[Xantar]

Xantar is not real. Neither is Typhoid, BAB or TheGame. They cannot be real by their very nature. I suppose to a certain extent it depends on your definition of "real," so I'll distinguish a bit between social networking sites where you're expected to use your real name and places like GT where you aren't. Here on GameTavern, you are going to act differently than you do in real life. The fact that you are using a pseudonym, that you are interacting by typing on a keyboard instead of speaking out loud and gesturing, that you are interacting with photons coming off an electronic screen instead of a human being's face--it all means that you are different. It's just human nature. There's a reason why people still refer to real life as "real life" and nobody refers to the internet as "real life."

For my part, I draw a bright distinction between the Internet and real life which is why I don't take anything that's said on here personally. The only reason I don't do stuff like reverse my political views or pretend to be a 17-year old girl is that it's way too much work. I don't expect anybody here to be acting the way they do in real life either. To me, it is totally irrational to expect that anybody here resembles their real life persona. I'm sure there are points of comparison most of the time, but it's a totally futile exercise.

As for my style of argument, I think you have to recognize that the goals of debate on the internet are completely different from the goals of face to face debate in real life. When you are having an argument in real life, you are trying to convince the other person to see things your way. Being overly confrontational and saying that the other person lacks basic comprehension skills doesn't accomplish that goal--it only makes them retrench more firmly in their position. On the internet, however, it's more like a public political debate. Your goal isn't to convince the other person of your point of view, and in fact you might as well give up on that idea as a lost cause. Your goal is to state your position as persuasively as you can so that OTHER people reading your posts are more likely to see things your way. And if it so happens that the other person says something stupid and you can point that out in a way that makes it clear to any other reasonable person reading what you're saying, that's totally inbounds.

As for Facebook, I divide people into two broad groups: those who have over 300 friends and those who don't. I'm one of the latter group specifically because I only add people to my friends list if I have met them in person or I have had a long online association with them (at least three years). I'm not trying to make a judgment here. I'm just saying that when your friends list consists entirely of people you know very well, you're going to treat them very differently than a random assortment of faces you've bumped into. It's just human nature.