When I first started messing around with online social aggregators/messageboards, I almost immediately fell prey to what I've come to call the Ring of Gyges effect, wherein I became a bigger asshole online than I was in real life, because I didn't feel accountable for my responses/online actions. I mean, I didn't go around all killing kings and raping queens, but I definitely said some shitty things to people in ways that I wouldn't have in real life. Eventually, I interacted with some people online that I really admired, realized that they got their points across while maintaining a civil tone to anybody and everybody, re-read what I'd said to others, realized what a terrible person I'd projected into the digital world, and devised an online code of conduct for myself to avoid further embarrassments.
I currently go out of my way to make sure I don't mistreat others online to a point at which I've actually become nicer as a digital creation than I am in real life. If I disagree with a point, I take pains to present my argument in non-judgmental terms; if I really can't stand somebody's POV, I refrain from saying anything at all. I reach out to people I wouldn't otherwise in everyday life and try to make sure that everybody comes out of interactions happy. I swear a lot less. A whole lot less. I've decided that the best protection from becoming all id online is to let the super-ego take over as much as possible (Only exception being when I get really bored at night, drink six fingers of Kirkland brand bourbon and start asking myself questions on Hubski).
As an offshoot, I'm not only nicer online, but a whole lot duller. Given that my real life sense of humor relies heavily on the holy trinity of sarcasm, cynicism and irony, and that those very qualities hold within them way too much potential for misinterpretation online, where plain text tends to strip the proper tones and inflections from our thoughts, I've decided to avoid that tack altogether. Which means I come off more often than not as alternately humorless, cheeseball, and self-important. In real life, I like to think that I'm only self-important, but fucking hilariously so when it counts.
Oh, right, #askhubski generally includes a question. Question: how does the internet shape your persona? Are you a better person here than in real life? Harsher? Exactly the same? I find myself wondering about everybody within every interaction that I have online. Am I interacting with them really, or am I interacting with the delicate architecture that they've constructed to idealize themselves, broadly summarize themselves, debase themselves or otherwise mislead their audience for their or their audience's purposes? Who are you, really?
NB: quick assurance to everybody I've talked with here: none of this is to say that I smile through my teeth at you online and then shit on you in real life. I mean everything I say here, and I genuinely enjoy interacting with you all; I just make sure that I limit the things that I say here to the nicer side of my thought process, as I don't feel like the world needs any more carelessly malicious blather. It's shitty enough to subject your good friends to your rotten side; it's arguably way worse to throw it at strangers who can't pull it from your greater context and may or may not know what to do with it.