I just think that, in hindsight, so much of the world looks “obvious” to us. But it’s also used as a way to second guess our decisions in the face of the imperfect information we almost always have at the time of an incident.

As an expert in online communities then, you know how *none* of this is black and white and as clear-cut as it may look in hindsight. We can’t know people’s real intentions no matter what their words. Psychologists even in real-world, face-to-face situations are *horrible* (e.g., no better than chance) at predicting a person’s future behaviors.

In terms of managing someone who’s behaving irrationally, I don’t know… That’s all of us from time to time in our lives. Should the police be called everytime someone acts “irrationally”? And who’s to make that judgment call about what’s irrational? Slippery slope and all that.

Sorry for the misattribution, I was reading it as it was originally quoted in your article and I’ve edited my entry to reflect that.

And yes, the money comment was Matthew Murray’s, not mine. I don’t agree with him at all, and submit that the irrational bias in that remark is just another pointer to the spiral he was in.

At any rate, I am an expert in online communities after 12 years of managing them. The questions I posed specifically related to the age-old question of how to manage someone who is clearly irrational when the venue is electronic with distance and identity barriers. Sorry if you read it as anything else.

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it’s so funny how many people want to help you and love you and counsel you and “work with you through your pain” when there’s money involved……
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Matthew Murray, the shooter, was the one that originally said that…