June 30, 2009
Noisy Idiots
One of my classmates is trying to figure out how to keep trolls from ruining the Internet for everybody else. The problem seems to be that people who are not trolls have a great deal of respect for the rights of trolls.
In studying various threads on the various fora, it became apparent that attempts had been made to address the problem of these Noisy Idiots dominating debate. In one example, a contributor to the Intercultural Dialogue forum known as filosofia, clearly fed-up with the Noisy Idiots, with their one repetitive view point, posed a question to the forum: what was to be done to address the problem? . . .
What followed in the debate was incredibly interesting. People responded to filosofia’s ideas initially two ways.:
a) By suggesting ways of dealing with the problem, such as a YouTube-style voting system or otherwise ignoring the ‘trolls’, or
b) Reminding filosofia that just because people didn’t go along with her ideas or style of debating, it doesn’t mean their views shouldn’t be voiced. After all, isn’t this the point of a forum?
A Noisy Idiot then began a rant against Muslims, mentioning Mein Kampf and the phrase ‘let the deportations begin.’ Followed by EurophileAmerican (a more moderate voice) trying to engage in some form of intelligent debate on the topic. Filosofia then waded back in saying how interesting it is the debate has followed down an Islamic route when she actually was meaning the ‘UKippers’ (UK Independence Party supporters) as the people she was initially talking about, she then declared she has had enough and was leaving the forum. The Moderator then stepped in trying to assert some control. The discussion ended with two Noisy Idiots intonating that filosofia is uptight, that the BBC probably have documentary about such people, and the other concluding the thread with the phrase ‘laughing my ass off.’
. . . people in the forum seemed more concerned with the protection of the principle of free speech and democracy and of not allowing anyone to be silenced – i.e. the democratic process, rather than a rational, intelligent debate or even indeed concern over the final decision made by the group.
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It’s an interesting question, and I don’t think there’s one answer. What works for the flock (what does work for the flock?) wouldn’t necessarily work elsewhere.
I most often encounter the noisy idiot problem on IRC. I’m a fan of the “kick and ban with extreme prejudice” school of thought, but ignoring people is typically easy enough. Rule number one is “don’t feed the trolls”
clusterflock rules:
step one: ignore.
step two: delete.
of course, the occasional sanjose is fun to roll.
And think of the fun we would have missed were it not for my trashy mouth and Rick’s disrespectful attitude toward women.
shit. rereading that comment thread was *awesome*.
good times.
I’m still eager to be either smirched or besmirched.
Damn, that thread is good. And Cindy was making me hang back because I bristle up so overtly when friends are being disrespected. She did the right thing.
She sure did, Daryl—your “Have a nice day” is one of the funniest fucking things in there.