Ok, We Get It: No One Likes Being Criticized Online
from the but,-it-still-won't-go-away dept
Earlier this month we wrote about how doctors were freaking out over public sites where patients would complain about the doctors or rate them. And, now, Wired News is running a similar article about how professors are freaking out about the RateMyProfessors site, which has been around for ages. What's odd, though, is that the article seems to assume that all professors hate the site. Obviously, almost no one likes to be criticized (especially publicly), but some professors I know don't seem to mind those sites too much. While not all of the feedback is constructive, certainly a lot of it is. And, no matter how much people hate being talked about online, it's not going to make these sites go away. So, people need to learn to either ignore them or try to take the constructive feedback for what it is.
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The nature of the beast
Most of us, being normal people, see very little difference between how we act online and in real life.
However a growing segment of online users, behind the cowardly shield of pseudo-anonymity and realizing the total lack of consequences ENJOY acting in a negative, yet empowering way to compensate for their perceived short comings in real life. These people on the net become trolls, griefers, even virus creaters and hackers (the more intelligent ones anyway). These people live to trash, and never contribute...they destroy.
So any site that allows this kind of feedback without consequence or review will have a bunch of idiots who laugh and enjoy pissing in the gasoline to ruin it for everyone else who WOULD use it for mature purposes.
As someone stated above, I don't think these people complain about any rational, mature constructive criticism, but more about the morons who think its funny to simply lie and rant and go flaming.
Sadly, there seems to be little solution.
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