Dr Andus wrote:

I would suggest we develop a protocol for dealing with trolls. 1) How to identify a
troll; 2) How to deal with trolls; 3) how to protect freedom of speech; 4) how to protect
members against accusations of trolling.

The wikipedia entry does a reasonable
job of defining trolling:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29

For those who don't have the time to read it or haven't had experience with trolls, here are some key quotes:

a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

"Trolls aspire to violence, to the level of trouble they can cause in an environment. They want it to kick off. They want to promote antipathetic emotions of disgust and outrage, which morbidly gives them a sense of pleasure."

The troll attempts to pass as a legitimate participant, sharing the group's common interests and concerns.

Trolls can be costly in several ways. A troll can disrupt the discussion on a newsgroup, disseminate bad advice, and damage the feeling of trust in the newsgroup community.

Troll protocols exacerbate trolling. (Anytime a protocol can be used as a weapon by anyone, even good users have succumbed to it as a way to shut down the opposing party using the least ethical evidence possible and of course if the opposing party provides counter evidence, then who fired first wins setting aside an advantage by one party over the other.)

Wikipedia have also succumbed to trolling before. See history of competing wikis such as Citizendium.

This doesn't mean the idea of a protocol is bad but if we're talking about some of the basic things that have been discovered throughout online communities' popularity is that weapon capable protocols are extremely unproductive. Especially label protocols.

Especially troll protocols as troll can mean very broad things (but any broad label/positive or negative/ has lead to worse communities long term) For an outlining community who should be familiar about outliners, this is a huge stepback from the basic solutions provided by argument maps which partly solved the issue precisely because of outlining rather than broad labelling.

Once again, if you want a protocol, it's common enough in most forums but just don't make it a troll protocol and try to be as reductive as possible. The less broad it is, the less future long term headache it will open up.

Hi.

What I find difficult for a protocol is to take the definition from Wikipedia:

>The wikipedia
entry does a reasonable
>job of defining
trolling:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29

For those
who don't have the time to read it or haven't had experience with trolls, here are some
key quotes:

a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic
messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary
intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting
normal on-topic discussion.

"Trolls aspire to violence, to the level of trouble
they can cause in an environment. They want it to kick off. They want to promote
antipathetic emotions of disgust and outrage, which morbidly gives them a sense of
pleasure."

How could somebody (except for the troll) really KNOW what the troll's intentions are?

What I find more suitable is "labeling" someone a troll depending on what he/she does:

* Attack others. Defame others. Use offensive language.
* Often write posts that are off-topic.
...

Franz

Franz Grieser wrote:

How could somebody (except for the troll) really KNOW
what the troll's intentions are?

Well, sure, probably not even the troll knows...

What I find more suitable is "labeling" someone a
troll depending on what he/she does:

* Attack others. Defame others. Use offensive
language.
* Often write posts that are off-topic.

it's probably more like a process of diagnosis on the basis of the symptoms. I was just trying to give some examples of the behaviour as described in Wikipedia (I didn't include the references but there some).

BTW, Wikipedia is just a medium. Whether a particular entry is of high or low quality depends on how it was put together and by who (just like a scientific paper).

As one who has been following this forum for years, but posts infrequently at best....

Brevity is a key to effective communication. A clear, brief comment is far more effective than several paragraphs.

It always antagonizes people to ascribe a motive to them, and "call them out" for those assumed motives. Even if you're right about their motive, which is rare. Respond to the content, not to what you believe is the motive.

How could somebody (except for the troll) really KNOW what the troll’s intentions are?

Analysis and history of trolls. It's circular logic to any poster who've experienced trolls before plenty of times.

This and the above are unanimous similar method of troll detections. There's even the classic flame warriors list of profiles which go into much more in-depth categorization than wikipedia's albeit in a tongue in cheek manner.

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/

What I find more suitable is “labeling” someone a troll depending on what he/she does:
* Attack others. Defame others. Use offensive language.
* Often write posts that are off-topic.

