It's pretty easy. Forum + Anonimity = Jackass

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With no personal accountability, people feel free to act poorly. The previous poster was quite accurate. Anonymity is the answer, pure and simple. If everyone was forced to post with their real name, two things would happen 1) people would say much less and 2) people would be more cordial, in general. I'm not suggesting that this is a good idea, merely that being anonymous makes people act with Id instead of Superego.

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Stupidity flows in a reverse gradient. Where it exists, more is soon to follow. It seems as though without an identity or any form of accountability, the worst in humanity is laid out for all to see.

The trick is to avoid it as much as possible (especially the comments on Digg and YouTube).

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As noted already, anonymity tends to bring out the worst in people. (A real-world analogue is driving habits; if drivers were socially accountable for their actions, there would be fewer jerky moves on the road.)

Requiring "real names" in an online community won't totally ameliorate this, unfortunately. Underlying issues can still remain: one, a fundamental lack of consequence for antisocial behavior, and two, a basic lack of sensitivity to how one's words will be interpreted. For example, it's not obvious, to many, that sarcasm is difficult to convey.

The good news is, poor writing skills (rudeness) are usually the culprit, and can be fought through education. The bad news is, actual personality problems are nearly impossible to solve at the remove of the Internet. The best you can to is remind everyone *else* that some forgiveness is necessary and productive.

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"Are social networks just prime communities for unmoderated smack talk and trashing less-educated users?" The short answer is yes. But there are many reasons. A primary one is as others mentioned the anonymity.

But then the websites themselves are far from innocent. Many survive by advertising and need to brag about 'hits' even if those hits are simply insults and arguments. They intentionally feed the nastiness because it makes their site seem more popular. In fact nearly every 'tech' blog lives almost entirely off of the Mac vs PC argument. Hit's start to drop? Throw gas on the fire.

Others foster a false sense of expertise and superiority by letting readers vote on a response or rating users by how often they post or how long they've been registered.

A perfect example I saw just recently. Someone on Yahoo asked about a 'Javascript' problem and the answer voted most relevant was to reinstall Java which has nothing to do with Javascript. A more technically accurate answer was completely ignored. What gets taken away from this is that people really don't want to know an answer they just want to vote.

On another site a friend who is a biology professor created an account on a site to correct a statement that "mutations don't occur in humans". He was very respectful and thought he was being helpful. Unfortunately he was correcting a 'four star' poster.

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I agree that anonymity is a very big factor but let us not forget all the teens with their teen angst. There are some teens that act splendid but on the whole...it's a disaster.
There are some sites that require you to give evidence that proves w/o a doubt that you are over 20. I'm a member of one and it's miles apart when it comes to decency and tranquillity.
But it's kind of sad for those teens that actually behave.

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I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who feels put off by all of this.

I too think anonymity is the problem. Egos go unchecked. You can argue loudly about how right you are without any fear of real confrontation. Without consequences some people will go as far as they can.

I also think people believe that what they say as their aliases online isn't really connected to them in real life. Like a character in a movie, it relieves them of responsibility. "I dind't say that, user1234 said it."

Places like digg which I enjoy on many levels are notorious for this. You don't even have to leave a comment, just click thumbs down and the person goes away. Yuck.

Moderation might help, but 'cops' are human and we all know that can cause problems too. Anyway, censorship by a third party isn't real freedom at all.

I too believe real names should be required as well. I am who I am online and use my real name pretty much everywhere. If people take issue with something I have to say I am very easy to find (google me and you'll see) and am more than willing to chat about it. Personal responsibility helps me sleep better.

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Digg and Youtube are pretty bad, but MOG, the music social network, has one of the best atmospheres on the web, in my opinion. It might be the fact that it's still pretty small, or that all people there are attracted by one common interest, i.e. music. Maybe music lovers are just cool people... :)

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i personally think that there are a few reasons for this.

on sites like digg, mostly it's the technologically-informed segment of the population using the site and posting comments. you get one guy in there who says something that makes it clear that he's a) not a geek and b) disagreeing with everyone and all of the geeks are going to flame him to death, even if what he said was just a simple misunderstanding. the reason for this is that it feels good to show off and it's easier for a lot of people to do that online than offline. most of these people are still seeking peer validation due to their probably lacking social status in high school.

then there's the heated, long-standing debates about:
gnome vs. kde, os x vs. any os, linux vs. any os, apple vs. microsoft, compiling vs. packages, ipod vs. anything else that plays music, and etc

the ferver with which these things have been discussed have kind of set the stage for how geeks (especially up and coming ones) think they should react to people online who disagree with them or know less about something than themselves. you even have Linus Torvalds posting none-too-friendly stabs at the GNOME camp recently...14 year old kids (who are already interested in this kind of thing) reading that are going to promptly install kubuntu and then go around telling everyone else how and why their WM sucks. Linus is certainly entitled to his opinion but the way he said that crap about GNOME wasn't really necessary.

it's never necessary to take that high-and-mighty, i-pwn-teh-world attitude with people in forums or comment threads. if someone is confused, help them understand. if someone disagrees, calmly state your case.

being nice only helps your cause in the long run anyway. i mean the first thing i do to an asshole on digg is digg him down and quit reading whatever stupid crap he was trying to say. it only takes like 4 people reacting like that and most people will never see that comment again.

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Nobody's mentioned the deterioration in American society in general. We give each other the bird on the highway, elbow each other for luggage at the airport, rudely talk on our cellphones in front of each other in restaurants and call each other foul names at the gas station. Social forums are just a continuation of that.

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Agreed on the anonymity point, but a lot of people are just as contentious and egotistical in person. The Internets just act as an amplifier, becaue there is no real consequence to misbehavior. In the same way, everyone curses more in their cars than they do face to face.

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I thought of this post when this article from the Washington Post came across my newsreader this morning:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030602705.html

I thought it appropriate. The gist of it is that a notorious law school forum seems to be made up of the lowest common denominator of people. They post remarkably hateful things, and what I think is much worse, the names, locations, and pictures of women in law school with them. It's resulted in some women fearing for their safety, and possibly the loss of employment for a few. It's probably on the more extreme end of this particular discussion, but I (and I'm sure everyone here) has read some appalling things on sites like digg and fark.

I couldn't tell you why social networks get so unpleasant, but besides the accountability issue, I think it's an excuse to be the bully on the playground for once. Many internet communities remind me of nothing so much as elementary school--there's the bullies who got where they are because they're verbally condescending or abusive, their friends who want to stay on their good side, and little skinny kids who just wanted to be left alone. It's not even as sophisticated as high school's cliques and labels, but just an opportunity for adults to sling insults like children.

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