wonkywanker wrote:possibly because they have been branded as failures by their wider society and the only way to gain status is through alternative means, thus causing disruption and being deviant to whatever extent is valued highly, gaining a high status. It is also a way of hitting back at the society that branded them failures.
also bear in mind that if people didn't constantly do these things and 'attack' there would be little need to build a defence against it so when a rare occurence does happen it would destroye much more than one site.
And then theres other pychological reasons that i can not explain fully, such as 'power trips'
maybe a little sign on the homepage saying, 'all welcome regardless of status' might prevent those who are follwing this deviant subculture from causing havoc on this site.
Sorry did you ask for a sociological explanation? lol
Dude, no offense but.. You're booksmart. We do welcome everyone who is willing to adhere to a certain ettiquette of very basic respect and tolerance. And I do know from my own experience (i.e. I used to be an asshole) that if you can't summon that self-control and social competence it's not just your fault. You have to pull out of it yourself, but getting into it can be a matter of circumstance. If you want someone to feel welcome, you welcome him. You don't put up a signpost and discuss his psychology. It's insulting.
How many psychotherapists does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one. But the lightbulb really has to want to change.
I don't mean to bash you, but even if you do have a professional background of psychology... You have to understand that fending off threats and random hackers and worms is our daily business and we can't just change them all so they become better people. What we can do is make our server more secure and we did that. That's it and that's why I'll close this topic at this point. I hope you agree. There are more important and interesting threads going on right now.
EDIT: Thread reopened. I was pointed out to me that closing it seemed a little like using my power as admin to silence uncomfortable opinions. In fact I just think that these threats aren't big deal, so I didn't want to hold a huge discussion about them.
EDIT2: Thread closed after normal duration.
