One thing to recall about this rule (as with most of the other “silly” rules on the SDMB) is that it arose out of situations, not out of the desire of some Mod or Admin to [basso profundo] wield authority [/basso profundo].
The reality is that the “troll wars” of the earlier years became a real disruption on the board. We had genuine trolls, of course, but it became an easy way to derail a thread to cry “troll!”. Suddenly, instead of five or six posters arguing fiercely over the large or small ends of eggs, we had two dozen posters arguing over whether PosterA had engaged in trolling in that thread, or constantly engaged in trolling, or only periodically engaged in trolling, with defenders and accusers arguing the minutiae of every other post and thread of the previous six months and a few of them going so far as to form life-long hatreds of each other that spilled over into other threads. (And we never resolved the large end/small end dispute.)
Judging by my e-mail, the probability of that sitution recurring is high. I get at least one or two Reported Posts a week in which some pained poster accuses another long-time poster of trolling, simply for having made a facetious aside in the midst of a heated debate. If long-time posters cannot distinguish between a smart-assed comment and trolling when they are limited to reporting it to the staff, how much worse is it going to be if we let everyone resort to making the claims openly in the threads.
Now, it is possible that the membership of the board has matured in the last four or five years to the point where a single reference to trolling would not cause 80% of the threads so blemished to be hijacked to Uzbekistan. My experience argues against that.
I agree that some examples provided in this thread indicate situations where the rule might be overkill. On the other hand, if we enforced the rule “when it was appropriate” and did not enforce the rule “when it was not appropriate” we would simply descend into the same bickering over judgment calls as one poster or another (and even one staffer and another) disagreed as to whether the rule was “appropriate” in a given instance. The reality is that it is generally easier to impose a rule than to remove it, which may be a good thing or a bad thing. Having a clear rule avoids the further disruption of fighting over fuzzy guidelines.
Experience indicates that the exact opposite happens. No one ever seemed to walk away from a thread because the OP or most frequent poster was identified as a troll. Even such blatant trolls as Mark Serlin/Sentinel kept threads going for three to four pages as people felt the need to poke at him with their sharp-barbed words.
I’m sort of torn both ways on this board. The Straight Dope generates a lot of interesting conversation, that’s really the only reason I renew my membership year in year out. But there is a certain authoritarian culture to the board that gets old after awhile. It seems like the administration of this forum seems to believe that without overly-strict moderation a forum cannot have normal, rational discussions. And maybe for the member base here that is true, but I kind of doubt it. I post on several message boards and this place by far has the strictest rules of any forum I’ve posted on, and the members are really no better behaved, there’s just more of them being banned is all.
But, like I said the general level of interesting conversation is high enough here that I’m willing to put up with the rules of the house in order to remain a poster here. And I’m not one of those people who doesn’t realize the situation (this board is not my property, the ownership entity of the board has the right to set up what rules they want etc.)
Now this particular rule I somewhat oppose because it’s just another part of the authoritarian and overbearing nature of the forum and its moderators. At the same time, however on a lot of forums people with highly non-conformist views will often just be labelled trolls outright simply because the majority disagrees with their views so strongly they seek to completely ostracize said poster so that no one will take him/her seriously. And that’s kind of annoying in itself. And since the nature of this forum leans towards that of the nanny state, we might as well have this rule in place.
Wendell Sonny Lawson: I can’t pee when you’re watching. I can’t pee when someone is expecting me to pee. I can’t pee with someone else holding on to my… you know.
[long pause]
Marlon Borunki: You got a lot of rules about peein’.
Have you seen Burt Reynolds’ you know? I don’t blame him.
tomndebb, I appreciate your explanation. And again, I understand your reasoning. I just don’t agree with it. I believe the rule makes it even easier for trolls to continue doing what they’re doing. Plus, as mentioned earlier, I automatically push back against being told “absolutely positively not, under any circumstances are you to ever…”. I believe there are exceptions for every rule. And it causes a lot of mental gymnastics for people to have to follow it to the letter all the time without exception. Just my opinion, and definitely not humble.
And i never said all the rules were silly, in fact I said I agree with most of them just not this one grumble
I’ve found that attitude prevalent on a great many mesage boards. Not that I belong to that many but sometimes if a site is hotlinking almost everything to my website I’ll let them know. Sometimes I’ll get snappy answers such as “we can do what we want” or “our administrator has the final word”. No. Not by a long shot.
