(a) There exists a very lazy understanding of the notion of free speech. Free speech is meant to mean (in my view, and this is by and large the legal situation) that you are free to speak and that others can’t prevent you from speaking out but that doesn’t mean speech is somehow going to be without cost to you or others. Nor that you can say whatever comes into your head, whether true or not. Bizarrely in the face of a general decline in religious belief there is a tremendous upsurge on-line of belief posting where people post what they have no actual proof of but which they sincerely and genuinely believe to be true (this might be even named Corrism) whether it is that politician X beats their spouse, banker Y is criminal, actor Z is gay, the world is run by lizard people. Just because someone believes something doesn’t in itself make it true yet that doesn’t stop them posting and getting very upset if their post is challenged.

(b) the tendency for people to deliberately go for the controversy angle (Guido Fawkes talked this up as a means to generate traffic when he spoke to some folks here in 2006 about political blogging and boy does it seem like some people took him up on it!) This is then coupled with the ready willingness of those reading to take their lead from whoever is perceived to be the most outspoken or outrageous. It’s a bit like posting while channelling the gamer style of ‘run and gun’ whereby you run into a new place and shoot first and take stock later, in writing like this you post in the most aggressive manner possible, load up on traffic and comments and if anyone does pause to ask questions about the substance they are subject to the pantomime boo-hiss of the chorus. All this frenetic activity is a handy replacement for accuracy or thoughtfulness, better to be first and wrong than late but right.

Are they being a pain because they want to vent, because they feel powerless and the internet makes them feel powerful or…are they the closet nutjobs that will end up losing it out on the streets and at work one day?

I think this in large part has to do with us “Discovering our Human Voice” and right now I’d say we’re somewhat at the 2 yr old child phase – for the most part we’re screaming, ranting, yelling and wailing. Because we can. For the first time in the history of humanity, we can express ourselves in a way never before possible.

At some point that will evolve. We’re learning new behaviours and how to counter them. In real-life, when someone says something nasty in a group, the others stand up and shut them down. This kind of instant social correction is not possible on the Web unless the gatekeeper of the channel shuts it down, but then everyone suffers, not just the person with improper behaviour.

Just my thoughts, sorry I didn’t jump in on the lie/not lie side of things. I get the point of the post and it is a good question.

There’s definitely something to web anonymity – a bit like the road rage phenomenon.

And we do go through changes at the site, sometimes technology driven, sometimes because the site’s owner wants to make a change. People do get very attached to the way things are, or were. But I don’t think you can ever stay still, particularly in a fast developing (or even emerging) area like online communities. And at the end of the day, in the case you cite, it is one person’s name at the head. Primus inter pares, perhaps.

Traducing 80,000+ people perhaps not the best way of going about that…

two quick points. The press didn’t LIE about those comments, they may have incorrectly attributed comments made elsewhere to the nasty comments made on Richards forum but they didn’t LIE. There has been nothing rational about the vicious and slanderous comments made about Richard Dawkins, a man who has contributed so much to humanity and the sciences.

The vast majority of us acted with restraint, even after our posts started to be deleted and it was made impossible for us to access our archived content on the forum.

The Press has been well and truly caught lying on this one. That is what happens when you misrepresent Rationalists and Free-Thinkers.