Heartland

Love this blog post from a couple of years ago (in response to the shameful gamergate situation).

How to Kill a Troll by Erin Kissane
http://incisive.nu/2012/how-to-kill-a-troll/

Echoes lots of my own opinions on how online communities should be run, and how this place is run.

Happily, it also seems to chime nicely with how every member on here self-polices the forum. A community is only as good as it's members.

x 25000

I'll drink to that

Should be a Sticky in "Announcements" really

IZ.

Have had a troll launch a vendetta against the magazine recently, even to the extent of faking Twitter accounts and copying and pasting official tweets (i.e. from me) onto his (and it tends to be a 'he') fake account. You can if you use a capital I to represent an small L have an identical looking twitter account to an existent one. When I discovered this and pointed out how illegal it was lots of people sprang to his defence in the name of artistic freedom. Which was predictable and sad. I wonder what trolls did before the internet was invented?

They were just bullies in real life. Probably from the playground upwards.

Ignore is hard, especially when it starts to effect your business, customers, personality etc., so take whatever remedial action you feel in cyber space. But ignore is the best friend the Internet ever invented.

I'd agree that trolls are generally bullies, plain and simple.

Also, "do not feed the trolls" is actually bad advice (one source) it won't work and is actually counter-productive.

And... trolls' understanding of the phrase "freedom of speech" is simplistic at best; all it means is that the government won't (usually) lock you up for saying something. It doesn't mean that we're obliged to provide a free platform for other people's hate-speech.

markfiend wrote: And... trolls' understanding of the phrase "freedom of speech" is simplistic at best; all it means is that the government won't (usually) lock you up for saying something. It doesn't mean that we're obliged to provide a free platform for other people's hate-speech.

Obligatory XKCD strip ^^

Haha well indeed. For once I forgot an xkcd... although it would appear that I was subconciously summarising it

markfiend wrote:Haha well indeed. For once I forgot an xkcd... although it would appear that I was subconciously summarising it

Haha, I actually thought you were referring to it!

markfiend wrote:Also, "do not feed the trolls" is actually bad advice (one source) it won't work and is actually counter-productive.

I agree. For minor occurrences, ignoring might be the right choice, especially in a forum where several members do not speak English as their first language. But when a certain line is crossed, there has to be an unmistakable reminder of that line (and at best some clear hints from the community as well). Everybody who is really interested in discussing a topic and reaching a result will surely adjust their behaviour then. Those who won't are obviously pursuing other goals.

markfiend wrote:And... trolls' understanding of the phrase "freedom of speech" is simplistic at best; all it means is that the government won't (usually) lock you up for saying something. It doesn't mean that we're obliged to provide a free platform for other people's hate-speech.

Plus they fail to grasp that any internet platform is a dictatorship not a democracy and you don't have freedom of speech.* If the host/owner decides that he/she is unhappy with what you're saying then they have the right to ban you.



* Unless you're the host/owner, but then responsibility comes into play.

Dan wrote:

markfiend wrote:And... trolls' understanding of the phrase "freedom of speech" is simplistic at best; all it means is that the government won't (usually) lock you up for saying something. It doesn't mean that we're obliged to provide a free platform for other people's hate-speech.

Plus they fail to grasp that any internet platform is a dictatorship not a democracy and you don't have freedom of speech.* If the host/owner decides that he/she is unhappy with what you're saying then they have the right to ban you.



* Unless you're the host/owner, but then responsibility comes into play.

The thing with any form of freedom it will and always should come with conditions. You can have freedom to opinionated but when that speech starts to cross the line in to being hateful then you have to accept that there can be consequences. Then there is the point where the speech itself ceases to be an opinion and becomes an incitement to violence or similar, that is not in my opinion using freedom of speech it is provocation. With anything in life things have to be balanced your freedom that you hold so high may and in many cases will impinge on another freedom. Besides any place like this as Dan says is subject to the top persons rules and what they say goes.

the proof of the pudding is in the eating...take a look around you here: no trollish behaviour at the minute, and most often never. thats not to say we dont get it now and again but we must be doing something right.

eastmidswhizzkid wrote:the proof of the pudding is in the eating...take a look around you here: no trollish behaviour at the minute, and most often never. thats not to say we dont get it now and again but we must be doing something right.

Yup. It is so noticable just how decent heartlanders are compared to some others - we are so fortunate

eastmidswhizzkid wrote:the proof of the pudding is in the eating...take a look around you here: no trollish behaviour at the minute, and most often never. thats not to say we dont get it now and again but we must be doing something right.

thanks lee

i've always believed a community takes it's queues from the behaviour and attitudes of it's "leaders", which is why i've always ensured we have decent, level headed mods

also, i think sisters fans tend naturally towards being a bit more...well... better than everyone else due to our impeccable music tastes