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Apr 19
2010
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Mumbrella Bully
Mumbrella Bully - strange heading eh? In a recent post on Digital Citizens Tim Burrowes (@mumbrella) mused that he thought Laurel Papworth (@silkcharm) was trying to rank for that phrase in their ongoing, online very public spat.Without going into the very boring, tedious, time sapping details on what the feud is about, it's a dangerous thing to do in a social media world.
Back in the late 90's I used to do a daily tech news vid that was syndicated to all the major portals at the time. It received about 50,000 views per month. Those numbers were easy back then as there was not much other video around online. Especially not Aussie content. I regularly used to lambaste, harangue, criticise & insult others whom I thought were making dumb decisions for the Aussie IT industry.
I'm older & hopefully less stupid now. I regularly unfollow people on twitter whose streams are constantly negative or whingeing all the time. I even check prospective employees attitudes via twitter. Yes I twitterstalk them. I'm not interested bringing in staff with negative attitudes or a history of whining about their current employer.
I understand more than most how quickly flame wars can start (as I've started a few). These days I save my public derision for Politicians. I'm not saying you have to be something you're not online but you may want to consider dividing your personality into different Twitter accounts if you are prone to public grumpiness. I look at it a bit like black hat SEO. I don't have any moral qualms with it. We just don't do it here because it would mean dumping our domains & IP once Google discovered what we were up too. The same could be said for Twitter. Your tweets precede you & leave an impression in people's minds. Rightly or wrongly.
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written by Web Marketing, May 21, 2010
Web Marketing
While it's interesting to note that the semantic web has become a place to rant and boast, people are also behaving like toddlers; griping, moaning, name calling etc. Shamefully online, people appear to have lost their sense of propriety and the manners that come with that.
I agree that there is a need to divide your online social communications between personal and work persona's. I even split mine down to interests. Being focused in a particular stream allows you to show your passion off appropriately in the right communities. It also keeps others interested in what you have to say without the clutter of mixed messages.
I have seen a number of online spats, and like you was once - in my early days online - lured into a small fray. It was inconsequential and witnessed by a mere handful of Bloggers, but I learned to walk away from childish and deliberately inflammatory jibes by being polite. In the case you have mentioned in this post, I'm sure that it has lessened the professional respect of both parties in the eyes of others.
Perhaps there is a need to educate on the etiquette of online behaviour, even amongst established online professionals?