It seems quixotic to provoke self-reflection here, but many people would experience some personal growth when they realize that they’re defending someone they describe someone as a trouble-seeking unempathetic jerk, on a board that has literal and explicit rules against being that very same thing.
But you do you, bro. Conservative mental gymnastics is an intriguing and entertaining sport.
Being impartial and giving more leniency to one side are at odds with one another. If one side gets away with something the other side would not, then that is inherently taking a side.
I do unfortunately think I see a greater tendency to hold to the letter of the rules for right wingers and to the spirit for left wingers, at least in the specific category of “getting really close to the line.” It does feel like more liberal posters get a mod jumping in saying “you know better” or telling them to back off when they get close, while the more conservative posters get a mod deliberately assuming a non-trolling explanation.
But I’m not sure that’s intentional, and not because there are more left wingers so that the impact feels bigger to them than the single right winger or two who does it. They feel like the right winger gets called out enough, but the other posters don’t get as much.
I think all the current mods have a natural (and laudable) “Don’t gang up on one person” reflex, and the demographics of this board mean this is more likely to happen with the lower numbers of conservatives than the higher number of liberals.
That said, I think the problem mentioned in this thread is orthogonal to what I posted above. I think the main issue is that there is an imbalance on what behavior isn’t allowed.
Ideally, the situation is that trolling is not allowed, but also accusing someone of trolling is not allowed. Such is balanced. If someone actually is trolling, you can report them and get that dealt with.
However, the situation seems to me to be that saying someone is “not quite trolling” is still against the rules, but that, in may cases, “not quite trolling” is still okay. This creates an imbalance, as there is now no consequences to “not quite trolling,” thus encouraging such behavior.
I think the solution has to be being allowed to point out some “not quite trolling.” And I think that just means rolling back the rules slightly, back to where they were back when we could full on attack the post but not the poster. You don’t need to say anything about the poster to point out that a post appears disingenuous. Such does not imply the poster is a troll and insulting them, just that they’ve made a bad post.
And other stuff like that. I think that, if the other examples given above are allowed, that’s probably enough for the situation.
It’s better than the current solution, which is for the other side to also try to edge up to the line as well. Inevitably one side goes over, and it is usually the less calculating side–i.e. the one not being disingenuous. So it still ultimately favors the disingenuous poster.
“I disagree with the contents of this post [actually I don’t, except for the sake of this example]. I am not going to explain why I think the poster is incorrect, for my own reasons. Stated for the record.”
Repeat as needed.
I wonder how (or if) the mods would respond to a flood of these. The use of recipes has actually been used to good effect in some Pit threads. Perhaps something like this would work in GD. Anyway, my very modest contribution to the discussion.
I’m sorry, but if you think someone is “not quite trolling”, what’s wrong with reporting that post? Why do you feel the need to publicly post that you think someone is “not quite trolling”? Are you trying to stop the “not quite trolling” or trying to show to others that you are taking a stand against what you perceive as “not quite trolling”?
I do admire your consistency. This post has the exact amount of accuracy and relation to reality as the rest of your 15,000 posts. Perhaps it is the memory of those posts that influence others. What else do we have to go on?
That was my point though. You can’t use the T word. You mention ‘trollish behavior’ and ECG called you out for “a blatant accusation of trolling”. Had you said "“Just a reminder that responding to [del]trollish[/del] this type of behavior is counter-productive”, you may have been fine.
That’s the point of this thread. The OP specifically says “We can individually and independently decide not to respond. <snip> These bad-faith posters are very, very good at posting stuff that’s incendiary enough to compel others to respond”
IOW, you can ignore the posts, I can ignore the posts, the OP can ignore the posts, but unless every single person ignores the posts, they’ll derail the thread.
Go back to the days of “The Dio Show”. It only took one or two people to start bickering with him and the thread often wouldn’t recover. A lot of good threads, or threads that had good potential, either crashed and burned or ended up locked when he’d take them over.
No, over the years many, many threads have been derailed beyond hope by one determined almost troll. Wave a red flag and dozens will take the bait and the OP will be all but lost. As pointed out, this is not one current poster but a long term and difficult issue for moderation team here at the Dope.
The only way the mods could deal with this, perhaps, would be if someone tries to send the thread in a purposefully different direction - for instance, if there is a thread about female genital mutilation (FGM) but someone deliberately brings male circumcision into it.