Yo, you got that scholarship to back up your Hugo nomination biases? I have been waiting for a day. Is this like Domino’s where I can get the results free of charge if it takes longer than 30 minutes?
And I have not read much but the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies sites themselves. At best it seems that they want Sci-Fi to promote their conservative political philosophies or at least not to show an ounce of progressive thought. Sort of a our ideological highway, or no way. That’s not a straw man - that is what the sad puppies seem to really be about. VD is a few levels more extreme, but largely seems to be the militant version of this story.
Interesting way to put it in reply to me – my last argument here was a repeat about video aspect ratios. A lot of conversation here is in some way a waste of time, and energy to the extent it is spent, save only that people here felt like engaging in it. I doubt I am the only one who sometimes comes here with the intent of wasting time. I rarely see it criticized in other cases.
This is the exception, when people bother to confront misogynists, racists, or various other dishonest types who stand up for them. I’m not sure why. Is it supposed nobody could enjoy taking time to stand up for other people, or at least to yell at posters who are plainly going to be horrible about them? Or is it supposed nobody should, that calling them out is so inherently unmeritorious that anyone who indulges in it deserves to be called out for it?
Well, see what you say yourself:
In other words, ignoring them doesn’t actually do anything to discourage them in the long run. And in the short run, we are looking at the usual sort of one-off accounts that rarely endure beyond a single topic, responded to or not.
So the worst case is that if people choose to spend some time engaging with them, we might end up with a few more idiotic posts left shredded and mocked, instead of a few less left to stand unchallenged. I don’t think this is such a pernicious result. To the contrary, I agree with @Nelsie and @marilove, it helps keep this place welcoming to the sort of voices they would drown out.
So yeah, I think it’s worth us calling out this sort of disingenuous nonsense as we see fit. And if you instead think it’s a waste of time, well then fine, nobody’s making you do anything.
Alas, that’s not your call to make. That’s only something someone else can judge in the light of their experiences with you. The best you could possibly say is, “I try not to be a trolley,” and try to show some evidence of having examined yourself for trolldom.
The entire point is to converse with people online about different subjects. Who gets to choose what is and isn’t a waste of time here? @albill? Why? And didn’t albill waste time by leaving that comment? What was even the point? Couldn’t albill just not take part in the conversation? BoingBoing is a pretty big site, and the BBS is very active. There are other places to converse (not to mention the vast internet). Besides, abill isn’t a moderator. It’s not up to them to police the conversation. (Redacted 'cuz @OtherMichael is totes right.)
For the record, I believe @abill is an ally. That said, telling women (and men) to stop responding to sexism and discrimination and the promotion of that worldview isn’t at all helpful. And how do you know they are “trolls”? Yeah sure they are “trolling”, maybe, but I believe they 100% believe the clap trap they are spewing. I’d rather take a chance and reply to that toxic crap with a counter-point, rather than let it linger.
But if you notice, eventually, after a reply or two, my snark goes way up and I start leaving gifs and memes? Yeah. It’s because I am aware of the type of person I’m responding to. The first reply or two or even three, I might hope that they’ll come around, but after that I’m just glad the toxic bullshit isn’t there to linger, all by its lonesome.
And also, yes, it can be fun.
I’ve been online since 1989 (BBS original, baby). So yeah, I know what I’m doing. I can handle myself.
But I mean fo’ real tho, I’m on BBS to converse and waste time. Sometimes that actually entails talking about important shit, and making friends, and having a laugh. All of which are not necessarily wastes of time – But I mean I have OTHER SHIT I could be doing rather than hanging out here right now. Don’t we all?
Aaaaackshually (if I may speak for @codinghorror), one of the design goals behind Discourse is that admins shouldn’t be required to police the conversations; those conversing should do it themselves.
As users regularly participate by reading and posting, they gain trust. With that trust, they gain powerful abilities to help maintain the community and push out trollies and spammers. [source]
You know, you’re right. I agree. I won’t delete that from my response, but I don’t think it was very clear or accurate, so I hereby redact it. That said, the rest of my comment still stands.
I will feed the trolls if I damn well please. And sometimes I will set them on fire.
This is exactly why I opened a suggestion a month or so back that moderates or blocks new posters from commenting until their accounts have been open for 48 or 72 hours. It cuts down on the one issue drive bys.
I was just thinking about this recently, because I have flagged things in the past saying “who died and made [him|her] moderator?!?” … and realizing that by flagging the post I was doing something similar, only feeling virtuous about it. My real problem was probably with how things were phrased or approached. I’m never as nuanced as I wanna be.
As a general rule, I don’t tell people that. That said, in this instance, these assholes really are just here to trolley and feed off of all the attention. I’m 100% convinced that arguing with puppies fanbois is like arguing with gamergate trollies. There isn’t much point and they aren’t interested in other viewpoints and being convinced. Publicly shaming them, sure, or counter-driving trollies to show them how regressive they are, sure, but there isn’t much point in actually debating with these people because they aren’t really here to debate but to defend their precious saviors of SF.
I don’t look at this as me mansplaining women in how to respond to abuse. I was saying, basically, “Wow, a 200+ message thread of shit! Why are people bothering with these trollies because they are clearly trollies!”
Yeah I know that’s why they are here. I’m perfectly aware. I don’t really need you to explain to me how the internet works.
BTW, as a woman who has been online since 1989 and who spent a LOT of time on IRC in the '90’s: These are not new types of “trolls”. It’s not like GamerGate just created them out of the ether last year or something. Do you know how long I’ve been dealing with people JUST like this about the same exact topics? I feel old, man. But dude. They are going to be there whether we respond or not. That’s the fucking point.
Also, these trolls believe in the misogyny that they are spewing. As did all the other misogynistic hatewads I have dealt with since … I feel old. They aren’t just trolling for the sake of trolling. They are trolling to spread their hate. They have a clear goal.
We’ve had this conversation before (general “we”). Let’s not doing it again. It’s a waste of time.
As have I, on both the Internet, and running a BBS from roughly 1988 through 1995 on the dialup modems… I met many of my original circle of friends as a late teen and early 20something on the net. Luckily, we all used pirate 'nyms back then so in the Google age, my youthful indiscretions are hard to find.
If you wanna argue with trollies, you clearly don’t need my permission. It is still a 200+ message thread of shit though.