It's very rare for trolls to really deviate nowadays from their profile and in cases where they do, the after effects are much obvious. Forum destruction. Forum invasion. Member recruitment. Arson. Personal crusade. DDOS attack. Spam. Even these have their own patterns.

The problem with why these tried and true definitions continue to fail is once again the broad stick.

For example, what is an attack? This leads to mob vs. mob accusations of who attacked whom. The after effect leading to more future paranoia which lead to more knee jerk reactions.

Defamation is up there with slander. In the internet, people that are the ones calling for such an accusation are often trolling and troll baiting through the use of flames.

Offensive language. Trolls don't use offensive language. Trolls goad others to utter offensive languages. In cases where a troll is using offensive language, it is often because the troll knows he can hide behind a group.

Often writes off-topic post. Everyone does it and every person can deviate from it.

In fact even if this were to be the method of labelling a troll, far superior profiles have been done on the same issue elsewhere around web.

Instead of attacks, logical fallacies are used to reduce the broadness. In cases where a community is wise enough to even reduce further, accepting that logical fallacies could also be used by trolls, statements like dropping the subject is done with topic makers being given the ultimate benefit of the doubt and as Cassius said, posters simply being tasked to ignore the thread maker. People who breach beyond this are then categorized as trolls. This leads to the classic issue where if you can't play nice, don't play together at all.

Instead of defamation, most arbitration deal with contrast. That is to say, defamers are analyzed from the criteria of how they interact with other posters or the same posters in neutral settings. In cases where the contrast is the issue, the topic is treated as the problem and not any actual trolling where as if a poster attacks two posters using the same accusations and the same pattern of insult, then they are labeled a troll and judged as one.

Offensive language is treated on a case by case basis. Often the importance is on whether the callers for offensive language are offended by a word or by a post. In cases where it is the word, the word is changed/censored. In cases where it is the post, the moderation goes to whether the recipient is the one offended or whether others are calling for the head of a victim. The first scenario being the one that is actually considered trolling.

Finally all these, including off-topic posts, are analyzed from the stance of where the argument started as opposed to where the argument is ongoing. This is actually almost the better method most of the time rather than assigning arbitrary tags of when an off-topic post has gone too far because most trolls destroy the line on the root and then use the subsequent extended off-topic trail as cover ups or ways to goad.

Of course these are extremely unique forum to forum considering the number of communities around the internet but almost any neutral to good forum applies most of the above ways to deal with trolls regardless whether it is protocol or not. Troll behaviour is so old that in other forums this idea of labelling trolls would not lead to much anywhere but as a haven for trolls themselves to invest. If there's one thing that separates trolls from provocative posters today it is that most professional trolls stick to their bee's nest and when they move out of the group, they rely less on trolling tactics (setting aside joke trolls) but on the paranoia of others to goad people to accuse each other as trolls if only because these allows them to use less informed posters as pawns.

That's why concern troll got it's own section in the Wikipedia article I assume. The idea itself is very old and in terms of notability and damage, things such as astroturfing are way deserving of their own section but more and more trolls don't play to be provocative. They play to goad. They know that the more they do this the more acceptable trolling sentences can be and the more they can reduce the chance of having their cover blown.

Here's a few sentences showing how these long term effect have memefied into internet culture:

-popcorn eating (even in modern forums there used to be a time when this was considered flame baiting/in fact the implication is that posters are going to be helpless to stop trolling so they should just enjoy it)

-posting I'm sorry I didn't read your post cause so and so (again text book flame baiting mixed with a disguised soft insult that have been memefied as normal joke posts)

-posting cool story bro (an example of positive goading/once again a textbook disguised troll phrase memefied into acceptable statements)

Each of these examples can be categorized under "posting for the lulz/lols". Something that even in the pre-meme/imageboard modern forum days (as opposed to bbs and usenet) would often be rarely stated because of how they are obvious troll detectors. Today troll culture have made these statements become acceptable replies to waste a reply message box for precisely because trolls no longer/was never held down by protocols with such broad strokes. Even the profiles above are merely pickings for a true professional troll. (That is to say a true individual/minority group that rely less on mob appeal and more on their own tricks to survive banning including playing games of hide and seek with posters they think are easily provoked.)

