This is about board policy, and so I’m placing it here. I realize the potential for a quick succession of irony posts. “Hey! I could do something clever like join/start/lead/participate in a pile-on.” Hopefully, Polycarp’s Law will hold. (After a few posts or pages of loud clatter, things will settle down and a discussion will ensue.)
Recent threads on bias — from moderators, from conservatives, from liberals, from leftists, what have you — dealt in part with the phenomenon of bias squelching viewpoints. The conservative mod, for example, might be seen as squelching the viewpoint of the leftist environmentalist if the former goes in guns-a-blazin’ at the latter, even if he’s not operating as a mod. (DavidB often gave me this impression in my earliest years.)
But I don’t think any of the mods, with a possible exception or two, really allow any bias of any sort, including a personal one, to interfere with their duties. If anything, most of them go out of their way to avoid as much as possible even the perception of bias. Anyway, this thread isn’t about that. I mention it only to give historical context and to point out that this thread is about the squelching of viewpoints by a different method: piling on.
Here’s the topic sentence of the post if anyone wants to pull something out without addressing the whole thing: I submit that piling on can essentially be a trolling tactic.
First of all, what do I mean by piling on? I draw a distinction between many posters against one in which (1) all the posts (or most) are different, making different points and (2) all the posts (or most) are the same, making the same point. As I see it, (1) is not a problem, but (2) is.
Okay, (1) can go something like this…
Poster A: Conservatives suck.
Poster B: That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever read.
Poster C: Why do you say that?
Poster D: Do you mean all conservatives or just specific ones?
Poster E: You’re right, but I would point out that liberals suck as well.
In those posts, there are four different responses to Poster A. A pile-on by definition, but not a trolling one because of all the different points or questions. A poster has to be prepared to answer all legitimate questions. But (2) would go something like this…
Poster A: Liberals suck.
Poster B: That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever read.
Poster C: You’re such a fucking idiot.
Poster D: Well, I can see that Poster A is still as big a dumbass as ever.
Poster E: Here’s a list of links to other examples of Poster A’s stupidity.
There are four straight posts basically saying that Poster A is an idiot. After Poster B, all the other posts are just “me too”. It seems to me that a “me too” post that does nothing more than heave an insult is specifically designed to get a rise out of one or more of the people involved — Poster A, all the posters who hate Poster A, and/or all the posters who like Poster A.
Now, none of this would be bad per se, except that, as I see it, pile-ons of Type 2 are sometimes themselves cited as evidence of something, usually as fallacies of appeal or statistics. “Look how many people think you’re an idiot/troll/jerk/asshole.” When in all likelihood, many of those who piled on did so for no reason other than having fun, supporting their friends, venting, or taking advantage of an opportunity to dump on someone they dislike. A pile-on of that type cannot be taken as evidence of consensus for lots of reasons: (1) maybe supporters of Poster A are, in general, not around; (2) maybe his friends have a weaker stomach for vitriol; (3) maybe their default position is that the people piling on are making themselves look like idiots; (4) maybe they think Poster A is already answering the others just fine and doesn’t need help; and so on.
I doubt that piling on of that type will ever be forbidden unless the powers that be see it the same way. Sometimes, the emotional effect of a pile-on cannot be appreciated without being the object of it. Powers seldom are. (With notable exceptions.) But I think that the membership, at the very least, should recognize it for what it is, and call people on it when they do it. The viewpoints of Poster A are being suppressed by nothing more than noise.
Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see how this thread itself pans out. Will EddyTeddyFreddy disagree with me and be joined by the usuals in his camp? Will SentientMeat say that I make a good logical point and be joined by the usuals in his camp? Or will it pan out differently? Will Jodi say, “You know what? This bothers me, too.” While Contrapuntal says, “Lib, I don’t see it. What’s the problem?”? Will EleanorRigby pop in to post something ironic about there being too many posts about me? Or will he/she just quietly post his/her opinion as though someone he/she respected had opened the thread?
Okay, let’s give the clever pile-on responses a page or two to die down. But hope springs eternal, so maybe a serious discussion can begin right away.