Originally posted by: n7
Drama drama drama :music:
Not to take away from your apt analysis, but...
Some scientific inquiry has been conducted on this subject. Cyclic forum dysfunction, or CFD, as it has come to be called, is a well-known yet rather rare disease affecting people who experience a significant amount of online social interaction, such as AT forumers. Research has been slow but fairly productive. There is no known cure, except abstention, yet people remain hopeful.
Victims of CFD are characterized by a perpetual desperation to feel strong emotions. Normally, to deal with the intense sense of desperation, they will work themselves up into outrage or fear and then triumphantly post how outraged, vindicated, or afraid they are over that topic. Knowledge of the subject matter seems tangential at best since the mistakes provide other CFD victims with the chance to counter misinformation with their own desperation through similar--but always "superior"--vitriol.
The desperation appears, in many cases, to be the manifestation of a deep but subconscious guilt or embarassment over the infantessimal importance of the topics and, to some small degree, their own lives, for having invested so much time in feeding the disease.
Strangely, these proudly dysfunctional people talk past each other, ignoring each others' emotive misaccomplishments. This, in turn, creates new injustices that serve as additional opportunities for forumers to display their various dysfunctions. It is like a group of circus clowns, each so focused on fixing their own dilemmas that they fail to recognize their "solutions" are perpetually causing each other's problems.
Put in a more positive light, it is an endless circle of life: the trolls' injustices feed the antitrolls with "reasons" for witch-hunts whilst taking a perverted delight in the comical manner with which the antitrolls become conspicuously oblivious to both the havoc they themselves wreak on the forum and the fact that the trolls are quite smugly feeding off the havoc. The appearance of mutual dependency has lead some to suspect that CFD may merely be a new form of "forum life" and not, in fact, a social dysfunction.
Occasionally, when frustration increases to a certain level, both sides will switch roles. The antitrolls will bait the trolls, who will, in turn, smite the antitrolls. Oddly, whether engaged in trolling or antitrolling, a forumer never seems to comprehend his/her part in the destruction although each troll and antitroll seems to gain a heightened awareness of the other's dysfunctions. This "tunnel vision" may last a lifetime--and often does.
Continued exposure to cyclic forum dysfunction has few known consequences, but most are relatively benign, affecting only those already inflicted with CFD. Often, victims may demonstrate chronic frustration and/or obsession over relatively trivial subjects such as RAM nomenclature, grammatical errors, use of smilies, choice of avatar names, and CFD-related threads (such as this one).
In extremely rare cases, CFD may lead to loss of life. Although the exact cause of death has never been properly isolated, scientifically speaking, indisputable fact tells us that some of those who engage in CFD flamewars are simply never heard from again. Depending on the custom of the forum, victims who have engaged in such practices immediately before disappearing are sometimes honored by placing the word "banned" by the individual's name, apparently as a last token of fond rememberance. The thread in which the victim fell is often "locked"--whether to prevent others from falling as well, or simply in honor of the dead, is kept secret. "Moderators" often warn forumers not to speak ill of the banned--or, in fact, to say anything at all.
On the rarest of occasions, locking one thread may not be enough. Increased incidence of CFD-related deaths in rapid succession may cause the discussion to branch out into multiple related threads, often involving many other victims. Even "locking" a thread has been known to trigger latent CFD symptoms even in seemingly normal people. In such cases, moderators may have no other choice but to lock all such threads and counsel certain of the more vocal victims via a mysterious superforumal communication device known as a "PM" or by leaving sufficiently-trite, disciplinary messages in victim's "signatures." (The latter is thought to be derived from shock therapy.)
The greatest problem with CFD diagnosis remains its indirect relevance to much of the outside world. Socially, victims exist within a "bubble" in which emotional stimuli are both created and consumed almost exclusively by actions and reactions within the bubble.
The forum exists to serve as a dynamic knowledge base of helpful information for those using video cards. Yet CFD symptoms never manifest when using video cards for any other reason than to engage in CFD-related discussions. As a result, regular forumers tend to avoid such discussions, and the world outside the forum is likewise almost never affected by such problems.
Sadly, this apathy effectively abandons many CFD victims to continue seeking respect only from those whom they most despise--each other. Their arguments continue without end, hopping from topic to topic, thread to thread, constantly seeking new insults, quips, and reprisals with which to engage battles for which there is no victory.
Despite these problems, there remains a fundamental disconnect between the world outside the bubble and the world inside the bubble. Those trapped within the bubble may be engaged in "crusades" that have no impact--and seemingly, no purpose--on the outside world. During interactions between the two worlds, the CFD victim will see his/her world burning in flames, his/her reputation assailed by countless demons (often called fanboys, although the etymology remains baffling), etc. while a normal person will merely see distraught individuals, in a tranquil field, obsessed trading mock blows over imaginary problems. For the CFD victim, perception and realitiy are one and the same.
In truth, if the CFD victims unknowingly met in the real world, without discussing "video" topics, they would likely coexist peaceably--or at least as well as any two normal people. This disorder remains almost exclusively in the online portion of one's life. No data has yet determined whether the disorder will evolve and threaten the victim's "real life."
The root cause of CFD itself remains a mystery, but it has been likened to substance abuse, the term "forum abuse" having been adopted by moderators in lieu of a more scientific term. In accordance with this hypothesis, "temporary banning" is sometimes used to enforce short abstinence in victims who appear to be headed past the "point of no return." It has also been speculated that the sight of the word "banned" next to the victim's name is another form of shock therapy.
Analysis of CFD treatment has been somewhat hampered by the facts that (a) no one actually knows each other, (b) no victim is aware of his/her condition, and (c) nobody really cares. Unfortunately, little work is being done to overcome these limitations.
In the field of virtual CFD therapy, as in any new field of treatment, the community as a whole has regarded the "treatments" with thinly veiled suspicion. Opinions range from mild suspicion about hidden moderator agendas to wild conspiracy theories tying moderators and GPU designers into an unholy union fraught with slippery slopes, "bannage," and "bad PR." Some, who may or may not themselves be suffering from CFD, have even gone so far as to accuse "other forums'" moderators of using the condition as an excuse for personal vendettas, that somehow moderators are behind the killing (i.e. banning) of certain forum personalities.
No thanks to a lack of funding, ongoing research has revealed that periodic exposure to something CFD victims blankly refer to as "real life" can bring some relief from the tension and need for mental self-degradation. Full cessation of online socialization may, in fact, be too demanding for many victims, so it is recommended that they be worked into this gradually. And while there are legitimate reasons for online congregation, and while incidence of CFD-related forum abuse is slim, clearly, we must think of the children.
Just say NO to forums. :thumbsdown: