I think what happens sometimes on internet forums is that some people come on the boards and they talk all cool, tough, know it all etc etc, because that is easy to get away with on an anonymous internet board...but the thing is, real things happen on these boards, real s*** goes down that affect people's lifes, and the reality of who you are can come out when you do not want it to, either because you have been trying to hide that part of yourself, or because parts of yourself have been exposed that you did not know where there, so your whole approach to the board has to change.
I know i have almost walked from forums before, sometimes because of stuff that i have done, sometimes because of stuff done to me.
But if you have ****ed up gloriously on a forum, you have to come to terms with it, and realise that the way you presented yourself before will not work anymore, and I think some people will have a hard time with that, because they are so used to presenting themselves as a cool, no-nonsense, tough person who is beyond reproach and honorable etc etc, in other words, the way they *want* themselves to be, as opposed to who they really are.
I know I have had to do this when coming back to boards after ****ing up, and other people are going to have to learn to do that themselves too.
because you have to earn back people's trust, and that can take a long time, whether you have ****ed up by being inconsiderate and selfish, or whether you gave been lying to people and doing things behind their backs.
I've seen it happen before, and things change on the forum for good, that's what happens in real life, and that's what happens on forums like this, because as I said, real serious things go on, and the fallout from these things cannot be avoided, or can be swept under the carpet.