Best practices: calling out concern trolling behavior in Elections

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Measure_for_Measure

How about this?

“Coming from a committed ideologue, I find your proffered strategies to reflect either saintly generosity or perhaps overly convenient advocacy of unilateral rhetorical disarmament for the opposing side. It’s hard to say which.”

Perfectly clear!

My phrase, last night, was, “He’s just trying to be helpful!” Still not best practices, inasmuch as it snidely insinuates poor motives (spoiler alert: I didn’t think he was trying to be helpful). I’ll try to do better.

[Irishman]

Seems to me calling someone a “concern-troll” is labeling them as a person. That is very risky when it comes to getting interpreted as an insult on this board.

Also, from the descriptions provided, the act of “concern-trolling” appears to be implying the persons motives are insincere. That sounds suspiciously like an accusation of lying, which is verboten in GD and Elections.

I would suggest if you find the behavior and wish to call it out, do so without using language that is labeling the poster with a term that is intentionally chosen to be negative. The fact that the practice is called “concern-trolling” shows that it is intended to be a negative term.

Maybe a snarky “your helpful suggestions are noted”.

[Measure_for_Measure]

I see where you’re coming from Irishman, but I feel the need to dial back your remarks a little. Saying that someone is concern trolling is milder than saying they are a concern troll. Just as IDing an overly cynical or stupid post is different than calling a poster a cynic or an idiot.

As for insincerity, I say again that there’s something more than faintly ridiculous occurring when a committed partisan provides advice to the other side that just so happens to involve them being nicer, more civil and less direct. As I said earlier though, the unfortunate part is that the accepted phrase for this phenomenon contains the word “Troll” in it. It’s sort of like calling somebody a jerk here carries more weight than calling somebody a jerk in other contexts.

@Loach

Someone of any ideology should be allowed to discuss the political process to include things like strategies and party dynamics even if they are politically against that party.

I agree: concern trolling should not be reported. It should be called out.

Calling their opinion concern trolling is to insult the poster and not refute the post.

I think it addresses the post and isn’t substantively insulting, anymore than calling somebody biased is insulting. I sadly admit that it quacks like something that is borderline insulting. If there was another term, it might not even be noticed.

Calling them the name is a lazy way of attempting to undermine the post without actually providing any information. Much like calling someone a liar without showing why the statement is incorrect. So in my opinion the best practice of “calling out” someone is to take the effort to address the post. If you want to call someone a concern troll then open a thread in The Pit.

Accusations of lying automatically derail the thread, are needlessly hostile and really turn importantly on state of mind. But concern trolling can be done with sincerity, as noted in the Rational Wiki article.

Anyway, to answer the OP, best practices so far involve snark. I suppose something like this might work: [INDENT] “You seem to want my side to rhetorically disarm. Well politics ain’t bean bag and I can’t help but note that you seem less concerned with niceties when the shoe is on the other foot. Odd that.” [/INDENT] But that construction is more hostile than an accusation of concern …ing in my view. Back to the drawing board: [INDENT]Your contributions to the Republican Strategy Council are noted, but methinks your advocacy of enhanced civility might be a wee bit biased, based upon your posting history. [/INDENT]