YooToo can be a DooYoo bully (Frustration with dooyoo)

Member Name: mattygroves10

Product:	Frustration with dooyoo
Date:	22/06/09 (179 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You never see a face

Disadvantages: ...and you are faceless....

Dooyoo. It's fun, isn't it? A place where you can write reviews. You can tell folk how you feel when you find a movie , or a restaurant, or an appliance...is great. Or rubbish. You can warn other consumers about poor products or services, or crow about a service or product that is the bee's knees. On top of that, you can make friends (or at least acquaintances), and become part of a community (to as much of an extent with which you feel comfortable).

Easy enough. As it turns out, not so much. Thing is, people are involved, and groups of people. People (and groups of people) struggle to remain rational, logical, and fair. We care about each other. We form cliques. We take sides. All of us. This means that bulling happens. The internet is a bully's paradise. More to the point, the internet encourages bullying, even amongst people who would probably not be bullies otherwise. Let me explain.

Most of us don't become bullies (or, for that matter, maimers, or murderers and whathaveyou, but that's overegging it a bit) because it would be wrong, of course, but also in part because we care about what people think of us. We care about how they look at us, we become embarrassed when people judge us - we can see their faces and their body language. Over the internet, this is not a problem. We can type (and therefore say) anything we like, with little fear of repercussion or consequences. We play roles; we become people that we'd like to be in real life. Perhaps we forget that we are not necessarily those people, and we forget that behaviour that seems acceptable in print isn't exactly, shall we say, kosher.

Internet bullying seems easy. After all, we (mostly) use pseudonyms. We choose how much we want to give away about our real lives. We choose how much information to divulge. We can therefore become utterly different people (if we so wish). Indeed, there is a famous (amongst long term 'opinionators') example of someone who 'died' (though it turned out to be not so much) to get an amount of attention (and I suppose I'll never quite understand what that was all about).

Bullying is a natural thing (sadly). We hope that schools and workplaces will address the issue, and we hope that even websites such as Dooyoo will do the same. Sadly, schools and workplaces will often ignore bullying when it is convenient to them....and Dooyoo will, it seems, do the same.

Bullies have a method. This includes making the bullied believe that those not part of the bully's clique are mistaken, or wrong or alone. It's a hurtful and painful thing. On the other hand, there will always be people who don't like an individual, or who don't agree, or, indeed, who don't agree with a particular point or stand that an individual makes. Now, that's NOT bullying. That's just disagreeing. It's a fine point.

Clearly, bullying on Dooyoo takes a very different form from 'real life' bullying. It manifests itself in private messages and comments. It is difficult to trace. If it were just that, it would be unpleasant, but certainly nothing to write a bunch of words about. After all, disagreement is not bullying. Or so I thought.

I am a guide - this is clearly not a secret. And, though I have been bullied both in my past and in my fairly recent present, I have not been a victim of the current ...coven, the current controversy. However, I know people who are and have been. Who have received nasty comments and indeed poor rates, though I nor they are worried by 'revenge rates'. There, as an aside, is a wonderful concept. People moan about revenge rates, even when they have not rated a review of the rater. In opinionating circles, a revenge rate is a rate that's given after a poor rate, not just ANY rate lower than a VU, and nasty private messages every time a rater has rated less than very useful.

Dooyoo's Powers that Be are happy to deal with plagiarisers (as they should be). They are happy to deal with those whose written English is...entertaining...at best. They will quickly deal with the folk who write 150 words of product description. But they will not deal with those who attempt to dominate, bully and browbeat people who do not find every word they write a work of genius. Some people find 2000 words of background information on the circumstances of a purchase entertaining. Others don't. Both views are fair. Rating VU is not an 'overrate'...and rating the same review SU isn't a 'revenge rate'. They are both simply rates. Commenting that the review in question is brilliant isn't abuse; neither is commenting (or not) about why the reader found it wanting abuse.

Dooyoo should, in my opinion, understand what community abuse is. They should, by all means, clamp down on copying, on reviews that are totally lacking in any actual opinion and reviews written using utterly shameful English. However, they should not allow a coven of members to gang up on anyone who dares to rate one of the member less than VU. The guides are not an evil bunch, and nor are they a totally united front (this is a good thing - we agree on the basics; not always on the details, and that's how it should be.) Comments, ratings and private messages threatening members should not be acceptable. About Me statements designed to be incendiary should be...re-thought. Dooyoo is, ultimately, about making money for Dooyoo. I am fully aware that I am not one of Dooyoo's most profitable members. Still, if Dooyoo want to go for some of the more...entertaining suggestions (my personal favourite being that guides should be 'diplomatically' elected), they'll go the same way as Ciao.com. And we all know how well that went.

Summary: Bullying is no better online than it is in real life. And rating U is not revenge.