Trolls and kooks were around on Usenet even in the UUCP days, and on dialup bulletin boards as well. They've become far more visible and destructive, and manipu

Trolls and kooks were around on Usenet even in the UUCP days, and on dialup bulletin boards as well. They've become far more visible and destructive, and manipulation has become far easier, as it got easier to go online. I hate thinking that the Eternal September meme should be anything but an oldtimer in-joke, but looking at what social media has done to society makes me shudder. Making the grapevine worldwide and instantaneous, which I once thought was a Good Thing, is now looking more to me like a mistake, but that genie is long out of the bottle now. I'm glad to see old-school forums soldier on, at least. For specialized information and advice, they tend to be a lot more reliable than social media - mostly because they're communities that have no patience for trolls. That doesn't stop them (and spammers) from trying to cause trouble, though. Once you let the general public in, it's inevitable that some will be jerks. Just a look through the "New" queue on HN with "show dead posts" shows it vividly. :)