Trolling Revisited

[thegreekdog]

2) The laws regarding trolling need to be clearer and less subject to a mods' interpretation.

Don't really care about the other suggestions, but this has been true for ages. Should defenitely happen.

Caveats to the following:

(1) I'm not making a smart-ass remark or trying to bait, flame, troll, or otherwise get anyone's goat. I'm genuinely asking these two related questions.
(2) The following does not indicate a potential change in the rules regarding trolling or any other rules.

Caveats done.

What would you change about the "laws regarding trolling?" Can you provide specific language for your ideal rule?

[bedub1]

Let's take a look at bedub's thread about how California sucks. Certainly, by your definition he is trolling, but I wouldn't want him banned or even warned for his supposed trolling because his topic makes for interesting discussion. Albeit heated, it's still interesting and provides everyone the opportunity to engage in ameaningful discussion.

W00t! I'm famous! I got mentioned in a thread that's not even mine. Yes Yes Yes!!

[BigBallinStalin]

Trolling itself is defined more-so subjectively and to a much lesser degree by the guidelines themselves; therefore, more decision-making powers should fall to the people's hands in order to genuinely reflect that subjectivity, and less "mod-itivity."

Until such questionable mods are removed from their duties and/or until there's a nice standard of professionalism implemented and enforced among their ranks, then I'd like more involvement in the banning process by the plebian ConquerClubbers themselves.

Disclosure of the banning process is a must as well (of course, given at the bannee's consent, as denominator already mentioned).


Recall AndyBanana's reasoning for AoG's ban for Trolling/Spamming. That was a rather weak justification for enforcing the guidelines on trolling. Look at how much the community is in disagreement about whether or not it was Trolling/Spamming. It clearly wasn't. Andy just finds AoG annoying, and then bans him at the expense of the majority's enjoyment of AoG's benign presence.

[thegreekdog]

I appreciate your comments BBS, but I'm still kind of looking for a definition of trolling that could be applied with very limited, if any, application of subjectivity. Perhaps that doesn't exist because, as you've indicated, trolling is defined subjectively (subject to the guidelines). I like to think that I'm good with words, but I cannot think of a standard definition of trolling that takes the investigative part of the work out (and I have thought about it more than I would have liked).

To take up one of your comments (and the same caveats as my first post apply) - what sort of involvement with the banning process would you like to see? Just to refresh - right now we have the ability for users to report posts and for users to pm individual moderators to inquire as to certain threads, posts, etc. We also have the C&A forum. I guess I'm wondering what sort of additional involvement would be useful and doable (the latter being probably more of an issue than the former).

[BigBallinStalin]

May I present TGD with the Most Professional Mod Award on behalf of the BigBallinStalinAssociation, but on a less joking note, I've spent about 1 or 2 hours on the fora, and it's more important for me to study Intellectual Property Rights at the moment.

I'll revisit this hopefully by tomorrow in better detail. I think I could re-write the guidelines on trolling, but that's really depends on how well l elaborate on getting the people more involved in the banning process, and also it depends on how well the mods mete out justice (which largely falls on everyone's responsibility in exposing such weaknesses and then discussing them).

[karel]

This thread is to funny

[thegreekdog]

And I'll present the award for Reasonable Discussion in a Somewhat Tense Setting At Least For the Internet (the RDIASTSALFTI Award for short) to BBS on behalf of The Greekies (coming soon in 2010!).

I may not be around tomorrow, so if I'm not on it's not because I'm avoiding. And if I'm on and not answering, it's not because I'm avoiding (just playing my games). I'll definitely be back on Thursday.

[denominator]

Unfortunately, the very nature of trolling (and all the various parts that it consists of) leaves it in a position of being undefinable in strict terms. Mod A (or, to be even more general, Person A) can see an action or post and claim it's trolling while Mod B (/Person B) will have absolutely no issue with it. To even further complicate the process, the post/action could have been done by User X and viewed as trolling, while the exact same action completed by User Y would not be viewed as trolling (see the Juan and InsomniaRed thread for a perfect example of this).

For this reason, you cannot make hard rules about trolling in the same line of thinking as, say, multiple accounts. If User Z has accounts numbering greater than 1, he's breaking the rules. Period. There cannot be the same sort of rules, under any definition, for trolling.

However, the issue lies in that the punishments ARE hard-written. Infraction 1 = Punishment 1, Infraction 2 = Punishment 2, etc. So in terms of trolling (or, I would argue, all forum/Live Chat infractions), the punishments need to be more flexible to go with the flexible nature of the rules breach.

I only argue for the transparency of the process so that the remainder of the community can understand what is a rules breach and how to avoid it (see first paragraph to understand why this might not be clear to everybody). Obviously, when somebody is ejected from a game for breaking the rules, it's for multiple accounts, and we can all immediately understand this. However, forum/Live Chat bans are less rigid and in order to prevent further events occurring the process must be more visible.

