Trolls R Us Resurrections

The BBQ Pit
11597

If you speak irritating facts and by doing so stir up shit, however – and if they’re actual facts, and if you drop them in a relevant thread, and if you’ll engage in actual discussion about them and about how they apply in context, and if that hasn’t already been done to death in fifty other threads – that needs to be protected here.

The people I consider to be behaving in a trollish fashion are the ones who aren’t fullfilling one or more of those qualifiers. Especially if they do so repeatedly.

11598

I do not, at all. The goal would have to be something else. You mention speaking truth to power. That’s a different motivation. I would also include “informing people” or “trying to convince people.” I’m sure there are other legitimate motivations I’m not thinking of.

But if their goal is to stir up shit? To piss people off, start fights, etc? That doesn’t get respect from me. At best it gets pity, but most likely contempt. I do not think they add value at all.

A crusader by definition has another goal besides stirring up shit. And I’d guess the reporters you’re talking about do as well–they want information.

Now, I admit that motivations are not always obvious. Someone could appear to have the motivation of stirring up shit, but actually be trying to inform. But if they see that they’re stirring up shit, I’d expect them to try some other tactic. You can’t inform people (or convince them) they hate you and think you have bad intent.

I do not agree with you that “speaking truth to power is a good thing regardless of the motivation.” When the motivation is to make things better, you’ll take more precautions. Because doing it wrong can wind up only hurting the people you’re defending.

People in power love to demonstrate that power by lashing out at the most vulnerable.

11599

Man, it’s been two years since Colibri has left us.

11600

Pineapple was delicious. :wink:

I was interacting with him right before he died. I think about that and wonder if there was any way that I could have helped. I miss him.

11601

Apparently I can’t upload media, but here’s a link for you to click on.

11602

I gotta tip my hat to Imuseless for writing perhaps the most trollish post in the history of SDMB. Posting an obviously untrue and horribly offensive statement as fact, with a literal cite of “just look it up on Google”. That takes a certain amount of flair.

11603

Top shelf trolling.

:face_with_monocle:

11604

Okay, we obviously disagree, which is fine, especially for the board, and the Pit. Nor do I find you counters without merit. But I still disagree - so lets look at specifics.

  1. In the first paragraph I quoted above, I think you step into, and then away from my POV. Very few people (zero IMHO, but I try to avoid absolutes) are all 100% behind a single motivation. It’s almost always a combination of things, although many people hit very high percentages of a single motivation for any specific action. When it comes to trolling/shit stirring, I feel this case is as well. So, your average troll (here, I’ll get to other places in a bit) may be 70-80% shit stirring, but maybe 10% of it is they think that they will find someone who will, in their vernacular, “wake up”. Another 10% might be self-affirmation, proving to themselves that they fought “the good fight”. Admirable by our standards? Hell no, but it’s from their POV a positive motivation.

A second subset of this belongs (again here) to our serial trocks. For whatever reason, they CANNOT let this place go. Sure, they’ll keep stirring up shit, and it may be their single biggest percentage (not sure), but the endless, repeated efforts to do so here is a sign of some deeper obsession, or possible sense of loss. Something about their self-identity is deeply tied here, and they cannot let it go, so they respond in terrible, dishonest ways.

And now on to everywhere else. Because, guess what, trolling is conditional, not all of one thing, which is what I’ve been suggested. We have a substantial number of posters here, who do exactly what I mentioned in my “grudging acceptance” of fact based trolling: but they aren’t doing it here, they’re doing it on places like Twuth Sociopathic, or Faux News comments, or Gun Enthusiast message boards. They go in and (often cruelly, or snarkily) speak the facts that are often missing in such places. And they aren’t always nice and dispassionate about it. By the standards of those locations, they’d be trolling. By their own standards? Possibly? Probably, I’d say, and I wouldn’t dare to guess the percentage of that motivation, but I’d bet it’s less than 100%.

