Trolls, or trolling behaviour ...how do we deal with these isues as an online community?

My opinion? Msolga continues to respond to them, very reasonably...on and on and on and on. They adore her.

for the most part i tend to go by the author of the thread, i try not to get to out of hand in a thread where i respect or like the author (unless the thread has gone it's own way, like soz's obama thread)

i sniped at jtt in walter's viking thread a couple of times and then left, because the subject interested me and i didn't want to derail it to any great extent

OK, I hear everyone. We use the tools that are currently available, ie the "ignore" option. I guess that's "it", the available tool?

Me, I abhor bullying behaviour in "real life". I think it's extremely cowardly. Maybe I have trouble separating my online expectations of behaviour from what I think is unreasonable to put up with in "real life"?

i'm waiting to see if this guy comes back today (seems to only post on sundays)

he disappeared after i turned the tables on him and didn't argue the point

http://able2know.org/topic/142796-1

looks like he once posted more regularly, but the last few weeks only on sunday

I think it happens a lot in real life too Msolga.

There can be some sanctions for that sometimes in real life (often not, in reality)...here the only one is ignore. I think it reasonable to back someone up here, as in real life, but on the whole ignore's it here.

And (and not to sound flip about this), don't make such vows.

Really.

I find it absurd (not picking on you, you aren't the only person who's rather vocally vowed not to put people on ignore) that people will make a big fuss about the fact that they don't ignore people. Or that they fuss about the fact that they do, that they're putting someone on ignore (sending them to Coventry, I like that expression). Look, I'm putting you on Ignore! See, I'm ignoring you! Look, everybody, at the fine model of ignoring I am! I am an ignoring machine!

Ignore, or not, as you wish.

No one knows who I ignore or if I ignore anyone at all.

Not their business, and I am not confessional enough to tell them.

As for moderator intervention, that stopped long ago. The site is far too large, the number of non-super-busy moderators is far too small, the pool of potential new moderators is even smaller and, most importantly, it's not the way we want the community to roll. Even if we had a moderator for every member, we would not wish to be as heavy-handed as that. We are pushing this community in the direction of more freedom. Freedom, I think you'll agree, tends to be a good thing, yes? I mean, honestly. What are my tastes, beliefs, biases and requirements amidst a sea of over 100k posters? Probably a very, very small minority view most of the time. Are you asking for me to impose them on a lot of people who probably don't want such an imposition? The users are grown-ups. I suspect they can make their own determinations in such areas, without my help.

We are not going to come in and rescue posters from themselves. As I said, you're all adults here. You have tools. Use 'em. If posters have painted themselves into corners where they've vowed not to use perfectly reasonable tools, moderators will not swoop in and rescue them from their own painted corners and vows.

I periodically put a couple of posters on ignore. Depends on where I am re threads at the moment. Other times, I thumb down a thread to avoid trollish behavior. There are a few members I have on permanent ignore, but I peek at most of their responses on certain threads. When I took one certain member off ignore, I thumbed down the atheism thread.

I think about this too, MsO. And I can think of nothing more than ignoring them en mass. Of course that will never happen because someone will always respond.

I don't think there's much to do beyond ignoring the trolls and then moderate your own threads with requests to the troll trollers to cease and desist when they show up, and to everyone else to not quote the trolls.

Hopefully most folks will respect the wishes of the thread initiators and the derailment(s) will be short-lived if not given a lot of attention.

How about establishing a Troll of the Week award.
or how about Trash a Troll week. or, who is your favorite Troll and why?

Think about the history of A2K trolls - I can remember several over the years.

And the common thread is, they got starved out and eventually stop coming.

Just refuse to engage. But it's a group effort as well, so give gentle reminders to others to refuse to engage too.

Cycloptichorn

I find that booze brings out the troll in a lot of people.

I also think this is true. Alcohol is funny stuff - it takes whatever you are down deep, and exaggerates it.

Cycloptichorn

C'mon dude

Cycloptichorn

ms. olga :
since this is a public forum , every poster is permitted to post whenever and whatever s/he feels like - without regard to the actual topic/discussion .

it's like having several dozen people standing on soapboxes in hyde park and shouting whenever they feel like it .
you either shout too , stroll through hyde park and look at the trees , or leave hyde park alltogether ... those are the only options imo.

( i usually just look at the trees now - that's the easiest for me . i'm not not ready to leave the park yet . )

you could try to find a select group of people to discuss a certain subject by invitation . you could all agree to not stray off the topic and also agree not to respond to any other poster ... ... but someone will likely break the code of " sending others to coventry " and start responding to a troll - game over .

you can also use pm's to only exchange ideas with a select group - a tedious process , no doubt .

you are still allowed to vent , though - for the time being .

the latter.

and truth has nothing to do with it.

nobody elected you the speaker for men.



for a very good reason...

Are you saying trolling has sexual implications or did you wake up with a hard on