[Fircoal]

2) The laws regarding trolling need to be clearer and less subject to a mods' interpretation.

Don't really care about the other suggestions, but this has been true for ages. Should defenitely happen.

Caveats to the following:

(1) I'm not making a smart-ass remark or trying to bait, flame, troll, or otherwise get anyone's goat. I'm genuinely asking these two related questions.
(2) The following does not indicate a potential change in the rules regarding trolling or any other rules.

Caveats done.

What would you change about the "laws regarding trolling?" Can you provide specific language for your ideal rule?

I would make them less strict and have more community involvement. Like if people post out like they have for AOG and say, "No what he did was fine, and we the members of the forum are ok with it," I don't see why the person should still be banned. Also before any major decision is made I think there should be a bit of discussion between mods about whether it's fair or not, or even with some choice members of the forum to get a better view of things. I mean honestly, part of the problem is giving out big bans for small things. The escalating punishments have to go. I mean I think it'd be much more understandable for someone to be banned for a small amount of time even if it's not the most agreeable case. It'll get the message across and is no where near as hard to deal with. Also I think there should be more warnings. I mean often times people don't see what they're doing wrong. (Though not always)

[Phatscotty]

The great thing about Conquer club is that we are not forced to play it or talk about how great a game site it is. If people don't like it, they can just quit (freemiums only!), but they still get to go around passing good word of mouth.

[jonesthecurl]

OK here's a thought:
"those is the rules, put up or bugger off" is a common response.
Should these be the rules? Given that they intensely annoy many paying customers?

[clapper011]

why not make a suggestion..in the suggestions forum..to have a few community members help "rewrite" the forum guidelines or even this particular part of them?

[theherkman]

why not make a suggestion..in the suggestions forum..to have a few community members help "rewrite" the forum guidelines or even this particular part of them?

Just did... Guess who deleted it within 5 minutes...

[Phatscotty]

OK here's a thought:
"those is the rules, put up or bugger off" is a common response.
Should these be the rules? Given that they intensely annoy many paying customers?

Phatty agrees with Jonesie, therefore it is a universal law

[bedub1]

why not make a suggestion..in the suggestions forum..to have a few community members help "rewrite" the forum guidelines or even this particular part of them?

good idea.

and I heard about a website that takes all bad posts and moves the individual posts to the "bad posts thread"....so a single thread is filled with a bunch of random "wrong" posts....all the crap is in one place...but nobody can actually post to the thread.....only mods can move posts into it. I don't think there were any punishments for bad posts except after too many bad posts you couldn't post any more. It was like 15 or 20 warnings and everybody knew you were a jackass who couldn't communicate properly and needed to go and were gone. no coming back.

how about elections to make up the mod community for the SIB forum? elections every month....we'll elect them and crucify 'em faster than anybody can find 'em and nominate 'em

[targetman377]

OK here's a thought:
"those is the rules, put up or bugger off" is a common response.
Should these be the rules? Given that they intensely annoy many paying customers?

Phatty agrees with Jonesie, therefore it is a universal law

target agrees with phatty (who's real name is my name ) who agrees with jonsey


which by my count makes it a fact of universal law!

[Juan_Bottom]

With respect to Moderating these forums, you should have a minimum of about a thousand posts in them. You can't take a police officer from China and transplant them to America to enforce the law. You have to be sure that they have an understanding of the status quo.

You're the one who doesn't understand the meaning of those words ON THIS SITE.

Get over it, you were wrong. You got banned. Deal with it. .

(talking about trolling and spamming)

^I think this also speaks for itself.

Trolling is being a douchebag just to be a douchebag. It's also trying to provoke an emotional response. Just because a post does provoke an emotional response, does not mean that the intention behind it was trolling. I have the hardest time with the Mod team because often when I question them they say "shut up you're trolling me. I can ban you again for that."

Because the definition is (sorta) open to interpretation, I'd take a scientific approach to it. I once asked a teacher "how do you know something is a miracle?" And she said "If it would be a miracle that it wasn't a miracle."
If you're gonna ban someone for trolling, or threaten them as a troll, you should know that it would be a miracle if they weren't trolling.
And what about the report button? Does that have any sway? Like if a post has 7 reports does that make it spam?

The escalating system is starting to show it's age too. It's failing us... but the old system sucked balls too.
The new system reminds me of the California 3 strikes law.
This actually happened:
A man thought that his girlfriend had paid for his food (a hamburger and coke) at a baseball game. When an employee came over to tell him he needed to pay, he told him "f*ck off you little sh*t."
He was arrested, and admitted to stealing the food, and explained why. But he got 30 years because it was his third strike.

[Phatscotty]

It's all about control. If the mods really cared about what people say, they would just erase stuff or ask people to edit instead of locking threads, which guarantees EVERYONE SEES IT!

