scleaves

I was doing a paper on how people are treated on online forums. I said that people are often treated by the reputation they have built and not by what they write immediately. To test this, me and a buddy swapped accounts on a forum with relaxed rules and didn't pretend to be each other necessarily but didn't tell anyone and just posted as we normally did. People on this online community seemed to like my buddy better, and this was evident that when I tried to strike a conversation up with people, I was called nice terms and people genuinely wanted to help me out, while when I was using my own account, people usually just called me names. But I was posting as I normally did. With that said, I do not recommend such a practice or experiment to people. We knew that it wouldn't harm anything before we overtook it, and we didn't keep it up for long.

Now there is something else you should know. I didn't troll the forum under my own account but my buddy really went out on a limb to communicate on that forum. I had a little under a couple thousand posts on the forum that were mostly a few lines, and he had 5,000 posts on the forum and just about all were actually a page or two long.

Also, no one suspected a thing until we told them later.

I feel bad about doing this experiment now because it seems kind of immature, but you can't change the past, and I think the subject is interesting.

RoxyRollah

I knew it... you are The Batlord...and The Batlord is you...

__________________

scleaves

Hahahahaha. It was another forum though.

RoxyRollah

of course it was Scleaves... or should I call you Batlord...

__________________

scleaves

Scleaves, they're onto us! I'll get the batmobile.

The Batlord

What'll really blow your mind is that I'm a ninety year old lady living in Florida. And yes, my dick is still huge.

__________________

RoxyRollah

ahahaha

__________________

Eleonoora

Yep, it's a psychological fact that people thread each others by their reputations, not by what they actually say. :/ It is brutal but true. Especially the first impression is important, some scientists say that in first 30 seconds the person judges another and the first impression is very hard to change.

Bushbr89

I don't find the experiment immature, I think it was rather insightful, though i believe your hypothesis of people being treated based on reputation probably differs from forum to forum.
The main topic of the forum probably is a good basis for this. A forum catering to white hate or violent vulgar things will probably be filled with more low brow people who don't treat others with as much respect as say a forum centered around yoga, or Buhdism or the like.
Of course people of all types can be found on every forum. but i think you understand my point.

Paedantic Basterd

When you leave an impression on a person, that tone coats the posts associated with your account. First impressions are just as valid online as in real life. I'm not even remotely surprised.