How To Deal With Internet Bullies?

creyes123 writes "I run a free website with an online model airplane design calculator. The number of registered users has quickly climbed and I've gotten many compliments. Out of nowhere, a fellow shows up and proceeds to bad mouth the calculator in a posting in one of my forums. After I politely point out that he's mistaken and should have looked at the documentation before posting, he changes the subject and bad mouths a different 'flaw.' The cycle repeats a few more times, with no apparent end in sight. I want to encourage folks to share their opinions, but constructive criticism was clearly not his goal. I feel that the whole episode was just a massive time waster for me. What did I do to deserve this? Could I have handled this better?"

Comments

don't ever try irc

[toby]

Every few months I have a nasty enough experience on irc to send me elsewhere for amusement for a while.

A couple of weeks ago I bumped into a very unpleasant individual on #erlang. Only a few days afterwards the generally abrasive op-clique on #mysql made one too many unnecessarily-rude remarks in my direction, and I decided to get my kicks elsewhere for a while. It's the channel's loss, as I enjoyed helping people there - often while nobody else was around to help.

Generally the sociopaths on irc (or anywhere, really) are Americans. There's some kind of fundamental social training y'all are not getting down there. Until you learn to socialise in a healthy way - I'll avoid you as necessary. HAND.