If you make a topic I will post there tomorrow but name it something proper, not just "Wanderer and eRe4s3r talk about social interactions on the web"
Just to not end this without a reply, that are good points and very interesting to know.... and now a big .. wall of text
I consider a forum conversation to be just the same as a number of personalities sitting down around a table having a conversation with a CCTV hooked up for everyone in the hallway, with the door unlocked. I try to treat it the exact same way as I would if the person I'm about to piss off was right there able to take a swing at me, or how badly I'd feel if I made them cry in person. Personas and the view you take removes that from most people, including me. It's one step away from the anonymous of 4chan. I don't want TOGO to become my primary internet experience, I spend far too much time in the interwebs for that to be my approach.
I consider forum conversations like a flowing river with personas floating by, your avatar defines how I see you, i throw stones with scribbles in (posts), (the river is the topic), others pick them up and walk with them and then throw 2 or 3 scribbled stones in further down the river that then get picked up by others, or me. That is how my conversation style goes, I do not expect specific replies and
i positively hate when people quote 1 sentence and reply to it specifically. You either
pick a stone or you don't. (Even though I quoted just your paragraph, I am really replying to your post as such, but it gets kinda cluttered if I'd quote all separately)
But as for seeing personas as humans. You would find me a stone. You would have to do something extremely hardcore to make me even
care as a human (anymore). To me, personas are digital lifeforms. Puppets yes, but still more or less independent from their puppeteer. You can make me care if it's a topic that I feel strongly about, but on a gaming forum those are like, non existent. And equally I am active on the intertubes and I find that any other approach makes me care too much. And that is never healthy to a conversation, at least in my case. I won't deny that I can be made to care, but as far as most web topics go.. nah. I can sleep soundly after all discussions ^^
And as I am freelance artist and all my art is under eRe4s3r I have it easier I guess. Never a need to be "me" on the web. But my persona gets all the credits, it's how I want it to be. Anyway, If you want to, please make a topic relating to this, it ought to be interesting
It's true that dispersonification of personas can lead to trolling and flame wars, but I hope I never cross into that. If I do, tell me
Anyway, if you want, quote my wall-of-text in the new topic