On 8/28/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 28/08/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 28/08/07, Puppy puppy@killerchihuahua.com wrote:
David's has the advantage of shock value, which commands attention.
However, as a moderator of this mailing list - indeed, probably the most prominent such - it is imperative that David hold himself to the highest standards of behaviour lest the membership of the list at large believe that it is appropriate to make such comments.
You are of course correct. I felt it pointless to tolerate the blatant trolling any longer.
(I should know better than to think that would slow the thread down in the slightest. Do please continue, all.)
I am clearly not innocent of contributing to this, but I think I have to agree with Marc and James Farrar here that the use of the word "troll"/"trolling" here escalated rather than calmed down the discussion.
The question is, did our actions in arguing that the underlying claims were unreasonable (calling it trolling) cause the drama and criticism to die down, or escalate it? Clearly, we escalated it.
If we can't look back at what we did and the results, and think to ourselves "Ok, that didn't work, maybe we should try something different next time", then we're in a world of hurt.
The reason NPA is so important is that not following it takes situations with one aggrieved party and makes two, and then there's no right answer.
I'm sure none of us would have reacted with that directed and strong language to an in-person discussion on the same topic. It would be considered wrong and rude to do so, even if we were thinking the same underlying thoughts in reaction. Email and posting on wikis dehumanize the persons at the other end of the net link to some degree and lubricate people being more blunt than normal. This is extremely well documented and something I was talking to psychologists about before any of them were really studying the net... it's just blatantly obvious the longer you're an internet communications user.
To the degree that it lets people who want to stir stuff up act more aggressively, that's bad for online communities.
To the degree that it lets otherwise reasonable people in those communities react in negative feedback loops with the provacateurs it's worse. We have for example MONGO's longstanding negative feedback loop with at least one set of external trolls, where clearly they're egged on by his continuing to react in the manner that he does.
Marc's right that a bunch of us just did that here, me included.