Unless of course you’re in the Pit.
You raise a good point here.
In a world where two factions hold the other’s self-evident foundational truths to be obvious blatant fictions deliberately designed to inflame it becomes difficult for those groups to converse at all without lots of *de facto *trolling, even if none is intended. And in those circumstances an awful lot *will *be intended.
Whether the SDMB is already that world or s going that way is an interesting question. I’d say it isn’t there yet, but a chunk of Elections is wandering around near that brink.
As a second comment, IMO the probability of trolling increases as the post gets shorter.
Here’s a thread http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=813494 where the OP is long, thorough, apparently heartfelt, and IMO utterly mistaken as matters of fact and of logic. As he is told at length by the assembled masses. Whatever we might say of the OP’s opener and his subsequent posts, he isn’t trolling. IMO.
OTOH, your standard mildly to massively snarky tweet-length post is almost by definition at least minor league trolling.
Ultimately IMO this is an intent crime, not a fact crime. As we all know from being kids, there’s a difference between disagreeing and teasing. And as most of us know from being parents, sometimes it takes Solomon-like wisdom to know the difference. “Go to your rooms, the both of you. Now!!”
No. I went to the dictionary. Apparently it is a variant of yucks, which I’ve heard of. This was the first I’d ever seen/heard “yocks”.
(Indeed, my spellcheck did not recognize it)
Yes naturally. That’s the point I tried unsuccessfully to make to the OP - the rule against trolling isn’t related to the rule against calling someone a troll, which falls more under the ‘no personal insults’ rule and has nothing to do with the definition of trolling or whether or not a lot of trolling goes on here.
In the Pit you call someone a troll and for that matter to some extent you can engage in actual trolling since it is practically impossible for mods to distinguish between a hot-headed insult-laden rant based on real beliefs or done merely for recreation. (although even in the Pit I think trolling is technically verboten)
I don’t understand what point you think wasn’t taken.
I’m afraid that SDMB can not be an exception to what happens in the world of public discourse. And whatever is happening is already happening here. It’s quite depressing.
Why can’t it? Are you ignoring that the SDMB can set and enforce its own rules, or stating that the current rules are insufficient, or that no rules could possibly suffice?
How could it? Anyone can be here, any number of identities. It’s not a closed system. There are budgets and offices devoted to trolling public opinion, from all over.
If you watch CNN or FOX you will see almost constant trolling these days. (CNN has panels of people trolling each other, (all evening long!) Fox is just a troll network, with “Washington Generals” style opposition to be sacrificed. I see this as the current tenor of public discourse being modeled for us and that expands to other places. It is an arms race basically. It has a logic of it’s own.
Of course we are given the ultimate model for a troll in the pres elect. And you will find a vigorous defense of him and therefore this trolling, right here.
Yes, I am saying that no rules will suffice, if I have to specify. It’s a free country here and there are bugs to freedom.
The interregnum between an election and the changing of the government is always a bit fraught. This one entails a bigger change than most and is arguably a bigger leap into the unknown than any in living memory. So da fo’ks be on edge.
A lot of the current flail in Elections (which I have mostly tuned out of, despite being a major participant up to Nov 7th) is absolutist predictions of impending dystopia or utopia. All of which are garbage for the “absolutist” part even before we address in which direction.
Give it six months and things will be different.
It wasn’t that many years ago that social media was defined as Myspace. Not so much any more. Twitter too is a fad. Whether it’s a passing fad or a one with more legs remains to be seen.
Who was the Chinese fellow who said of the French Revolution: “Good or bad? Too soon to tell.”
The best I can say is “Be the change you want to see.” I try to live by that motto. I can get worked up that I’m surrounded by jerks, or I can go serenely about my business remembering smugly that the one thing they can never escape is themselves. Sharing a brain-case with a jerk for one’s entire life would be a real drag.
You raise some interesting points. One option is for the community to discuss how we want to regulate discussions in the Elections forum. Yes, people are very het up at the moment, on both sides, but perhaps that forum needs a swift kick in the pants. We’ve got a new mod (Hi Bone!) to help carry the load of enforced rational discourse. Should we discuss this in a new thread, which I am happy to start, or do you want to move the conversation in that direction for this thread? As others have mentioned, whatever the rest of the world is doing, the way things operate here is up to us.
