Forums

I decided to look at two completely different Internet forums. The first I looked at was www.webhostingtalk.com which claimed to be one of "the largest, most influential" forums on the Internet. On this website there were many different sections which lead to certain discussions, including advertising forums, many of which you had to be a member for. I managed to get onto a forum called "Web Hosting Lounge" which contained posts by many different people on completely different topics.
I found that many of the posts were questions, asking how to use certain equipment or what was the best phone to buy etc, there are also a few people starting discussions on how many posts each member has. The conversation style on all of these posts are very colloquial and people use smiley faces, or nicknames such as "dude" to interact with each other. I imagine this is done to create a relaxed feel, perhaps like in a real life friendship conversation. This is also reflected in one discussion on Valentines day where complete strangers have been discussing, very casually, what they plan to do for the weekend.

The second forum was www.minimins.com, a website of forums dedicated to discussions of weight loss. I found this forum very interesting as it was full of discussions of support, and help between members. Some posts were quite formal but many were chatty and conversational.
Perhaps when forums are created for certain discussion points, members begin to feel part of a society or group, and in this case, people who feel uncomfortable in their real-lives, due to their weight, are able to talk about how they feel with others - I believe forums such as this one are helping many people realise that they are not alone, what a positive thing.

Generally speaking, both forums I looked at expressed a similar style of conversation. No-one was rude or offensive and every took the approach of a laid-back online conversation, albeit the second of the two was slightly more formal.
However, I believe that the reason for this is that both websites are monitored closely with "rules". When looking at YouTube.com I found that underneath videos people have left their comments, many of which include swearing and occasionally result in a few members arguing with each other and "slagging" each other off in unpleasant ways. Seeing this made me question; do open forums like these encourage arguments? People become free on the internet and perhaps gain too much power, hiding behind a nickname and sometimes a "made-up" persona, so should we as a society be encouraging this behaviour? But then why should those people who are using the forums in the correct manner, and to benefit their lives, be punished for the mistakes that others are making?