Re: Request for Comments: How to Deal with Internet Trolls - the Cognitive Therapy approach

begin Shlomi Fish quotation of Fri, Mar 04, 2011 at 12:39:32PM +0200:

> > Anyway, if you want to present an alternative to
> > "do not feed the troll" you might want to mention
> > that the most effective troll non-feeding system
> > includes filtration.
> 
> What do you mean by that?

  http://xkcd.com/386/

If you never saw the troll in the first place, you're
never annoyed and/or tempted to reply.  (Sometimes
when reading other Linux fora, I see long, correct
answers to troll questions and can't help thinking,
"dude, your killfile is too short.")

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Don Marti                    
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/
dmarti <at> zgp.org
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Re: kill files (was Re: Request for Comments: How to Deal with Internet Trolls - the Cognitive Therapy approach)

begin Jason White quotation of Sat, Mar 05, 2011 at 12:17:43AM +0000:
> Don Marti  <dmarti <at> zgp.org> wrote:
> 
> >One key part of the "do not feed the troll" strategy
> >is the killfile.  You can make a troll, or someone you
> >consider a troll, disappear for you without moderating
> >the whole forum, or disturbing the whole forum with
> >a discussion about moderation policy.
> 
> I have idly wondered, on occasion, how effective statistical filters such as
> CRM114 would be in distinguishing interesting from uninteresting posts. 

I wouldn't bet against CRM114.  I once had a CRM114
install that would block not just spam, but off-topic
press releases.  Another time I got one trained to
predict whether a package would be in the top or
bottom half of Debian Popularity Contest results just
from the output of "apt-cache show".

You could probably also automate some of the thread
pattern recognition that Joey Hess uses:
  http://joey.kitenet.net/blog/entry/thread_patterns/

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Don Marti                    
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/
dmarti <at> zgp.org
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Re: Request for Comments: How to Deal with Internet Trolls - the Cognitive Therapy approach

on Fri, Mar 04, 2011 at 05:38:34PM -0800, Don Marti (dmarti <at> zgp.org) wrote:
> begin Jason White quotation of Fri, Mar 04, 2011 at 11:17:48PM +0000:
> 
> > It is also an interesting question, to which I don't know the answer, of
> > whether therapeutic strategies intended to be effective in cases of mood
> > disorders are likely to work in an online environment in relation to trolls.
> 
> The troll is probably playing a different game from the one you're
> playing.  You might be trying to pick the right software for your next
> web project.  But the troll is trying to provoke people into arguing,
> for lulz.

Or is getting paid for it.  "50 Cent Party" in China, astroturfers in
the US:

    http://www.alternet.org/media/149197/are_right-wing_libertarian_internet_trolls_getting_paid_to_dumb_down_online_conversations/?page=1

Peace.

--

-- 
Karsten M. Self <karsten <at> linuxmafia.com>        http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten
 What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?

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Re: Request for Comments: How to Deal with Internet Trolls - the Cognitive Therapy approach

On 03/04/2011 08:38 PM, Don Marti wrote:
> I'd actually like to see more trolling on l-e --
> there's probably a healthy level, like there's a
> healthy level of bacteria in the environment for
> building children's immune systems.
eh - that can be arraigned.

if you want to see a troll that would blow up this faq --- see "monty" 
on alt.sports.baseball.nymets

good luck with all of this...

!Ruben
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Re: Request for Comments: How to Deal with Internet Trolls - the Cognitive Therapy approach

Shlomi Fish  <shlomif <at> iglu.org.il> wrote:

>Well, one possible solution to this is to make sure you're not a bigot of 
>anything. In the chapter about anger in "Feeling Good" Dr. Burns mentions the 
>fact that what we may consider as bad (e.g: someone blasting music), may be 
>fine for other people (who like to hear that music). So it is a good idea to 
>avoid thinking things like "Perl is the worst language possible." or "Python 
>is the perfect language." or "The GPL is a criminal [= "unethical"] licence." 
>or "BSD-style licences help proprietary software vendors." or whatever, 
>because things are more complicated than that, and there are always some 
>matters of taste, and flexibility. 

This is true in many cases: one ought to avoid over-generalized claims, and
such statements as "x is the worst operating system ever written" clearly fall
into that category, unless you have a lot of comparative evidence to support
it.

One type of trolling behaviour that I've sometimes encountered (occasionally
in response to posts of mine) occurs when, in the midst of a hitherto rational
discussion involving disagreement, someone intervenes by attacking one or more
of the other participants, explicitly or by implication. As David Sternlight
observed in a Usenet posting, there's "nothing like a good ad hominem when
logic fails".

There are various ways of responding to such conduct, for example by invoking
the acceptable usage policies of the discussion group, by ignoring the
offending remarks, or by politely requesting that the participant concentrate
on the facts and the logic of the discussion. These are only a handful of the
possibilities, of course.