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You know, It's pretty frustrating to be accused of trollishness about a simple opinion which is sincerely held, widely shared and well-founded. If an older rela

You know, It's pretty frustrating to be accused of trollishness about a simple opinion which is sincerely held, widely shared and well-founded. If an older relative of yours told you to irradiate your blood against a virus and try ingesting some disinfectants, wouldn't you worry about their mental state at least a little bit? To be honest, baiting people into discussing this quackery is the actual troll here and I'm genuinely interest why people take the bait. When the media does this, the simple explanation is that they're optimizing for ads. Great, that makes sense, but what's happening here? It's not like this is an astro-turf either, the discussion looks back-and-forth. Is asking people for introspection trolling? When you call me a troll, you're not calling me a troll in the classical sense of someone posting crap to get a rise out of people. What you're trying to get at is something more subtle - the way a person has an allergy, this particular community has outsized reactions from otherwise very benign opinions, and that I should be aware of these allergies and know not to post them here. But these are not obvious allergies at all and very much at odds with a place that considers itself a place to satiate your intellectual curiosity.

dang 7y ago
Right, I'm using the word "trollish" in the sense of the effects the post had. That's the only thing that can be observed and the only thing that matters for moderation: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20troll%20effects&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... (I was careful not to call you a troll; this is about posts, not persons.) "Asking people for introspection" is a skewed way of describing your original comment. If that was your intention, you should go about it in some way that isn't guaranteed to start a flamewar. I don't think these "allergies" are in any way obscure. Ditto for "very benign opinions". If that was your intention, you should not be breaking the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: I realized that it might be helpful if I mentioned the other aspect of why I posted what I did. You have a long history of breaking the site guidelines. We've asked you many times to stop that. If this weren't a longstanding pattern I'd probably have reacted differently, but it is a longstanding pattern, so please fix it.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  It is not the only the only thing that can be observed or that matters for moderation. You prioritization of civility above all else is being exploited by trolls, something I've pointed out on many occasions. This paper goes into considerable detail about how the suppression of disputes actually fosters an increase in bad behavior by preventing community members from repelling raids by trolls. By not allowing anyone other than yourself to call out bullshit, you're soliciting more of it. You acknowledged above that this is an inflammatory topic but you are spending your efforts on restraining the very people pointing that out. https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3178876.3186141 https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3178876.3186141
  - dang 7y ago
    My point there was narrow: originally the word "troll" referred to intent (the intent to derail discussion, or whatever). But we can't observe intent, so that isn't a useable concept for moderation. If you try to moderate a site like HN and use the word "troll" in that original sense, people simply reply that it wasn't their intent to wreak havoc, as if that settles the issue. Actually it doesn't settle it. If someone starts a flamewar and the thread goes to hell, does it matter if they intended to? The house has burned down either way. After a while it dawns on you (me) that whatever someone's inner state is when they post doesn't much matter anyhow—what matters are the observable effects that a post produces. Those are what we react to and base moderation on. When I say that a post was trollish I mean it had that sort of effect on the thread, intentionally or otherwise. I was hoping that linking to https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20troll%20effects&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... would make this point clear and that I could get away with just referring to it, but maybe not. This is a narrow point since it's about the use of a particular word, but it's a word that gets a rise out of people (ironically, I suppose?) and tends to make them feel like they're being personally deemed a "troll", when the point is about posts, not persons. I mostly use the word "flamebait" as a way to just avoid the issue. Re "prioritization of civility above all else", that's not my view at all and it's a misrepresentation of how we moderate HN. If you said "prioritization of intellectual curiosity above all else", we would actually have something to discuss. Maybe you disagree that that should be the goal? Maybe you think we do a shitty job of it, in this case or even in every case? All that is fine, but being argued with about something that we neither think about nor try to do feels weirdly disconnecting. "Not allowing anyone other than yourself to call out bullshit" strikes me as a bizarre thing to say. Users do that on HN all the time, which is why the site survives. We ask them to do it while remaining within the site guidelines, which is not only possible but more effective. That paper looks interesting!
archagon 7y ago
> To be honest, baiting people into discussing this quackery is the actual troll here and I'm genuinely interest why people take the bait. When the media does this, the simple explanation is that they're optimizing for ads. Great, that makes sense, but what's happening here? I imagine it's a feeling of "I'm smart enough to rise above partisan politics" or "I'm smart enough to go against the status quo." In other words, people who believe they're smart enough to avoid getting manipulated, when in fact it's not a matter of smarts at all.

