NACutie...
helping you score.

6/14/01: Online Etiquette.

With the advent of the Internet, it is no longer necessary to attend tournaments to find quizbowlers behaving like jackasses. And while I hate to bite the hand that reads me, I fear that people are even more asinine online than they are at tournaments. Maybe it's Internet Persona Disorder, maybe they feel safer flaming others from the privacy of their own squalor, or maybe the nastiest dinosaurs only come out to play on the Internet these days. But it's unpleasant, and it really ought to stop. With that in mind...

Digital Decorum.

1.  I'm not your girlfriend; I don't want to be your girlfriend. Stop it..
1a. I don't want to cyber with you either.
1b. Seriously, leave me the fuck alone.
1c. I mean it.  Cut it out.  I can kick your ass in real life.

2. A conversation on the Internet does not constitute an invitation to meddle in somebody's 
personal affairs. It is best to keep your mouth shut, but if you can't manage that, don't be 
surprised if people get mad at you when they discover that half the circuit knows the minutiae 
of their social lives.
2a. Similarly, if you tell somebody "most of the people on your team are a bunch of losers, but 
I guess you're okay", don't be shocked when the rest of the team finds out.

3.  If you insist upon turning every conversation online into an opportunity to expound your 
personal political, sexual, social, intellectual, theological, culinary, transcendental, hypothetical, 
theoretical, heuristic, mimetic, titular, or pneumatic views, people aren't going to want to talk to you 
much. They may want to mock you, but that's different.
3a.  Make sure you can tell the difference.

4.  If your behaviour online makes people avoid you in real life, you're probably doing 
something wrong. (But thank you all for the forewarning.)
4a. If your online behaviour drives young women away from quizbowl, you're certainly doing
something wrong.  Stop it.

5.  If you've somehow managed to find a significant other through quizbowl, but the relationship 
has since soured, you will only lessen your chances for future quizbowl mating success by bitching 
about your ex for years after the breakup.

6. When one is declared a tightass in a public forum, immediately posting an eight point response does not do much to dispel that notion.

7. And speaking of posts... posting anonymously? Fucking cowardly.

Just a note... since PACE is this weekend, it would behoove those who will be in attendance to read the first post, that regarding Penn Bowl. I will only add this rule: Staff plus student equals ass of constant sorrow. Not to mention possible statutory rape.

Again, email me, with your comments, complaints, and meatloaf recipes.

NACutie is in no way affiliated with NAQT, apart from the occasional sectional. NAQT is a registered service mark of the National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC.