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Comment by bobsgame | Hacker News Reader

This is unfortunately rewarding poor behavior with extra attention- it's teaching people that they get better service when they are rude.

In a face-to-face position, this might be a good coping strategy where the confrontation is temporary and unavoidable.

On the web, it's best not to engage with rude users at all, since they will continue coming back and learn to expect attention from negative behavior. Try to only engage with polite and positive users.

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Honestly, when somebody who isn't a subordinate, friend, or direct charge acts like a jerk, I don't think it's worth taking this kind of pedagogical role with regard to etiquette (probably not a good idea in the friends case a lot of time as well). If somebody wants to be a jerk, there are enough providers of goods and services that they'll find one that responds favorably to that. Not to mention that they'll probably rationalize turning them away as the provider being a jerk rather than learning something from it. As DarkTree points out, the provider's response to that behavior is more about managing the provider's quality of life than about shaping customers for the greater good.

Indeed, there should be a dichotomy between real life and the web when using this strategy, but again, I think this strategy is more about increasing your own happiness then it is to diminish theirs.

The principle I think you're hinting at here is one of reinforcing good behaviour and extinguishing bad behaviour, à la Skinner. However, this can only be done over time, with repeated interactions.

The mechanism described in the article doesn't seek to alter the behaviour of the customers, each of whom may never be seen again. Rather, it is a defence mechanism for the employee.

Sometimes it's not possible to just avoid people, even on the web - I worked online customer support for a while and we had to respond to every request. This tactic works well for those types of situations.

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