Some websites have tried to ban me just for telling their members to lay off their bandwidth stealing ways. They are surprised to learn that their administrator is answerable to someone. (webhosts for example).
In a way, I can see that attitude here to some degree. You get used to one small section of a really *huge *Internet and you begin to think this is the only site that matters. And if you happen to be a moderator or administrator, this would only increase that feeling.
Did you perhaps miss the part where you’re asked to report the troll to the mods? I would think calling a troll a troll publicly rather than using the Report Post function does the opposite of what you’re claiming. No regular poster participating in a thread has the ability to ban a troll, so calling them that accomplishes nothing but put blood in the water. By letting the mods know, they can deal with the situation from there, which results in the troll not continuing what they’re doing.
When someone disrupts a movie theater, do you stand up and start loudly berating them yourself, or do you call an usher over quietly so they can deal with it?
Did you perhaps miss my earlier posts where I addressed that, or are you just adding to a pile on? Of course I’d report it. And call them on it. That’s just me.
In response to your second question: Neither. I’d throw ice. Possibly popcorn.
Perhaps I did. I just think your assertion that the rule “makes it even easier for trolls to continue doing what they’re doing” is complete bupkis. No troll has ever stopped what it was doing because it was called a troll. Only admin intervention can do anything.
Of course it isn’t. Bupkis, that is. An established poster who’s well aware of what constitutes trolling can get away with quite a bit. Mods aren’t going to check every single post to see if that person is trolling one particular thread. They’re going to make a judgement call based on that thread. And unless you look at that poster’s history, often times it’s easy to say “that’s not trolling, it’s just an uncalled for remark.” I think you’re basing your remarks on what should happen when a guest/newer poster/obvious sock is trolling. That’s pretty obvious. Report it, let the mod take care of it. But I can think of a few (active) posters who have never been warned or if they have, warned, acted very contritely and were back on the troll train the following week.
Since no one is allowed to call these people on their activity, and because the mods are not Supermod and it’s impossible to be everywhere at once and police every thread, they get away with quite a bit. Why else would Dex have posted that stickie in CS requesting additional diligence? (Vigilance? can’t remember).
So the troll continues to troll and most people either ignore it in the hopes it’ll go away or roll their eyes, or make a veiled reference to trolling. Outcome? Squat.
I went back and looked at that thread. Dex was asking for additional vigilance in – wait for it – using the Report Post function. The mods read their boards looking for problems, but they can’t get everything. Report Post brings it to their attention.
Then there’s the fact that you might consider a poster to be trolling when the mods do not, or vice versa. I don’t doubt for a second the mods have looked at some notorious posters’ histories in detail and came to one conclusion or another. They’re not incompetent because you don’t agree.
And finally, the ability to call trolls such doesn’t suddenly have an impact when the person is a long-time poster versus a sock/newbie/whatever. A poster that blows off a warning from the admin is going to repent his ways upon being called names by a regular poster? I doubt it.
I didn’t call them incompetent. I said they couldn’t be everywhere at once. If you want to stick words in someone’s mouth, try teaching English as a second language.
Why do you feel the urgent need to change my mind on the subject? I mean, I don’t begrudge you the right to try, but it is kinda futile. I think it will have an impact, especially if more than one person in a thread agrees and tells the troll in question that they recognize what’s happening and expect it to stop. Amazingly, peer pressure works. Ask any teenager.
assuming that everytime you post the troll accusation, it is indeed correct, and that the PTB agree w/you then I gotta ask:
what is your desired outcome here? If it’s recognition that you, personally can spot a troll, you’re right, posting the accusation in the thread will achieve that result.
If your desired outcome is that the trolling behavior stop, then posting your accusation is the action least likely to achieve your desired results, as you seem to be aware here. Reporting the post is the action most likely to achieve your desired result.
And, of course, if the person’s behavior isn’t (in the PTB view) actually trolling, then you’re making a serious accusation against another poster, accusing them of behavior that can get them banned. And one wonders what purpose that would serve.
you keep talking about why is that word so laden and magical (or whatever) that we may not speak it. I’m wondering the converse - what’s so fucking great about accusing some one of trolling (which can get them banned) vs. calling them an asshole (which wouldn’t necessarily) or an ijiot (which doesn’t require banning) or a goat felching politician (which may indeed get them a Cabinet post appointment)?