Hey trolls, tone it down.

[J. J.]

I'm new, so what's a troll?

"Troll" is a term that originated on Usenet boards a while ago; its basic meaning is one who posts deliberately inflammatory or confrontational remarks with the sole intention of arousing anger and/or "flame wars" (strings of highly aggressive posts exchanged between users).

Thank you.  I'll try not to be ar troll, only sadistic.  :-)

[Tory]

Perhaps if a person starts to engage in trollish behavior they can get banished to a certain section of the forum. Instead of posting in the "General Discussion" or "Individual Politics" section they would post in a seperate area created for outlandish threads. A "psycho-babble" section.

[Nym90]

Hi,
I'm concerned about this.  I added the forum to the site with the desire to have a mechanism for intelligent, thoughtful debate on elections, as well as a means for visitors to help one-another learn more about elections.  I have no desire to see it bogged down with posters only interested in emotional flames unwilling to listen to another point-of-view.  A while back I had mentioned the possibility for a member-only forum, but had enough negative feedback to drop the idea.  Another possibility, however, is to provide a forum by invitation only.  There are enough regular members that I could set it up such that one has to apply for membership or be referred by someone already established.  Thoughts?
Thanks,
Dave

I would oppose this. However Dave, is it possible to set up a "killfile" in which one could automatically ignore all posts from a particular poster? Thus, that person's posts would not show up at all when you view the forum.

I'm not sure if that's possible, but some sort of an ignore feature would be a much better solution IMO.

The only problem with this is that if someone responds to the ignored post, you would only see the response, and that could get quite confusing if the ignored person posts multiple times.

Well yeah, it's not perfect. But it would still be an improvement over what we've got.

If the Forum could be set up to also ignore all replies to those on your "ignore" list, that would be even better. I'm not sure if that's possible, though.

[Gabu]

Hi,
I'm concerned about this.  I added the forum to the site with the desire to have a mechanism for intelligent, thoughtful debate on elections, as well as a means for visitors to help one-another learn more about elections.  I have no desire to see it bogged down with posters only interested in emotional flames unwilling to listen to another point-of-view.  A while back I had mentioned the possibility for a member-only forum, but had enough negative feedback to drop the idea.  Another possibility, however, is to provide a forum by invitation only.  There are enough regular members that I could set it up such that one has to apply for membership or be referred by someone already established.  Thoughts?
Thanks,
Dave

I would oppose this. However Dave, is it possible to set up a "killfile" in which one could automatically ignore all posts from a particular poster? Thus, that person's posts would not show up at all when you view the forum.

I'm not sure if that's possible, but some sort of an ignore feature would be a much better solution IMO.

The only problem with this is that if someone responds to the ignored post, you would only see the response, and that could get quite confusing if the ignored person posts multiple times.

Well yeah, it's not perfect. But it would still be an improvement over what we've got.

If the Forum could be set up to also ignore all replies to those on your "ignore" list, that would be even better. I'm not sure if that's possible, though.

Yeah, I'd imagine it could be done, but it sort if is one of those effort vs. return arguments.  If it would be fairly easy for Dave, I'd say go for it.  If it would be really tough, I'd say that we should just learn to endure, as I'd rather not put Dave through a lot of trouble.  He gets enough of it as it is.

[dazzleman]

Hi,
I'm concerned about this.  I added the forum to the site with the desire to have a mechanism for intelligent, thoughtful debate on elections, as well as a means for visitors to help one-another learn more about elections.  I have no desire to see it bogged down with posters only interested in emotional flames unwilling to listen to another point-of-view.  A while back I had mentioned the possibility for a member-only forum, but had enough negative feedback to drop the idea.  Another possibility, however, is to provide a forum by invitation only.  There are enough regular members that I could set it up such that one has to apply for membership or be referred by someone already established.  Thoughts?
Thanks,
Dave

I think an invitation-only forum would be too restrictive and would keep out some very good potential members.  I think this is too high a price to pay to keep trolls out.

One suggestion I would have is a point system for posters.  A moderator could monitor posts, and members would receive demerit points for posts that violate the rules, particularly for personal attacks.  Violations could initially lead to a warning, and then banning after a certain number of points are accumulated.

Of course, it's possible to get around this by signing up under a different name through an alternative e-mail address.  But it does make it harder and set some type of standard.

I think the regular posters of longer standing are generally fine, though there is one that I can think of who has engaged in unprovoked personal attacks on those whose opinions he does not like.  There are also some who skirt the edges, making inflammatory but non-personal comments and contributing little to intelligent debate.  While this is a problem, I think we need to be careful not to allow the scourge of political correctness to invade this forum.  This should be non-partisan and "enforcement" should not favor any particular political point of view.

[J. J.]

I'm speaking as the new guy (and I don't think my postings could be considered "troll-like").  I'd have two questions regarding a screening process.

First, who would screen, Mr. Laip.  Isn't he going to be VERY overworked, especially during this time of year?

Second, if I was a troll, what would prevent me from coming up with an alternate email address, faking an ID, and rejoining?

[Dave Leip]

Ok, I have enabled Karma as a means to possibly help control the troll problem.  Karma is a score compiled by forum peers that tally positive and negative feedback based on your posting.  I am currently enabling members that I think have the ability to fairly assign positive or negative points to posts.  (This will occur slowly, so please don't be offended if you are not able to do this yet).

Please use this ability responsibly.  Do not assign negative karma to individuals because they have an opposing viewpoint, but rather because of the tone, lack of respect for opposing viewpoints, flame posts, attack posts, etc.

