Militaria Forums - Refuge of the Impotent

Lies, insults, anger and stupidity, it's all there...

This is not about ALL forum members, many of which are sane, reasonable people. It's about those special few. Your know who you are, so if the shoe fits....

I'm a member of four militaria forums and visit three of them occasionally, and one frequently. Over the past few years I couldn't help but notice an unfortunate trend taking place in these forums. It seems that they have become a "hangout" for people who know little, have strong opinions (usually wrong) and too much spare time on their hands. Usually these guys don't use their own names but hide under a made up "user" name. Bacause of the anonymity, they feel they can say anything they want with impunity, and spare nothing in voicing their views. This gives them a feeling of power, which fuels their desire to post more and more. (By the way, I use my own name when I post on a forum).

For the first time in their life they can say what they want and get away with it. No one can interrupt them while they post their thoughts. And if someone replys to their posts with a negative comment or tries to defend themself from attack, too late, they've already got their trash out there, and besides any reply just gives them fuel to post more of their trash.

Being anonymous on a forum creates the perfect medium to promote a malicious agenda. Whether it be to discredit someone or something, create doubt or mistrust, "get even", or simply "stir the pot", it's perfect. They can shoot while hiding in the dark.

It seems that forums can create a kind of "pack" or mob mentality in some people. One guy will post something negative about something or someone... and wham!, all of a sudden a bunch of others get on the band wagon and start posting trash about the same thing. It doesn't matter if they know anything about the subject, they still chime in with some trash. And the nastier the dialogue gets, the better they like it.

I've done some informal "research" on these people and have noticed something that I found interesting. It seems that the ones who are the most negative and vindictive, are the ones who post things the most. Some of them have thousands of posts on the forums... mostly negative. There are other reasonable members who do a lot of posts, but the negative guys seem to over power them. If you search the militaria forums you will find that a small number of members do most of the negative postings. The same names pop up over and over again. There should be a name for people you are always posting negative things. I was thinking, maybe, "neggers"?

Here's a little anecdote about what can happen in a forum. It wasn't a militaria forum, but it shows the "pack" mentality in action.

Have you seen the info-mercials on TV for the Sham-wow? It's a kind of ''super chamois'', and you'll remember Vince the spokesman. He's kind of a street smart, fast talking, skinny little guy on speed. I like him. I was interested in this product because it looked really great in the ads, so I went on line to do some research and saw somethng interesting... to me anyway. First I found some reviews of it by some ''car buffs'' who use it after washing their expensive sports cars. Overall they really liked it and felt it did a good job.... ok, so far, so good. I then checked a few other sources and they were all pretty positive about it. Then I happened to stumble on to a ''Forum''. This was the interesting part.... almost without exception the forum members ripped it a new one. They didn't like it, it was a con-job, couldn't be any good, the wouldn't buy anything ''Vince'' was selling, etc. etc.. Problem is, not one of these bozos had even used one! They all admitted it... Morons! I sat back and thought for a moment. ''It's deja vu all over again''.

The same thing happens on the militaria forums. Shoot your mouth off whether you know what your talking about or not seems to be the order of the day. Take the smallest thing and blow it up all out of proportion, create a "feeding frenzy" and hope it can be sustained. Then sit back and enjoy the show. Pathetic! Get a life people!

The sad part is that the so-called "moderators" of these forums let this kind of thing go on. Instead of doing their job of "moderating" what is said, they just let these people get away with murder. There is one subject however, that is strictly verboten. Don't you dare criticize the forum itself. I know of one person who, upon joining a big militaria forum, found that many of the areas were closed to him. Seems you had to be a member of some kind of special club to get into those areas. He posted a comment saying he was disappointed and thought this "smelled of elitism". The next day received a heated email from a moderator telling him his post was deleted and his membership had been revolked. He sent me a copy of the email and it was one of the foulest, most vulgar things I have ever read, just loaded with curses and insults. If the sender had said those things to him face to face, he would probably have gotten a sock on the nose for his trouble. And this person is supposed to moderate....

So the bottom line is this. Use the forums, read, post and enjoy. But cast a critical eye on what you read, and don't take everything you see as gospel. You have to learn to seperate the facts from the fiction. Above all, when posting something, know what you're talking about and try to keep it friendly! I hope this article hasn't made me sound like a negger...

Bob Treend, "Militaria Forums - Refuge of the Impotent", germanmilitariacollectibles.com - Militaria Blog, 2009

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