This blog has been getting a lot more traffic lately. The downside is that we’ve had a lot more trolls here lately as well.
Because of this, and because of a shitty situation in one of the comment threads earlier tonight involving an abusive troll who I wish I had banned sooner, I want to open up a discussion to everyone here (that is, everyone here who is not a troll or an MRA).
The question is: Do I need to crack down harder on trolls?
Generally my approach has been to let trolls post unless and until they’re abusive. I know a lot of people here like engaging with trolls and taking them down.
The problem, of course, is that these trolls can quickly become abusive. And this can trigger people.
Should I be quicker to ban people — banning trolls at the first sign that they might become abusive rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt (which, unfortunately a lot of them don’t deserve)? Should I be stricter about who I let post in the first place?
There are actually a lot of people I don’t let post here at all; if their first comment is too aggressive or hostile or (obviously) contains a slur I don’t let their comments through. I’m especially strict when it comes to people posting in threads about women who’ve been harassed.
But I could be stricter, and I could ban more quickly if that’s what you think I should do.
Frankly, I gave up a long time ago on the idea that it’s possible to have any kind of “open debate” with these people. Too many of them are abusive assholes for that to work.
So my priority here is the regular feminist and feminist-friendly commenters on this blog, and coming up with a comment policy and procedures that work better for you all. There are people who enjoy and in many cases feel empowered by being able to confront the trolls here. But I don’t want, and I don’t think any of us want, more situations like the one that happened tonight.
To be honest, I do think I need to crack down harder. I just want to hear what you all think on the issue, and to hear your suggestions as to how to do this most effectively.
The other aspect of this: I think I need to put up more no troll, no MRA open threads. And so I will be doing that.
Thoughts?
(I may not be able to get back to this thread for a little while, but I’ll definitely be back later in the evening.)
I know I’m a newbie here, but for my money, the issue is trauma vs discussion. The time-honoured tradition of using trolls as a chew toy and dissecting + mocking their bullshit is a great one, but as we saw with Ally being targeted, it can turn pretty personal and offensive pretty quickly.
I can definitely see an argument for smacking shit down as soon as someone starts with the victim-blaming crap, but I also think more troll-free threads might encourage some discussion with people who don’t feel safe even joining threads where that kind of crap might occur. It seems to me if we clamp down too hard we miss opportunities to change people’s minds, but as you said, David, a lot of people come here with no intention of having a rational discussion – they just want to “score points” in some kind of way.
(As an aside, what do the Manosphericals gain by coming here? It’s not like they’re going to win converts to their cause amongst your readership, and I don’t believe they could be getting kudos for stepping into a “lion’s den” that’s just a web forum. What’s the drawcard for them? I don’t get it.)
There’s something really cathartic about seeing some of the regulars batting about trolls, writing epic poetry, and being totally amazing.
However, there have also been trolls that were disgusting, vile, and nasty.
I’d love to see something slightly stricter, to cut down on the ones who turn nasty, or become terribly tedious. Not a ton stricter, but a bit.
You’ve got to sleep, eat, and play with kitties sometime, so I won’t scold you for not monitsring every troll’s posts, every second. It’s not realistic.
But, catching that guy before he said what he said would have been really nice. All my sympathies to the affected.
Addendum to comment:
I’ve also never been singled out by an ooky-troll. Give 100 times the weight to comments from people who have been singled out, because they’re the hurt parties.
My enjoyment of a spectacular troll meltdown is not worth someone else’s pain.
I’ve found that the commentariat here is furiously effective. I think it’s worth letting some trolls come in just to see how awesome everyone is in beating them to a pulp… but that being said, I don’t have serious triggers. So I’d be fine with quicker troll-blocks. And as contrapangloss just said, some of them have been disgusting, vile, and nasty. Those people are not amenable to reason and not even worth responding to.
I’m a bit torn about the increased screening for new posts; on the one hand, less trolls would be amazing as those individuals make me very unhappy. However, I wouldn’t want to see the well-meaning-but-clueless or even genuinely confused thrown out along with the antagonists, and I feel (but, admittedly could be entirely wrong) that you do a pretty good job of screening out the terribles from the get-go.
All of that being said, I’m all for putting a more sensitive trigger on the ban-hammer. It feels like these people give use quite enough clues about where they’re headed before getting triggering and outright abusive.
This has been one of my most read blogs because you go in the places that expose just how awful the MRA movement is, and I think people need to see the awful things they say, and that should apply to the comment section as well. Since you have a trigger warning at the top of the page, I’d say that gives enough warning to exactly what type of people might be commenting.
To quote your own comments policy “fools are destroyed by their own words”. We need to allow them to speak and make a fool out of themselves.
The troll who was abusive to Ally crossed my personal threshold long before that. I get squicked out by PUAs who brag in rapey terms about their sexual prowess.
I’d rather see the really offensive ones banned or warned and put on moderation before they have a chance to hurt someone.
I could understand holding back abusive comments and possibly even shutting commenting down on an entry if it seems that a post is receiving an extraordinary amount of trolling going on. But I’m new here, so I probably shouldn’t have as much say as your regular folks.
Maybe have the option of “Battle Threads” where people can come in and have a taste of the old Manboobz, while other threads are more heavily moderated?
What about a three-comments chance before BOOM, the way PZ Myers works it at Pharyngula? Would that be useful?
David, would it help to have moderators? It’s a thumping load on you, especially as traffic’s getting heavier.
