I hear ya, and you are right, ignoring EVERYTHING is not the solution. What I wrote can definitely be taken to an absurd extreme. Same the other way, to respond diligently to every single trolly trololo that passes through… There is a relatively calm medium, I think. Not always calm in a forum sense, but calm in a personal sense to go “pff, whatever, you idiot.” But not actually type it out and run it into the ground. YES, some idiots deserve a good boot heel now and then. I think we’ve all been that idiot, and dished to that idiot, and will again. So these things are gray not set in stone.
As far as controlling the message and the flow… I’ve been on lots of forums with lots of different discussion styles. The way a conversation goes online is AS MUCH a function of the site’s setup as it is the participants. The tech plays large. To truly control a conversation, lots of stuff must needs be deleted constantly. Which requires moderation. Which requires labor, willing labor, to be in the watchtowers and cleaning up the toxic waste spills.
So, how about a forum in which ANY participant can simply delete any other participant’s comment? Now, wouldn’t that be an interesting Milgram-esque exercise?