So again, I stand by my statement:

  1. On to your second point, about “speaking truth to power is a good thing regardless of motivation”. I still think you’re closer to my POV than you want to admit, although I will absolutely deserve to take some flak from stating an absolute (I do try to avoid that). Because while I will still agree with the statement, you are 100% correct that in doing so, you must consider the repercussions. Still, I thought I was clear in the clause right before the one you quoted:

“for society on the whole, it’s probably beneficial”

Still remains true - especially of course in various flavors of representative governments, having the truth spoken, the lies of the powerful exposed, is a way to bring about change. Not always (and it seems increasingly, not even commonly) successful, but it makes it harder for those in power to conceal their efforts, and even then, it has the effect of making some of those in power act in more circumspect manners.

For individuals and out-groups though, you’re absolutely right, it can bring down attention that individuals and groups may find more onerous than they can bear. And that leaves out non-representative governments, and ones with excellent information control where it may be nearly futile. But the sort that speak truth to power in such situations were always at risk: speaking up may increase it, but may also change the situation. And that brings us full circle to percentages: are they doing it just to stir up shit? Almost certainly not, but what realistic chance do they have of changing things - very little, still, that very little is non-zero.

11605

We’ve had several posters like that (this board, I think, tends to attract that sort of personality). Some are just irritating but manage to stay within the rules, and they stay. Some can’t stay within the rules, and they end up getting banned. It’s always a tough decision when we do that, because those folks do make positive contributions to the board, and we want those positive contributions to continue… but if they just can’t control themselves, then sadly it sometimes becomes necessary.

Definitely not the most trollish post in the history of the SDMB. Probably not even the most trollish of 2024 thus far. But anything worse than that usually gets nuked on sight by whatever mod sees it first, which’ll be before most of the community sees it (and the worse ones are usually the first post under that username).

But yeah, that was a pretty blatant example, that made up minds among mods who were already unsure about him. We think he was already expecting to be banned, and decided that there was no longer any reason to hold back.

11606

I was thinking the same thing. Our “Friday Night extremely racist trock” was far worse as an example, but the trock was insta-banned and his posts cornfielded/deleted. So only a dozen or so posters probably saw that crap.

11607

This is gonna be long, and quoting would only make it longer, so I’ll just respond.

You’re right. I don’t agree with you. The motivations you are describing are conflicting, and thus they don’t work in a raw percentage setup. They’re more hierarchal.

In other words, someone whose primary or even majority motivation is to stir up shit will sacrifice those other motivations when they come into conflict. And that is basically every single trolling thing they do. Making people upset and defensive is not conducive to convincing them of anything.

In fact, trolling is so detrimental to these admirable goals that I question those who have it as a significant motivation at all. The decent person might think “Well, I’m doing it for this reason, and yes it might stir things up, but that’s unavoidable.” That is the only attitude I endorse when “trolling” those bad places online.

I don’t see the logic that using a different tactic makes trolling okay. I don’t see why we should want to promote trolling at all. Trolling shows a decided lack of empathy, and empathy is basically the difference between right and wrong. Sure, sometimes that is just anger and only momentary. I sympathize but do not endorse in that situation. But that doesn’t apply to someone who is being careful and planning as you would have to if you used only facts to stir up shit. It’s a cold, calculating thing.

I think the way people try to find excuses for trolling, making it acceptable in some areas, is a significant part of what makes the world worse. It’s the same as trying to find excuses for any bad thing. It’s the exact motivation Trump exploits by giving people “permission to be their worst.” Embrace trolling, and you get more trolls. It’s not going to be the person who actually cares who will take advantage of the loophole you are creating.

The serial trolls you are talking about? I never said I couldn’t feel sorry for trolls. But that doesn’t mean I think they should be allowed or encouraged to continue trolling. And I don’t think they would be able to stick with the type of trolling with facts that you describe, anyway.

I am not discussing trolling as this variable concept, based on what different groups consider to be trolling. This is about the motivation to “stir things up” as you put it. Deliberately provoking people into anger for your own amusement and/or participating in bad faith. Just because someone gets mad at you doesn’t mean you were trolling them–even if you probably should use better tactics if your goal is to convince.

And, yes, my argument against “speaking truth to power” was your insistence that it was always beneficial, despite their motivation. I would argue that trolling while speaking truth to power negates the latter aspect. If they actually accomplish anything good, that is contrary to their goals. The desire to troll is orthogonal to the desire to make things better.