This is a bit of an incentive to be thoughtful in your posts and add depth (its a score of your post quality rather than just a score of the total number of posts).  Please do not give positive karma to any posts less than 50 words.

If the negative post count of new posters (or old ones) gets too high, these posters will be removed.

Thanks,
Dave

[Nym90]

Wow. Thanks for entrusting me with this power, Dave. I will do my best to use it wisely.

I think this is a good idea. Hopefully you would review each person on a case by case basis before you would ban them....I tend to lean toward free speech, though obviously insults of a personal nature would fall outside the bounds of acceptable content.

Perhaps if you are considering banning someone, you could put up a public poll first on whether the person should be banned or not? That would help guage public opinion if you are considering doing it.

[The Vorlon]

Wow... If I read this right, somebody has already assigned me a bit of "negative" karma.

Who ever it is I have annoyed... sorry

[© Tweed the Younger]

I am not yet allowed to assign karma.

IT's just not worth living live any more.

[The Vorlon]

I am not yet allowed to assign karma.

IT's just not worth living live any more.

I just gave you some positive Karma Boss

[© Tweed the Younger]

Wow... If I read this right, somebody has already assigned me a bit of "negative" karma.

Who ever it is I have annoyed... sorry

If YOU of all people are getting negative feedback then that tells me this system won't work. You are easily the most reasonable poster on this forum. I am sorry that someone would have assigned a negative value to you.

It was probably some angry Gary Nolan supporter

[© Tweed the Younger]

I am not yet allowed to assign karma.

IT's just not worth living live any more.

I just gave you some positive Karma Boss

Woooo!

And you'll get positive karma when I am allowed to assign.

[The Vorlon]

Wow... If I read this right, somebody has already assigned me a bit of "negative" karma.

Who ever it is I have annoyed... sorry

If YOU of all people are getting negative feedback then that tells me this system won't work. You are easily the most reasonable poster on this forum. I am sorry that someone would have assigned a negative value to you.

I think my policy will be to assign a lot of + karma and reserve the - for very very rare posters.

[Nym90]

You can find out who has Karma powers assigned by going to the Members List and sorting by Membergroup, if you are really interested.

[© Tweed the Younger]

You can find out who has Karma powers assigned by going to the Members List and sorting by Membergroup, if you are really interested.

Why do only a select few have it?

I've been here since May 23rd 2003, dammit!  I want karma powers.

[Nym90]

Wow... If I read this right, somebody has already assigned me a bit of "negative" karma.

Who ever it is I have annoyed... sorry

If YOU of all people are getting negative feedback then that tells me this system won't work. You are easily the most reasonable poster on this forum. I am sorry that someone would have assigned a negative value to you.

I think my policy will be to assign a lot of + karma and reserve the - for very very rare posters.

Me too.

[Nym90]

You can find out who has Karma powers assigned by going to the Members List and sorting by Membergroup, if you are really interested.

Why do only a select few have it?

I've been here since May 23rd 2003, dammit!  I want karma powers.

Ask Dave. I would agree that you should get it, but it's not up to me.

[Giant Saguaro]

I'm not here all THAT much, so whatever is decided upon to deal with trolls is fine with me, but I'd just make an observation. It's a message board phenomenon of sorts that trolls always attract attention and posts. I don't know why. I can read the crap posted by Bandit, Nomo, etc. and laugh at it and keep going because even if they are serious, there's no sense in trying to reason with those people. Occasionally I'd leave a comment, but they're not worth getting worked up over. On other boards, I've seen good, thoughtful posters get so worked up over arguing with trolls that they burn out and quit the board or whatever. I don't know why they argue with them or get that upset.

The other thing, if we're going to be able to assign negative karma to people, then we're going to have to not take stuff so personal and be very judicious about doing it. We're all opinionated, there's an election coming up, it's an emotional one, most all of the people on here are partisan in one way or another, so we're going to have to resist taking offense to everything.

If somebody gets offended by something you didn't intend to be offensive and it's accompanied by thoughtful analysis, then tough. Offer a rebuttal, an agreement, or keep going. That's all I really have to say about this and I've probably said too much already.  

[Nation]

This karma system has the potential to be excellent, if properly used.

[Dave Leip]

I think my policy will be to assign a lot of + karma and reserve the - for very very rare posters.

This is a good policy.  Although don't just lavish positive karma everywhere... use it for good, thoughtful posts on relavent topics.
Dave

[afleitch]

I just noticed the karma system. I have to say I'd never heard of it before but it seems a good idea. Of course some people will try to get as many negatives as possible (a bit like a kid who whoops because he's came last in the class.....we all knew one in the past!) If this system was applied to the Presidential Campaign we'd all be a lot better for it!

[King]

I have no 0 Karma and I'm proud.

[A18]

I was at a video game message board with Karma before. Most people, me included, didn't get any positive or negative points.

Here I'm proud to be the first user with negative Karma! Not really sure why that is though. It would be cool if people could see what posts they got +/- Karma for, if that's possible.

[dazzleman]

I just noticed the karma ratings also.  From what I can tell, I have the most polarized karma so far, with +2/-2.  Does that mean that two people gave me a positive and two people gave me a negative?

I don't really consider myself a heavy poster, and I usually only participate in a limited range of topics, so I find it interesting that I would have what appears to be the most polarized karma so far.  There are people who go out of their way to be inflammatory who don't have a -2 karma rating.  Very interesting.  It leads me to believe that the negative ratings may be based on disagreement with my opinions.