Can we divide this into “Garden Variety Trolls”, many fine example of which you will find in the Omnibus Trolls R Us Thread, and others? Some of the folks in the Omnibus thread are longer term posters, but most of them are short term posters who pop up, drop some threads to get a specific response, and are only around as long as it takes to determine that are not sincerely interested in a real dialogue. They are “trolling” for a response in the more classic sense.
“Others”, I think, is where we find the heated name calling, and where we find lists like “Republitrolls”. I’m of two minds on a lot of this. It’s a response to the break down of civil dialogue. I sympathize, but I think we need to cool it.
This quote here, from the Clothahump snowflake thread summarize what these exchanges feel like, to both sides I imagine.
So, now, everyone’s pissed off. No one has had a discussion, and someone has been called a liar or a troll. (With thanks to Bryan Ekers, I thought this was a really good capturing of how conversations go here recently.)
Now, as a group, we are all trigger-happy on the aggression and the name calling, because we’ve all been down that exact slope for months, maybe years, through this entire ridiculous election. We don’t proceed A-B-C and get to you’re a troll because you said X, we say you’re a troll because you said C or even B, or we start getting negative ourselves.
Not all posters, but that’s how it happens, I think.
A certain extra level of restraint on everyone’s part is needed before we’ll return to any level of civility. Everyone’s. Delete a few posts. Leave them sit in draft. Go back and edit and make sure you’re saying what you want to say without getting more inflammatory than you mean to. Bring evidence.
If you’re in the Pit, on the other hand, expect to get lit up.