Something i have noticed on this site!

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Yeah, me too! I have only ever gone off on one thread on here awhile back in defense of someone else. Nothing else I say was intended to be malicious, rude, offensive, etc. If you ever get that from me, feel free to stop me because most of the time if I am being rude, I have nooo clue!

Seriously?

That explains a lot.

"Troll season" LOL.

I heard that somewhere, I think it was at Babycenter or was that here?

Yes, they do.

I agree with this. I typically avoid joining any sort of online community because people online, in general, seem to be horrible people. I mean, go jump in any online game and you'll either get people cussing you out for not doing things exactly their way (even if their way isn't the best way) or people intentionally giving you a hard time (like the guy in little big planet who spent the entire level slapping my character...). The online world today is full of trolls. Being a person who has a tendency to overreact to that kind of thing, I've done my best to avoid conversing online.

But one of the first things I noticed about this place was that there didn't seem to be any significant trolling. No one goes out of their way to be needlessly cruel to others. You come here and you actually converse with rational human beings who don't result to permanently leaving on their caps lock and forming sentences with more swear words than plain English. Sure, there are bad apples everywhere you go, but here the ratio seems to be fairly low. To me, anyway.

Except for a quick stop in to Facebook, I've been away from my social venues on the internet for the past few days. No particular reason worth noting, it was hardly even intentional. Anyway, I read your post because it's yours and had to chuckle. There's four pages of comments already and before I've had a chance to read them, I wonder how many people have commented (or had these thoughts without commenting) wondering if you're talking about them being the not-so-nice aspies. We tend to be a sensitive lot so I could just imagine a bunch of nice people wondering if they'd offended you... and I know that you just don't feel that way about people you know have your best interests at heart.

Anyway, I think the internet is what's the blame for the rudeness phenomena. People let their inhibitions go when they're behind a keyboard and, with a presumed sense of safety and anonymity, they exercise their untapped energy, whether it be positive or negative. Given that most people are not allowed to be negative throughout the day, guess what people tend to do on the internet? I find that physical exercise will release negative energy better than venting or trolling on the internet will do. It's not only my experience but it's also science. The conflict from trolling on the internet only festers more negative energy and it becomes a cycle of abuse for both the negative person and the people s/he is subjecting to the negativity.

It's possible that people with Autism and other psychological conditions may be more susceptible to this behavior because of how much they have to inhibit themselves during the day. It's an additional struggle to remember social cues and behaviors just to fit in and be normal. As we've seen from reading these and other forums, people can get quite upset and fed up with having to do that. On the other hand, neuro-typical individuals are also just as likely to do the same thing. I think there's a misunderstanding that NT = HAPPY and that's just not true. Their depression looks just like our depression, but it's just not clinical. Not all of them are part of the "In Crowd" and not all of them think people with Autism are super creepy. They are actual people, too.

Of course, you also have to consider sociopaths, who can use the internet for a multitude of quick fixes for addiction.

All in all, not being able to know who is who really throws off being able to determine if one group is more likely than another to be rude on the internet.

This is due to the fact that we're all individuals with differing opinions. This isn't bad or good. It just is.

You are making broad generalizations based on sampling people from single comments on what essentially is a public forum.

We each have our distinct personalities, upbringing, culture, levels of empathy etc. Just because somebody sounds nasty in a forum does not mean
a) they are always nasty
b) they are like this in the outside world

People are complex creatures, whether NT or AS. On the flip-side people who are nice on a forum may be nasty the next day or kill their mothers over an argument over the price of eggs.

One thing I will say about WP is the majority of AS posters tend not to respond to questions. This is the opposite of most NT forums or webchats where people are generally enthusiastic to engage. This just may be an AS thing.