Ray Cosner wrote:

Respond to the content, not to what you believe is
the motive.

And sometimes the best response is no response. I agree that we can ask for civil behavior in the forum, but sometimes it is just best to ignore posts that do not violate fourm rules, but are not worthy of discussion. Just a thought for consideration.

--Ken

Ken wrote:

And sometimes the best response is no response. I agree that we can ask for civil
behavior in the forum, but sometimes it is just best to ignore posts that do not violate
fourm rules, but are not worthy of discussion. Just a thought for
consideration.

I agree. I have just made my last attempt to talk reason to the irrational.

I do quite like the "mute" or "block" idea so that individual members can hide spammy or trollish members. I think this will allow everyone to cut down the noise for themselves without me having to do any heavy-handed moderation. And I'll also forget about a post length limit, since it's true that it won't stop the problem and will only inconvenience reasonable people. I'd rather err on the side of too loose rather than too strict, and provide tools for members to control their experience.

Thanks everyone for the ideas! I will put together a prioritized list, based on ease of implementation and number of requests; i.e., the easier items that are also the most requested will be tackled first since that's the low-hanging fruit.

Chris

Nice try: The person whom others on this forum refer to as a troll tries to define what/who a troll is.

Thanks for the laugh, Foolness.

Franz

Franz Grieser wrote:

Nice try: The person whom others on this forum refer to as a troll tries to define
what/who a troll is.

Thanks for the laugh, Foolness.

Franz

That's what neutral people do. It's the same theme I used on Alexander for what I mean by expert intentions in that other thread.

You care about the who. You care about winners and losers. Victims and what you define as victimized. Trys and nice trys.

I care only about a forum whom I have assumed was a good forum.

In fact, had I not posted prior posts that fuel your anger, you would not have called me out by name. You know why? Because unlike others who dictate as you said "a specific target". A neutral person would be focused on fixing protocol, not posters. It doesn't matter who he is and who his opponents think he is. It's about discussing the solution.

Foolness, please keep your post brief and to the point. We are not getting any younger, you know.

It is brief but that is the Big Lie in every post-length hatred mob as if you point out one factor, they will jump towards the factor that it isn't length but rambling, if you point out their own faults then they will try to jump to the length discussion and if they cannot they will try to jump towards simplifying something without seemingly simplifying a section and go to the opposite extreme of cherry picking it.

I don't say this to continue a new ongoing argument but merely to point out to you the obvious. A person who isn't willing to be brief does not even try to make one of these:

If this reply is too long, please use your browser find in page and type in “(mediummediummedium)” for medium length and >“(shortshortshort)” for a direct but sorely lacking in details reply. If you want to go to the extreme, (extremeextremeextreme) >leads to the one paragraph section but it’s not the last part of the post which is why you need this.

Chris Murtland wrote:

Thanks everyone for the ideas! I will put together a prioritized list,
based on ease of implementation and number of requests; i.e., the easier items that
are also the most requested will be tackled first since that's the low-hanging
fruit.

Chris, if you haven't yet closed the list, I have one more suggestion: #hashtags. These could be combined with the word cloud suggested, as well as with tagging posts by software. But tags could also be used for more generic terms like #methodology, #GTD etc.

I know that hashtags are a 'cultural' thing, and I am still getting used to them, but they can be really handy, integrated in posts without the need for separate fields.

I would assume that there are plugins for the framework you use for the forum to recognise #hashtags, but you know better.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Chris, if you haven't yet closed the list, I have one more
suggestion: #hashtags. These could be combined with the word cloud suggested, as
well as with tagging posts by software. But tags could also be used for more generic
terms like #methodology, #GTD etc.

I think that is probably a good approach, and it is easier to implement in a lot of ways because I wouldn't have to create any separate interface elements for tagging posts.

please install a real forum engine, vb, or something...