Ditto what Auntie Alias said about that rapey troll. It doesn’t take too long to prod them into showing their true colours (when they don’t show them up front anyway), and I’d be happy to see the Laser Cat of Death destroy them then.
I’m a recent commenter here, but I’ve been off and on lurking for a long time (I think I found the blog sometime around the 2012 campaign season). I’ve always enjoyed the troll-smashing personally, and the few times I’ve joined in have been fun. I’d hate to see it go away entirely, I think it would change the feeling of the entire comment section.
That said, my lulz aren’t as important as anyone’s mental health. I’m all in favor of more troll-free threads if that makes more commenters want to participate. And if the commenting policies needed to be tightened overall, so be it. Whatever is the most good for the most (non-trolling) people.
For the well-meaning but clueless, how about amending the trigger warning at the top to add that this is not a Feminism 101 blog, and add some appropriate links in the blogroll? Some of the links there are defunct, so they could be edited out to make room.
The most recent one, before they not just stepped across the line but flew across at Mach 2 (when they leapt into -apologist mode), was also regurgitating PUA dot-points. The same dot-points that have been made in lots of other threads.
They weren’t engaging with a conversation in the thread or the topic.
They weren’t bringing any new “oh, so this is the updated strategy they’re trying now” type information in.
So the “seen it all before, seen it repeatedly debunked before” is one (of many) possible triggers for cracking down. It would also serve to get Mikey banned as well (and his boring-as repeated links to his bloody website), which I think makes it double-plus good.
I’m mixed on a more widely applied banhammer; 1: I know that I’m not likely to be all that triggered by a lot of the things they say, so my not being personally bothered (though I may get righteously angry on the behalf of others) isn’t worth all that much.
2: I think giving them enough rope to well and truly hang themselves is good. It also reduces the strength of their claims to being “censored.
I like fora which disemvowel offensive posts.
The real problem is for this to work well the blog needs to be moderated pretty much 24/7, which requires a team.
And there is no way I can see to prevent a grease-fire sort of mess from happening when you are engaged in the life away from keyboard we all enjoy.
Oh, on the matter of open threads: I’d like to see a monthly open thread as a regular thing. Not so much a not-personal one, because we all like to talk about stuff that’s happening anyway, so the division doesn’t seem to matter, and if the moderation is made a little stricter, there’ll be less trolling in the general threads.
html has got it in for pecunium!
What if you flipped the script and only certain threads allowed trolls?
I do enjoy our group takedowns of trolls. Some of the people here are very intelligent and witty and it’s simply fun to watch sometimes.
I do like the idea of having no troll posts from time to time. Like when the subject is rape. It was nice having the first Elliot Rodger thread that was up the morning after be a no troll zone. That was upsetting stuff and we needed some time to process it before being ready to battle trolls.
I do have a request for a specific troll. Can Mike Buchanan be put on moderation until he stops spamming with links to his stupid blog?
I adore the troll take-downs by the commenters here so I definitely wouldn’t want to lose that. Not only is it funny, it’s educational to see how their talking points are debunked.
David, would it help if we emailed you sooner? I haven’t ever done so, mainly because I’m relatively new and unsure of where the ban-worthy boundaries are.
Now, I love a good troll takedown more than Christmas and my birthday, but yeah, you should be more liberal with the banhammer.
And please don’t discount us when we’re telling you someone is being an abusive jackass and try to get us to play nice. That happened not too long ago, and it sucked.
Mike Buchanan should star in Meet the Banhammer, IMO. All he does is try pimp that sad thing he calls a blog. He can stay if he get original, but I doubt that’ll happen.
I’m going to second Auntie Alias. I’m a) new and b) not triggered, so my opinions hold a lot less weight, but I think the effective takedown of trolls is a defining point of this community. And obviously it’s difficult to do so much moderation. But as the commentariat here are pretty good at recognizing when trolls are likely to go especially gross, I think maybe having more people emailing David could help. Perhaps put it on the Welcome Package? (I know that’s not controlled by David, but I have felt uncomfortable emailing about trolls)
More non-troll threads and a comment limit for troll-looking commenters are really good ideas.
It’s a difficult line between letting them destroy themselves and letting them get away with things, that’s for sure.
I think it’s fun to bat them around, or watch the batting, but I’ve noticed some trolls looooooooonnng exhaust their repertoire before they’re finally shitcanned. ( I only comment here occasionally, but I’ve been reading a good while)
There are two criteria here, it seems like:
1) are they completely hopeless?
2) are they at least entertaining?
If 1) is the only criteria, you can tell pretty fast, and ban within the first few comments, most of the time.
If 2) is also a consideration, you could let the funny ones stay for a bit, but I’d vote to ban without further delay when it seems like the majority of commenters are noting that the troll is a) too ugly to be funny b) too boring to be funny.
I don’t have strong opinions on the banhammer — yes, I love a good troll smackdown, but then I’m not likely to get triggered.
However, I am 100% for banning the crap out of Mikey. I’ve seen him once or twice in the comments on other sites (can’t remember where, offhand) and it was always the same crap. Paper thin faux politeness, stock MRA bullet points, ridiculous ‘challenges’ and endless spamming for his blog. He’s probably not going to melt down and earn a banning that way, but he’s also not going to get any more interesting.
I come here for the troll take-downs. Rarely ever comment, though, the rest of y’all say it better than I do.