re neighbourhood whatsapp groups

[Toomanythalias]

I've been on several in the last few years (neighborhood watch, residents association etc) but always ended up leaving them because, after a few months of everyone communicating politely and helpfully, invariably one or two smartarses come along making rude, patronising remarks; or sneering at someone's posts; or just very obviously trying to pick fights with people. The whole tone of the chat group then becomes tense and unpleasant, the sensible and polite people stop posting and it just descends into bickering and arguing.

AIBU to wonder why some people cannot seem to engage on any kind of online type group without becoming rude and argumentative?

when you have a face-to-face conversation, if you make a rude comment, you'll see everyone frown and (should) learn to shut up. on whatapp or any online forum, you don't get those little bits of feedback from the face. so the rude people keep being rude, and the nice quiet people slink away (no one sees them frowning and shaking their heads in despair) and you get left with two rude people in a pointless argument and some tumbleweed.

that's one of the reasons online conversations via text are often more polarised and lead to misunderstandings. humans are built for face-to-face conversation and that works much better.

That's true. It's just so frustrating when a WhatsApp group that could be so helpful and useful to a community is spoiled by one or two annoying idiots trying to put everyone else down; or picking on some comment made and twisting it to try and make the person posting sound bad. They invariably end up bullying people off the group and causing others to leave because the whole tone of the group has become so unpleasant.

if a group has a strong moderator who is prepared to boss people about a bit and keep the rude ones in order, then it can work. but it is a difficult job and pretty thankless too.