There's a sort of Gresham's Law of trolls: trolls are willing to use a forum with a lot of thoughtful people in it, but thoughtful people aren't willing to use

There's a sort of Gresham's Law of trolls: trolls are willing to use a forum with a lot of thoughtful people in it, but thoughtful people aren't willing to use a forum with a lot of trolls in it. Which means that once trolling takes hold, it tends to become the dominant culture. http://paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://paulgraham.com/trolls.html I think this is also true of "diluting" comments. Once they become acceptable, the forum has had it. Everyone will say "it's already diluted, so what's the harm?"