Good Internet Citizenship is Engaging With Others

Conversational NormsA common feature of bad conversations is when person1, call them Jesse, is obviously not listening to what person2, call them Celine, is saying and doesn’t even attempt to engage. Sure, Jesse may be nodding his head and mhm-ing along, but he definitely isn’t listening and even if he was, he wouldn’t care; he’s crafting the next few sentences that very well still could’ve been formed had Celine just stayed quiet the entire time.This type of conversational selfishness creates a terrible environment: imagine if everyone was a Jesse, ignoring their counterparts and speaking at them instead of with them. There would never be any actual conversations, only one-way noise and impatence while waiting for the other person to finish. This phenomena is precisely why self-promotion should be quarantined and strictly moderated in large communities. It can quickly and easily get out of hand since one-off defections pay well in a place where traffic is at minimum due to quality…