involving science, technology or politics, among other things. I particularly enjoy these things, and forums provide a medium through which I can indulge my need to share and debate my opinions amongst peers.
I don't know about anybody else, but most of the people I meet "in real life" are usually not willing to engage in discussions involving science, technology or politics, among other things. I particularly enjoy these things, and forums provide a medium through which I can indulge my need to share and debate my opinions amongst peers.
Because reality bites. In reality I'm the Imp, but on the Internet I'm the giant of Lannister.
No I'm much fatter in real life it's more like this:
Came in to post exactly this, verbatim verbatim verbatim.
...but now because I no longer rock the Barney avatar I can't lay claim to the phrase.
I can barely talk in general. Having random conversations on the internet with complete strangers is the best thing ever, especially when its something interesting that I have an opinion on.
I discovered forums about 18 years ago when looking for answers to CAD and CAM problems. I've been part of many communities and still am albeit rarely these days. These have been to do with motorsports, cameras, wrist watches and CNC. I don't post as much as I did because life is busy so I tend to browse in evenings or weekends if I get a chance when not dealing with my baby daughter. I can't check places like this out at work as my schedule is packed.
My wife thinks I'm sad for discussing topics online and none of my mates participate in this sort of thing. If I was sat in the pub and tried to talk about mobile phones with friends they would call me a nerd and tell me to get a life lol. Nearly everybody I know owns an iPhone yet they would never spend time on the Internet talking about it. I guess this is a secret interest and we are a rare breed.
My wife thinks I'm sad for discussing topics online and none of my mates participate in this sort of thing. If I was sat in the pub and tried to talk about mobile phones with friends they would call me a nerd and tell me to get a life lol. Nearly everybody I know owns an iPhone yet they would never spend time on the Internet talking about it. I guess this is a secret interest and we are a rare breed.
I discovered forums about 18 years ago when looking for answers to CAD and CAM problems. I've been part of many communities and still am albeit rarely these days. These have been to do with motorsports, cameras, wrist watches and CNC. I don't post as much as I did because life is busy so I tend to browse in evenings or weekends if I get a chance when not dealing with my baby daughter. I can't check places like this out at work as my schedule is packed.
My wife thinks I'm sad for discussing topics online and none of my mates participate in this sort of thing. If I was sat in the pub and tried to talk about mobile phones with friends they would call me a nerd and tell me to get a life lol. Nearly everybody I know owns an iPhone yet they would never spend time on the Internet talking about it. I guess this is a secret interest and we are a rare breed.
My wife says "You've had Linux of the brain for 10 years when are you going to recover" Never is the realistic answer I'm just to involved in the online community to say bye now and in my real life what would my Thursdays be like if I left my LUG. There are people in there who are most assuredly smarter than me and probably deserve to take it over but ya know it's mine.
I also am a reformed Windows user! The first computer was a family purchase that had a WHOPPING 60GB drive... unheard of back then. My friends were so impressed (we bought it at Circuit City, what does that tell you...). But, the salesman said "Windows ME is great!" he also said "You'll never run out of room!"
....both were obviously gargantuan lies. I think my Parents spent like 2300 total for that Sony Vaio pile o' crap. A computer nerd friend told me some months later, "Yeah, the new Pentium4 chips have trouble..." not to bore anyone with my experiences using Windows, as many of you may already know what repeatedly horrendous ones they've been.
Yeah... CompuServe and ListServ were brutal...
The funny thing is that today's kids think they invented LOL,
, and IMHO.
Lived that as well...
Mrs. Thequik had Windows ME on her computer. She was upgraded to XP on our second date. That's when she fell in love with me. (speaking of boring people with their experiences...)
Well, my first computer - which was equipped with a 486 processor and 4MB of RAM - was bought a little more than 20 years ago, and it came with a total memory of 80MB……….good grief, I have been using computers for more than twenty years.
After some consideration, I switched to Apple in 2008, a belated birthday present to myself, and joined the forum not long afterwards.
Until I joined MR, though, I had harboured serious reservations about participation in online communities; I had heard that they were geekish, very male and massively unwelcoming to women.
Nevertheless, since the mid 1990s, I have been a huge fan of the sort of research made possible by the internet; and the wonders of email - which have enabled more or less instant, communication, or, at the very least, communication with a rapid turnaround - with academic colleagues in far flung places was fantastic.
However, I have to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed the fact that I can come on here most nights, and chat about a wide variety of things with some like minded people whom I have never met, and whose real names I don't even know. Strange to say - and this is something I would never have expected from an online environment, or forum, I have come to like some of the people I have met here quite a lot.
And some nights, there is no better fun to be had than a good old fashioned intellectual brawl; something which sometimes approaches the mental equivalent of fisticuffs - the kind of thing I haven't been able to happily engage in since I was a student arguing (endlessly) in pubs, about politics, gods, books, music, culture and the meaning of life.
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Yeah... CompuServe and ListServ were brutal...
The funny thing is that today's kids think they invented LOL,
Back when I had my Apple IIc talking to peoples Commodore and IBM clones and no one hated Apple and BBS's and the internet were cool and new. When writing some stuff is basic was awesome and everyone wanted to be a coder for a living, I remember when I got my dads powerbook 520 to go to college and the biggest thing was that there was no lag when I typed, I remeber telling them it was so fast because as soon as I let go of a key it was on the screen, my old man just smiled
I got to the towers and my roommate was pre-med and a super nerd and introduced me to Yggdrasil and I thought he was high (he probably was because he introduced me to vapourisers) my Mac was just better in every way. 11 years later Steve would tell us that Apple was going to Intel and I went Linux full time after that.
After using a hand-me-down PC clone running on a 286 processor with some dated version of DOS on it, the first family computer I used for a number of years was one of the earlier ones with a Pentium chip in it (I believe at 75 MHz), with 8 MB of RAM, and 800 MB HDD running Windows 3.11 (updated to Windows 95 shortly after). Made me want to look at http://mentalfloss.com/article/49653/how-buy-new-computer-1993 again.
I join internet communities in order to learn about certain things. I then hang around for the opportunity to pass that knowledge on to others who are in need.
I never engage in battles of wits with unarmed opponents, nor do I argue with nincompoops: They only drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
I am smart, but smart enough to know when to just go "Ah well agree to disagree."..........says I after wading hip-deep into that snake nest that passed itself off as a legitimate discussion about circumcision. I should have known better than to get involved in that one. I try never fall victim to the classic blunders, the first being Never get involved in a land war in Asia and the second being Never try and to rationally discuss circumcision on Teh Internets.
I've been a member of several online communities over the years. I've found them a good way to keep up, get questions answered, and engage in discussions about topics that interest me. The anonymity afforded by online forums sometimes leads to less-than-cordial interactions, so a thick skin helps. However, I try to steer clear of those. When threads devolve into protracted insults between two individuals, I usually go elsewhere.
