Trolling vs. Thread Derailment

It's questions like these that trolls like to take advantage of, because such behavior often evades precision and welcomes uncertainty. The answer, or an answer, involves in looking at the big picture. If any one person is a consistent detrimental influence on a community, they can and should be asked to change their behavior or leave. Multiple threads have been warped to the point of being unrecognizable. I certainly won't participate in them so long as that one person is allowed to post as they have been for months.

I think they know what they're doing, and if they were forced to choose between more genuine community engagement or being barred from certain threads, they would choose to leave of their own accord. I don't think they're interested in real discussion and building connections. They're here for attention and dissension. Not of the political, but rather of the personal.

This is a longstanding community. Everyone is welcome, but not all behavior is equally invited. Members who want to discuss things with each other should be allowed to do so without the static coming from a particular quarter. Even putting someone on ignore doesn't help beyond a certain point-- after all, hidden posts still register in threads and with some people responding to those posts, it affects everyone's experience.

If the aforementioned person engaged in real discussion and was authentic in their approach to posting, their views would be almost irrelevant.

 

I want to make it clear, I am not defending the guy. I agree that he's irritating and disruptive. I just don't see what the mods can do, that's all.

 

Well, I sort of addressed that. It's clear to me that there are ways to deal with anyone who negatively impacts a community in a consistent way.

 

It has definitely changed my jcc reading habits. I rarely go into the US politics thread anymore, for instance, because it really is a bunch of people disagreeing with one person. It got tiresome a while ago. I tried using the ignore feature, but that ruined the threads even worse, because they were choppy, etc. I don't have a solution.

 

Also, referring to our awesome resident physician, who has been amazing through this whole Covid thing, as "Doc" is totally disrespectful.

 

I appreciate you clarifying this. I think part of the issue in why there may have been less reporting is due to the posts by moderators in these threads. When we see mods issue warnings, we assume that the matter has been handled. However, if the desire is to use the report feature from now on, then I will certainly do so.

 

Same.

 

I have the poster on ignore and generally just ignore a lot of JCC threads now that they post in because they’re nonsensical, so good luck to those fighting the pointless fight I guess.

Ender and Knightwriter have hit the nail on the head multiple times now.

 

I don't agree. I do it all the time and no one notices. No one has to participate with everyone (or anyone). Listening is not actually in the TOS or rules of the JC, and for many good reasons.

Demanding one listen and respond to everyone can result in what we've seen recently in the Thunderdome.

 

I think you’re right CT that he doesn’t have to engage with any of us. But the difference is when you ignore people you’re not the centrepiece of every thread. If Mike has you on ignore in one of the threads he frequents you basically can’t participate. If people can’t restrain themselves to collectively not take his bait (and therefore give him the attention of every thread), either he should be open to actually engaging rather than ignoring anyone who responses to him in a tone which doesn’t upset him (ultimately he doesn’t engage with the points raised against him either) or some other action should take place.

 

Yes, but there is a difference between "not listening" and continuing to post things that disregard any discussion others are trying to make. In this instance, the politics discussion thread, or guns, or race, or the pandemic. And the problem is that the continued decision to do this has made it impossible to move discussion forward every time this user posts. Threads get derailed for pages all due to one specific user's behavior.

This has become an undeniable impediment to actual discussion on a discussion board. Something that we can't just ignore because that has been tried and has failed for months. We know this is something that will not change, because the behavior patterns have been consistent for months. The only options are what we have seen shared in this thread: Ignore the user in question- which does nothing if the conversation is dominated by that user, not respond (which doesn't stop others from responding and taking the bait) or report it- which seems to be what the current ask is.

Having said all of that, I suppose the question is how severe do these reports need to be or perhaps, how many are really needed at this point, before the action graduates from non-actionable trolling to actionable based on the repetitive posts made to derail discussion? Because as discussed since page 1, the issue is that the behavior is not actionable in a vacuum. Instead, it is the deliberate and repeated behavior that should be actionable based on intent.

 

Maybe a trip to ban land might do something to get him to change his ways. I’ve been there a number of times for various lengths, for doing things I didn’t think quite deserved that. Not trying to get into that. But it does change how you come back. I’m a good little obedient user now, aren’t I?

And for the mods, they then have a precedent to work off of if that user acts up again.

 

That will do nothing more that reinforce the negative traits. It will not promote any form of introspection.

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This just feels like being in ModSquad in '05 and '06 and watching those mods do the equivalent of watching trashy TV because they can't find the remote and it's too far away to get up and change the channel. Which in the age of streaming feels like a dated metaphor but I am discussing 15 years ago, so...

There are two outcomes - ban him because he annoys people and dealing with it is so. much. effort. or pull him into a PM, tell him his behaviour's not ok and he knows, and tell him - don't ask him - to change. Basically it's an intervention and last chance at once. I did it with a bunch of difficult Senate people and I also managed to get by without banning people often, like Kimball did. You just need to be more than a reactive TOS enforcer, which I always argued mods should be.

If the JC mods don't want to do it, I'll do it and you can watch as participants. Didn't come here to **** spiders we came here to discuss how bad Star Wars, specifically the prequels, are.

 

I have an urge to call out the worst responders to him, but I don’t want conflict with them

 

In my defence, I’ve only responded to the guy a couple times recently, and one was to point out (more to the thread than to him) the pointlessness of the continued interaction

There are a handful of people who respond in detail to essentially all of his posts. Haul them in boss. We can’t send him to Coventry if they insist on keeping him here.

 

I just have him on ignore and none of the threads make any sense. If mod intervention isn’t a possibility, maybe we could make an ignore pact.

 

@Darth Punk - I freely admit I was not aware of the other thread until after I had created this one. However, as I said before, my question at the start of this is separate from the issue of sourcing or Senate norms and simply focused on general board behavior. It is easy to go into the specifics about the user in question but I think that obscures the issue. Ender hit on it- the behavior itself is the problem and the behavior is not changing. So the question is when does that repetitive behavior of derailing discussion through borderline trolling require corrective action from a moderator. From the start, I made clear I wasn’t inquiring about a full ban, but about barring the user from the threads in question- especially the Pandemic thread. I can understand that in a vacuum, these actions do not rise to the level of actionable. But taken as a whole and looking at intent, that is the only conclusion one can make. In short- the user doesn’t want to have a discussion in a discussion thread. How long can that remain viable when these posts have become a literal impediment to discussion?

@anakinfansince1983 - I get exactly why you have replied and that is the same reason I initially replied too. It’s not necessarily about changing minds every time- sometimes it is just standing up and calling bs on the ‘facts’ presented. At the same time however, I think we can acknowledge that collectively, our posts have done little to help the situation and our earlier actions may have inflamed things such that they are now at this point. But, I also think you have illustrated a perfect example of why “just ignore the user” is not a viable strategy. Everyone just assumed that this would go away just as it has with the others who like to throw a grenade and run. This issue is that this user has no plans to run away to leave these discussions and every time there is a post, discussion gets derailed.

 

I understand the frustration, but I think a simple mocking post in response is probably the best at this point. I have no doubt if people didn’t reply to him as much he would post less (or maybe he’d even try and learn to get engagement), and the problem would go away.