I can tolerate people who have other motivations who wind up screwing up and trolling–even up to and including people who get angry and are primarily venting. But if trolling is the primary motivation, I don’t think that’s compatible with other beneficial motivations. I racked my brain for any situation where I could see trolling (intentional or not) as a beneficial thing, and every last one of those scenarios has something else as the primary motivation by large margins.

For example, something I used to do without entirely realizing it: I would see someone I think was unfairly treated, and I would bombastically come in and attack people for doing so. That would get the attention on me, and away from the other person. So that would seem to be potentially good. But then trolling wasn’t my motivation.

So, to sum up, I think trolling as a motivation is not compatible with any of the good things that truthtelling can achieve. I don’t find your truthtelling troll any more admirable than any other troll. In fact, I think less of them since they must inherently be a calculating type of troll, not the angry person who is lashing out or has emotional issues.

That said, this type of troll is rare enough that I don’t think our disagreement matters too much, despite how strong it is on my part. I just strongly object to this idea that using facts makes an otherwise immoral practice not immoral.

Nor do I think there is value in promoting the idea that telling the truth and facts means it’s okay, because the sincere type of troll always thinks the truth and facts are on their side. Just like bigots do.

11608

Keeping to a small piece only, because otherwise I think we mostly just have a disagreement within normal parameters of acceptable social behavior, which is, of course, both personal and situational and not a right/wrong sort of thing.

The reason I quoted the small segment is that we’re both agreeing that we’re talking about a tiny sub-segment of what may-or-may-not be trolls depending on definitions. As I said, upthread, part of the reason it’s so damn small is that it’s so much more work - if trolling is your primary percentage, or the highest in your hierarchy, they it’s just easier to manipulate things to create your ‘facts’, such as in the example I gave of the anti-abortion activists.

The second part is something slightly different to quibble about (which I think is what we’re doing, rather than arguing or debating) is that Truth and Facts are different. There are a ton of people who are certain of the Truth, and facts may have nothing to do with it. So I try to be very clear in that I’m speaking about facts, because Truth is almost always quite subjective.

Here I’ll pick on a lovely piece of written prose, that embodies part of the Truth for my nation, the USA:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

These are lovely Truths, in general at least, something to be admired and pursued. I doubt they ever have been, or ever will be universal facts. Doesn’t mean they don’t move me, and don’t provide a direction that I wish people would move towards, but even when spoken there were not adhered too by those stating them.

11609

If facts are irritating the problem lies with the reader not the writer. Once you enter early adolescence you shouldn’t need to be sheltered from factual writings. When I was in jr high, we were able to watch and discuss footage of the holocaust. The fact that adults of today need to be coddled is pathetic.

11610

Facts can be used to irritate.

11611

Which precisely NONE of are saying, DUH. Speaking of dishonest arguing styles…

11612

That’s being overly simplistic.

If someone posts on the board that their parent just died and was taken away too soon, you can reply with a fact showing that they lived near the average life expectancy, and also reply with a fact about how population growth is a problem in certain areas. But in those circumstances you’re being a complete ass getting in a dig on a grieving person.

That’s an example of how facts can equate to absolutely horrible trolling. The facts themselves aren’t the problem, it’s how and when you use them, and perhaps how they’re presented.

That’s why I said before that trolling does not have to involve deception or might even be done with content that on its own isn’t offensive or might even be useful under the proper circumstances. Trolling consists of posting in a manner designed clearly to rile people up, and certain facts in the wrong circumstances can do that. I’m glad we don’t have bright line rules that define trolling in a very narrow way because otherwise people might exploit such rules to the detriment of the community.

11613

Yeah, I get all that. There is a time and a place for even factual communication. However, if a space is advertised or known as a place where frank discussion is had then irritating facts or even reasonable conjecture that are relevant to the discussion shouldn’t be an issue.

11614

I think most if not everyone here would be in full agreement with you. That’s what we want here.

11615

Albeit without obvious claptrap such as “hivemind”.

11616

There’s no way that would show up here. No honest debater would dismiss everyone they interact with people here with that sneering retort. The SDMB is better than that!