[BigBallinStalin]

Ok, ok, let's summarize here (Hey, if I missed some points, lemme know):

(http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131164&start=15#p2873844)
[Trolling can't be as clearly defined as breaking the rules for multi-accounts, therefore;] ... the punishments need to be more flexible to go with the flexible nature of the rules breach.

I only argue for the transparency of the process so that the remainder of the community can understand what is a rules breach and how to avoid it (see first paragraph to understand why this might not be clear to everybody). However, forum/Live Chat bans are less rigid and in order to prevent further events occurring the process must be more visible.

So we need some more transparency and more flexible punishments for trolling. denominator presents a good model: (http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131164#p2873653), which simply put goes like this:

The punishment process, on the other hand, is too rigid. Given how flexible the bans are on a case-by-case basis, it's hardly fair that the punishment is not handled on a case-by-case basis. I think a better system would be to have an escalating range of bans, such that for the first offence User X can be banned for 24hours-1week, second offence is 24hours-2weeks, third offence is 48hours-1month, etc.

_____________________________________________________________

So far so good, huh? We're doing some work here, making some breakthroughs, and it's intented that it doesn't fall on deaf ears (or in this case blind eyes, but how can someone even begin to surf the fora while blind? **holds up hands while shrugging** I dunno, I leave that to the philosophers).

[BigBallinStalin]

Back to TGD's reply regarding the People's involvment:

I appreciate your comments BBS, but I'm still kind of looking for a definition of trolling that could be applied with very limited, if any, application of subjectivity. Perhaps that doesn't exist because, as you've indicated, trolling is defined subjectively (subject to the guidelines). I like to think that I'm good with words, but I cannot think of a standard definition of trolling that takes the investigative part of the work out (and I have thought about it more than I would have liked).

To take up one of your comments (and the same caveats as my first post apply) - what sort of involvement with the banning process would you like to see? Just to refresh - right now we have the ability for users to report posts and for users to pm individual moderators to inquire as to certain threads, posts, etc. We also have the C&A forum. I guess I'm wondering what sort of additional involvement would be useful and doable (the latter being probably more of an issue than the former).

Fircoal is suggesting something similar to what I was thinking:

(http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131164&start=15#p2873891)
I would make them less strict and have more community involvement. Like if people post out like they have for AOG and say, "No what he did was fine, and we the members of the forum are ok with it," I don't see why the person should still be banned. Also before any major decision is made I think there should be a bit of discussion between mods about whether it's fair or not, or even with some choice members of the forum to get a better view of things . . . Also I think there should be more warnings. I mean often times people don't see what they're doing wrong. (Though not always)

This is something that I'm looking forward to. Someone can make a post about someone's alleged trolling, and the mods should allow time for us to see if it's trolling or not. If the offender is rampantly trolling and there's no time to flesh out the issues, then certainly punishment is immediately warranted, but I've yet to see that case arise except for guys like TeletubbyPrince.

I mean, we can all agree that the TeleTubster was nearly always trolling with malicious intent, right? Right.

What about AoG? Well... there should be a road open to further communication on the issue between the community and the mods involved. It's simple to setup. Just click on the New Topic by whoever, list the evidence against them, let people correct things and add, and then eventually start a vote on it: Trolling or Not Trolling? That is the question.

[BigBallinStalin]

And I'll present the award for Reasonable Discussion in a Somewhat Tense Setting At Least For the Internet (the RDIASTSALFTI Award for short) to BBS on behalf of The Greekies (coming soon in 2010!).

I may not be around tomorrow, so if I'm not on it's not because I'm avoiding. And if I'm on and not answering, it's not because I'm avoiding (just playing my games). I'll definitely be back on Thursday.

2010? What happened? Did I just imagine the past 11 months of this year? Then again how can reality be imagined? Given that reality is subjective, and that subjectivity is objective even if such notions imply attributes to substances which exist only in relational duality but not as an essential extension of ontological existence. [/end _______? ]

[BigBallinStalin]

why not make a suggestion..in the suggestions forum..to have a few community members help "rewrite" the forum guidelines or even this particular part of them?

I tell ya what: what we got here is beautiful. We'll all come up with something, and when it's finalized, I'll ship it over to the suggestions where hopefully it will be considered with much thought. Not that I have anything against the Suggestions Department, but I hesitate to go there on account of the dank air and the "My God, what is that slimy stuff on the ground there?"

[targetman377]

there should be some leeway on the mods part if you have not got banned in along time you should get a warning and if you don't stop well then off you go but you should not just give people 2 warnings 4 years ago. and then today slap them with a month ban.

[BigBallinStalin]

there should be some leeway on the mods part if you have not got banned in along time you should get a warning and if you don't stop well then off you go but you should not just give people 2 warnings 4 years ago. and then today slap them with a month ban.

Makes sense, right?

[targetman377]

there should be some leeway on the mods part if you have not got banned in along time you should get a warning and if you don't stop well then off you go but you should not just give people 2 warnings 4 years ago. and then today slap them with a month ban.

Makes sense, right?

i think that is just common knowledge unlike some people