Don't feed the troll...

[Ian Kelly]

On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 4:57 AM, Antoon Pardon
<antoon.pardon at rece.vub.ac.be> wrote:
> I don't remember making such a claim. What I do remember is
> you among others claiming that the problem was not (so much)
> the troll (Nikos) but the others.

Count me among those who feel this way.

> And your last conclusion is unsound. You forget to include the
> fact that once a troll appeared, people reacting badly to the
> troll is also to be expected. So with regards to this aspect
> there is no difference between the troll and the responders,
> both being expected and so no ground to put the preponderance
> of blame on the responders.

No, I don't agree with that at all.  Trolls are to be expected because
there will always be those out in the world who want to have a little
fun and have no regard for either the list or those who use it.  There
is nothing to be done about that.  On the other hand, the flamers
responding to the trolls are regular contributers to the list who
presumably do care about keeping the list courteous, respectful,
welcoming and enjoyable to participate in.  Toward that end, I do not
think it is at all unreasonable to expect posters not to throw those
principles out the window just because a troll showed up.

> Well others don't appreciate you drawing the lines for them
> either. If you think others have no business drawing the line
> for what is acceptable on this mailinglist/newsgroup then you
> have no business drawing such a line yourself.

Ultimately there is no enforcement on this list, and all of us must
draw our own lines.  The question then is: will one draw the line
somewhere that is respectful of the list and promotes positive
contributions, or somewhere that will push others toward kill-filing
one and/or giving up on the list altogether?

> I find this a very one-sided view. Those annoyed excessively
> by Nikos can't easily ignore him without a cost. There may
> be people involved in such a tread they value and like to
> read. They can't easily filter the valuable contributions
> in such a thread from the nth repeated answer to the same
> question either.

So their ideal solution is to flame him until he goes away, with the
result being that the threads don't exist to begin with?  If it's
difficult to filter "valuable contributions" from a thread while
trying to ignore every other post, think how much harder it will be to
got those same "valuable contributions" from a thread that doesn't
exist in the first place.  Finding anything of value here is clearly
not the goal of the flamers, and they might as well just kill the
threads at their end -- it's the same net effect for a lot less work,
and it doesn't impact the ability of anyone else to interact with
those threads if they might wish to.

> You ask of others they should tolerate this cost Nikos
> brings on for them but you protest when you have to take
> on this kind of cost yourself.

It's a lot easier to ignore a thread than it is to ignore specific
posters within specific threads.  And per my response above, your
argument that the flamers might not want to just ignore the thread
doesn't fly.

> I don't know it is that clear. I have the impression it can be
> rather effective in cases where the whole community makes it
> clear trolls are not welcome. Of course if part of the community
> is more bothered by those making trolls feel unwelcome than by
> the trolls themselves, such strive will of course attract them.

I don't think you understand the troll mindset.  They don't care
whether the community does or does not welcome them, because they
don't view themselves as part of the community.  They just want
affirmation and attention, which is exactly what they get when
somebody flames them.  They may even find it amusing that somebody can
get so worked up over their disingenuous posts, which then spurs them
on to continue trying to get the same reaction.