Mar 24
Don’t Play With the Trolls, Dear
The recent discussion in the Warhammer world about whether or not to have forums sounds very familiar. So does the fan reaction, and so does Darren’s response, which is something like “if they step out of line, ban em’.” I realize I have a sort of skewed perception here, but one thing that I think Slashdot does very very right is the whole ‘don’t ban people -ever’ shtick. Instead of banning folks who get out of line, Slash has the tools available to make annoying posters ‘disappear’ from the perspective of readers. Metamoderation of original comments allows readers to have the kind of experience they want. If you want hate, bile, and hilarity, you can read at that level. If you want only useful or insightful comments, you can read at that level.
The problem with banning is that it feeds into the ego of the troll. See, trolls live and die by the amount of attention they garner. They’re attention whores, basically, though most of them are a different breed than the Guild drama queen or the popular kids in school. On the Bartle grid, they get their jollies on the ‘Killer’ part of the map; they play the game (in forums and on websites) mostly as PvP. So, as they see it, getting banned is a good thing. It’s a further ‘injustice’ they can shout to the rooftops, evidence they can hold out that the Man has him beaten down.
I’ve compared trolls in the past to the rampaging advertisements from that classic Simpsons Halloween episode. The only way to truly kill a troll is to stop paying attention to it. Give other readers the tools to block them out, marginalize them, and forget about them. Banning just creates overhead for staff and feeds into the troll’s cycle of pain.
Obviously I probably fall into the category of someone not smart enough to moderate a forum, but that’s just my two cents.
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I think Slashdot’s comment system is probably its greatest strength. The news Slashdot runs is usually available in lots of places. But the comments make the site, and the moderation system (and meta-moderation system) make comments work.
It could also work for huge forums like WoW and (presumably) WAR, but could something so complex ever appeal to game developers? Even Slashdot is still trying to tune it (and that new, Ajax-y comment system is AWFUL, so even they clearly aren’t satisfied).
…my biggest question I guess is why do we accept troll behavior? Looks like the answer is, “because that big cloud called the internet is there”.
Michael, if you had a store and one of these trolls started acting up in it…what would you do? I’m saying that online community business should treat these types of customers the same way as any other business would, i.e. refuse their business.
In addition to not being a truck, the internet is not a store.
If you get thrown out of a store, it’s hard to immediately sneak back. Online I can create a new account and be back to trolling in minutes. Furthermore, the point of a store is to sell people something, not to encourage open discussion. The entire point of a forum is to encourage discussion. If I throw the crazy guy going on about how I’m a huge conspiracy to silence him out of the store, it’s irrelevant to the general question of letting people shop. If I throw the crazy guy out of my discussion group, it’s easier to believe his claims that I don’t really want open discussion. Add in that many companies silently delete negative, but non-trolling threads from their forums and you have an audience more than ready to listen to the troll and not you. This is the strength of a system like Slashdots. First, generally speaking, the admins aren’t rating people; it’s your peers who decided you should be quieter. And second, no one is silenced, just made a hair easier to ignore. If you want to hear them, they’re easy enough to listen to. If there is any weakness, it’s that Slashdot does have and occasionally use tools for smack someone down to -1; referred to occasionally, and possibly incorrectly, as “bitchslap.pl”. Sure enough, this leads to trolls claiming they’ve been bitchslapped and people listening…
As an aside, if bitchslap was ever something that was used at all frequently it hasn’t been in the three+ years I’ve written with the site.
In fact, admins are restricted to the same +1 or -1 every other moderator is. We’re just contributors too, etc.
Oh, and hear hear to Alan’s comments. :)
People are *always* going to be dicks on the internet. Banning them and taking away their accounts is just not a workable solution in the long run; the ultimate goal should be to allow the community to more-or-less self police, with a guiding hand from above.
Actually looking at Sanya’s list again I think it trends more towards my interpretation of this issue than not, which is encouraging.
“People are *always* going to be dicks on the internet.”
should really be:
“Anonymous People are *always* going to be dicks on the internet.”
John Gabriel nailed it really…(NSFW maybe) http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19
[...] says ban with extreme prejudice, Michael says don’t ban me bro, and Sanya wants to make sure you’re qualified to be running a forum [...]