dang 7y ago

Right, I'm using the word "trollish" in the sense of the effects the post had. That's the only thing that can be observed and the only thing that matters for moderation: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20troll%20effects&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... (I was careful not to call you a troll; this is about posts, not persons.) "Asking people for introspection" is a skewed way of describing your original comment. If that was your intention, you should go about it in some way that isn't guaranteed to start a flamewar. I don't think these "allergies" are in any way obscure. Ditto for "very benign opinions". If that was your intention, you should not be breaking the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: I realized that it might be helpful if I mentioned the other aspect of why I posted what I did. You have a long history of breaking the site guidelines. We've asked you many times to stop that. If this weren't a longstanding pattern I'd probably have reacted differently, but it is a longstanding pattern, so please fix it.

anigbrowl 7y ago
It is not the only the only thing that can be observed or that matters for moderation. You prioritization of civility above all else is being exploited by trolls, something I've pointed out on many occasions. This paper goes into considerable detail about how the suppression of disputes actually fosters an increase in bad behavior by preventing community members from repelling raids by trolls. By not allowing anyone other than yourself to call out bullshit, you're soliciting more of it. You acknowledged above that this is an inflammatory topic but you are spending your efforts on restraining the very people pointing that out. https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3178876.3186141 https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3178876.3186141
- dang 7y ago
  My point there was narrow: originally the word "troll" referred to intent (the intent to derail discussion, or whatever). But we can't observe intent, so that isn't a useable concept for moderation. If you try to moderate a site like HN and use the word "troll" in that original sense, people simply reply that it wasn't their intent to wreak havoc, as if that settles the issue. Actually it doesn't settle it. If someone starts a flamewar and the thread goes to hell, does it matter if they intended to? The house has burned down either way. After a while it dawns on you (me) that whatever someone's inner state is when they post doesn't much matter anyhow—what matters are the observable effects that a post produces. Those are what we react to and base moderation on. When I say that a post was trollish I mean it had that sort of effect on the thread, intentionally or otherwise. I was hoping that linking to https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20troll%20effects&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... would make this point clear and that I could get away with just referring to it, but maybe not. This is a narrow point since it's about the use of a particular word, but it's a word that gets a rise out of people (ironically, I suppose?) and tends to make them feel like they're being personally deemed a "troll", when the point is about posts, not persons. I mostly use the word "flamebait" as a way to just avoid the issue. Re "prioritization of civility above all else", that's not my view at all and it's a misrepresentation of how we moderate HN. If you said "prioritization of intellectual curiosity above all else", we would actually have something to discuss. Maybe you disagree that that should be the goal? Maybe you think we do a shitty job of it, in this case or even in every case? All that is fine, but being argued with about something that we neither think about nor try to do feels weirdly disconnecting. "Not allowing anyone other than yourself to call out bullshit" strikes me as a bizarre thing to say. Users do that on HN all the time, which is why the site survives. We ask them to do it while remaining within the site guidelines, which is not only possible but more effective. That paper looks interesting!

archagon 7y ago

> To be honest, baiting people into discussing this quackery is the actual troll here and I'm genuinely interest why people take the bait. When the media does this, the simple explanation is that they're optimizing for ads. Great, that makes sense, but what's happening here? I imagine it's a feeling of "I'm smart enough to rise above partisan politics" or "I'm smart enough to go against the status quo." In other words, people who believe they're smart enough to avoid getting manipulated, when in fact it's not a matter of smarts at all.