Who ARE these people?
Online comment forums create ample opportunity for behavior of such extreme jerkitude that it can drive even the most patient Netizens batty. You know what I'm talking about: The know-it-alls, fight-starters, and doctrinaire zealots who seem to frequent every message board on the entire 'Interwebs', using any and every topic as a springboard for their sociopathic gratification. We've sifted through pages of forum messages to find the most absolutely asinine tactics. So get ready to cringe: On the pages that follow you'll meet our nominees for the 12 biggest jerks of the Web's online forums.

For additional coverage of the jerky and embarrassing demimonde of the Web, check out these stories:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/163734/forumjerk.html

Aros wrote:The trouble I could get into if I were to speak my mind...

13. THE PERVERT.

There are always those lonely souls who crave attention but can't get it by, you know, having anything interesting to say. So they resort to what any person with enough vocabulary and knowledge of Judd Apatow movies could do: create a "dirty old man" shtick and never miss a chance to grace a thread with it. It's not that they aren't sharing real opinions at the same time. They just can't do so without heavily imbibing them with shock-value non sequiturs about how deeply morally decadent they are with the ladies, perhaps (but not always) with just a dash of fake shame/resignation. This way they are recognized as actual contributors, and may actually be amongst the most intelligent wordsmiths of the community. They apparently hope - too often successfully - that if they call enough attention to their brazen licentiousness and show enough wit in doing so, it'll lose its stigma and morph from juvenile to self-accepting cool, securing them an epic reputation amongst the masses. (Obviously, this profile is limited to forums whose mods don't immediately nuke such shenanigans).