Are there any internet forums which aren’t driven by sheer fury?

If the internet is about anything at all, it’s about having your say. Unimpeded, we can offload our thoughts, our desires and our recipes for coronation chicken for the delight or gastronomic fulfilment of others. Tragically, however, not everyone will agree with the ingredients of your chicken concoction, and they’ll be only too happy to tell you where you can stick your stupid bloody recipe. “I’m involved with a forum helping people with a particular phobia,” writes Andrew Smith. “It’s supposed to be a place for those who have nowhere else to go – but at one stage the running arguments got so bad that the moderator ended up banning one antagonist, and then banning himself.” So, why does cybermud start flying about so easily? Paul Carr, who runs the forums at fridaycities.com, neatly bisects the problem. “One reason is the Big Brother / Lord Of The Flies effect. Tribes form, people start to use cliquey language, and petty issues that would otherwise be insignificant start becoming as important as life or death. The second is anonymity. Most online communities don’t demand that you use your real name – and it’s much easier to accuse someone of being a tosser if you’re called ‘Spanglekitten’ and they’re called ‘Brian The Wolf’.”

This same anonymity issue also compels us to to defend ourselves from these merciless attacks. If someone shouts “You talking to me?” on the street, most of us turn and walk away. But not online; I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been dragged into slanging matches that only served to further entrench the opinions of myself and the person I was arguing with. On the big political blogs such as Harry’s Place, you’ll find relentless and repeated statings of the same unwavering positions by its regular contributors. Meanwhile, over on the “Have Your Say” section of the BBC website, there are equally heated but slightly surreal and confused debates – or, as comedian David Mitchell recently put it, “the full majesty of the uninformed, ad hoc Reckon.” And despite these slanging matches being fleeting and easily backed away from, several of you confessed this week to being left disproportionately distraught by online arguments.How can we stop forums filling up with bile? Jan, who runs a forum at painsupport.co.uk, says that most problems are cleared up when she – as moderator – has a quiet word with the parties involved; often, people don’t even realise that they’re overstepping the mark. As for deliberate provocation, it really is a case of everyone biting their collective tongue, or just straight batting a response and waiting for the offender to get bored. Paul Carr also notes the calming effect of increased membership. “Now that Fridaycities has 20,000 members, it seems that everyone shares a collective responsibility to self-moderate.”