It just reminds me of people who play online games...like Halo, or CoD...because they dont have to be seen face to face, they will let rip with all there opinions of you, and your mother.

Its annoying, and own right irratating at times, when someone gets up on there holy perch and starts to shout down commands from on high...and gets old quickly.

There is a time and place fo honesty, and, a way to state it...the "Say it as it is" approach, is not always, the best approach

Call me one of the lucky ones, I guess. But I rarely get spam, and each of my friends seems to be specialised in so many varied ways, that I generally ask them for help on anything I need, so there's no need for me to search through the posts by the many, many "Digital Chester"'s out there.

I have been subject to such posts in the past, though.

And while The Escapist does have its share of trolls and Digital Chester's on occasion, it's still a darn sight better than most other places on the interblag.

Konrad Curze:

Here at The Escapist and other similar places, the internet community may be a rose-tinted pot of gold, but out there on the rest of the internet, it's far short of leprechauns and rainbows. Out there it's the goddamn Wild West

*smacks you on nose with rolled up news paper*
NO! Do not say crap like that. We already have a problem with overwhelming and totally unfounded ego without more of that crap spread around. Especially on a topic where you decry obnoxiousness and pretentiousness.
Theres your constructive criticism right there. XD
Yes, I am aware of the partial irony. First one to call me "Chester" gets a kick in the quads.

Kinda On Topic. Yes, after trying to self diagnose myself online and ending up convinced I was gonna die I decided the internet is really just full of fluff.

^Agreed

The problem is people cannot take criticism, and often people are unable to give the right criticism.
But the internet is much like real life and people need to realize that, so many people try to label the net as different, the majority of people on it act little different then they do in real life. Some allow the ghost of anonymity to posses them and to do things they think they cannot be found at fault for...but not the majority.

Its not that bad out there in the net...oh it has its problems but so does real life, there are places you'll find the scum, but no different then real life.

I don't suppose this drunk uncle's full name is Chester A. Bum? It certainly sounds a lot like him.

On topic, I agree with a lot of those sentiments. Most of the internet is a terrible place, GameFAQs and YouTube in particular, which is why I generally restrict my browsing, and especially my posting, to a select few sites which I know are good and reliable. Such as The Escapist, for instance.

I think that the internet has taught me one thing: being a dick rarely makes my circumstances any better than they were before I started being a dick.

Isn't it issue 260?

I'm so confused!

I think it's possible that someone at The Escapist got tired of being told that they need an editor.

It's probably the editor.

Jaredin:
It just reminds me of people who play online games...like Halo, or CoD...because they dont have to be seen face to face, they will let rip with all there opinions of you, and your mother.

Its annoying, and own right irratating at times, when someone gets up on there holy perch and starts to shout down commands from on high...and gets old quickly.

It's called internet balls. basically, when you are on the internet, you have balls big enough to embarrass a pornstar, because, more or less, no matter what you say or do, you are safe in the fact that there is no way for those you're being a being a douche in the general direction of to harm or get back at you in any way. unless you happen to run into the only guy on XBL who actually CAN hack your account...

OT: I guess this is kinda my thoughts on the article too...

i like the escapist so much. Here and gamespot.com are my frequent stops.

I enjoyed your article. I suggest you read Merlin Mann's excellent essay "Better" (here http://www.merlinmann.com/better/). I think it would dovetail well with this article. It is something I read pretty much every week to inspire me and insulate me from the effects of the crap that seems to pervade the net.

Proteus214:
I think that the internet has taught me one thing: being a dick rarely makes my circumstances any better than they were before I started being a dick.

That is an excellent and very quotable point. I have commented.

I ignore my family so I do now know how any Uncles are getting down, but I did read why the first poster was banned.

I agree with a lot of your points there. In fact I was on a thread recently that had its own Chester that proceeded to derail the thread. Thankfully, they probably won't be doing much of that any time soon because this is a very well regulated site.

The Escapist is practically my homepage at this stage- I can't begin to describe how much fun I've had on it.

The one thing I think we should all be aware of, however, is that it is very easy to block out genuine constructive criticism, or misinterpret it as Chester spouting.
That would be one personal criticism of the general idea of policing the threads on any shows or webs series.
Sometimes things don't work for a reason, and if it's pointed out why, then honestly offered opinions shouldn't be tarred with the same brush as the same type of comment coming from the clown typing "U SUK N00B" or some other juvenalia.

To me, the Escapist and its fora are islands of civility in an ocean of douchery.

Long may that endure!

WilliamRLBaker:
The problem is people cannot take criticism, and often people are unable to give the right criticism.

If there was much less of the latter there wouldn't be as many issues with the former.

Konrad Curze:
First one to call me "Chester" gets a kick in the quads.

I'm assuming your father was a Krogan?

On topic just compare the community of Youtube and the Escapist. You get the broad spectrum of people on the internet. Its crazy.

Cool column graphic bro.

I love the internet. I think that if I hadn't been born in the internet age I'd be William Gibson, writing about how the internet is going to be when it's here, you guys just wait, it'll be awesome and then kill you. I prefer that every good opinion has a voice even if it's drowned by thousands of bad ones than if only opinions that match either the majority or the fringe minority, good or bad, are shown.

Plus, shifting through all that garbage to find the right stuff makes you smarter. And more skeptic in the best possible way. Also, everyone knows librarians are sexy!

MissAshley:

WilliamRLBaker:
The problem is people cannot take criticism, and often people are unable to give the right criticism.

If there was much less of the latter there wouldn't be as many issues with the former.

I infact think its about equal, I've met quite a few people that see any criticism or even hint of it as a personal attack.

Really my only problem with all the dickheads on the internet is the fact that there are so many of them, where I hardly ever meet them in real life. This could mean several things, not all of them that bad, but I cannot escape the obvious one, that most people are dickheads in nature and hold it in out of fear of repercussion. In this way internet has managed to slowly turn me into a bloody misanthrope, where I was once hopeful for the future...

You are a smart man mr.Pitts. I have learned from what ive read here.

Russ Pitts:
The internet is like your obnoxious uncle Chester who hasn't held a job for more than a year, lives off disability from having stubbed a toe and owns at least three things that still belong to other people. He's occasionally the life of the party and usually has one or two interesting stories to tell, but let him linger for more than an hour and next thing you know he's drained the punch bowl and sucked all the air out of the room. When he hits that parabolic apex of pleasant drunkenness, right before he begins the downward spiral into intoxicated rage, he almost kind of sounds like he knows something - for about two sentences - but the moment is gone in a flash and anyone who might have been sucked into his toxic maelstrom, lured by the siren song of his temporarily heightened mental state, soon finds themselves trapped in a bottomless pit of illogic and meaningless, directionless ire.

This paragraph is awesome.

It reminds me of me, minus the intoxication.

Like Ben Stiller says in Mystery Men - "I am a ticking time-bomb of rage."

...at The Escapist, where like-minded people with a common interest can meet and share each others' company, discuss the goings on in the world and plan their takeover of the worlds governments for the purpose of establishing a pan-continental, Libertarian World State (okay, that last one is just wishful thinking).

I think what we are coming into now is the next great era of philosophy, the foundation being Johnathan Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. I think sometime, when we bask in the shining light of technology and the juggernaut the is the Internet, we may sometimes forget our humility as compared to parts of the world that are developmentally challenged, and uncle chester serves to remind us all that maybe we're not quite as advanced as we may think. At least not yet.