ISTM that aside from Elections, trolling is what it has always been. Most of the trollers are handled quite nicely by the system. Sometimes we get to have a little fun with them first. 
Other options, as always, include “Ignore”, and staying away from the Elections forum and any related topics that spill over into other fora.
Yes, it is a closed system. One member, one account. It is against the rules to have more than one account here. It is grounds for an insta-ban. I don’t think the mods will have a harder time of taking care of trolls here. They do a pretty good job and I think they’re up to the task
Well then let me ask you since I don’t have a notion of how it would be done or anything, but I just feel like I am seeing it, (perhaps in other sites and comments sections, and not here):
Are you saying that professional, or organized trolling would be impossible on SD, because of current policies in effect?
Define “closed system”. As cochrane just pointed out the forum has systems in place to keep sock puppets and trolls out. And that the forum will be affected by, or even extensively targeted by, whatever “offices” you believe will be trolling public opinion needs more evidence than your hunch.
I believe that it would be difficult. I understand that we have had instances of “professional” trolling, but that those folks were banned in fairly short order. Perhaps a mod could comment more on the official side of things.
The system also works in part because we have active users who participate and help out. For example, a certain Coach is well known for being first on a thread to report suspected spam. Many of us regularly contact the mods and alert them to suspicious behavior. The report button is not just a mechanism for lodging a complaint. It also serves as a way for all of us to let TBTB know when something seems off.
Not impossible, but extremely difficult and unprofitable. Not only do we have measures to eliminate sock puppets, but the members here are pretty good at detecting and combating obvious bullshit. I’ll let naita’s post speak for me.
Edit - Sunny Daze’s post was also pretty spot-on.
There certainly are organized trolling campaigns and propaganda campaigns online.
The SDMB has one ten millionth the impact of facebook. Expecting them to show up here in sufficient quantity to matter is like folks in small town Iowa getting worried that Islamic terrorists are going to bomb their Waffle House. Not gonna happen.
The bigger risk is that the overall coarsening of all forms of online discourse bleeds into our habits here. But it’s still not much of a risk.
Contrast the Idiocracy of YouTube comments versus the discourse in Café Society talking about very similar topics. Recognize that both have been just as they are today for over a decade.
The OP is right that it’s a topic to keep a weather eye on. But it’s not time for hand-wringing or panic yet.
That’s good to know, about SD. I am not so care free about the bleeding of this into all of our discourses though. But then ever since the election I feel inundated with trollism. I think the media has been too, and they don’t know how to deal with it yet, and it may have led to the result we got.
You’re right there’s a risk in the larger world. But that’s not what this thread is mostly about.
As to the larger world.
My belief, and worth every penny you’ve paid for it, is that a lot of what happened leading up to the election is simply the rank and file American, the common clay, you know, morons, discovering the power of social media. Just as we have known about for years.
There was tremendous novelty value as a hundred million people discovered that not only could they primally scream, but somebody else could actually hear them! This was very empowering feeling. But the feeling is pretty weak; it won’t keep feeling powerful. Especially not after Trump delivers for his billionaire pals, not for the Working Man nor the DoD nor even for the Country Club set. Soon it’ll feel pretty powerless to primal scream.
It won’t be long before the combo of short attention spans and the shear unpleasantness of listening to the cacophony of 150 million illiterates braying at the Moon will drive a lot of people away from it. As Yogi Berra said: “It’s too crowded; nobody goes there any more”.
If the Russians overplay their hand and somebody with some patriotic rep can equate retweeting fake news with some combo of being a Commie stooge and the old “loose lips sink ships” paranoia the whole thing could die out real quickly. I picture somebody like that General character played by Schwartzenegger on those ads for a vid game “Mobile Strike”. Mobile Strike: Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Command Center" - FULL VERSION - YouTube
Thanks. Good thought and perspective.
If you think someone may be trolling, feel free to report the post. The mods would be glad to take a look.
Hi.