3 ms·

I remember the "don't feed the trolls!" rule on usenet forums. A "troll" was someone posting something to deliberately annoy people and get a reaction. If you

I remember the "don't feed the trolls!" rule on usenet forums. A "troll" was someone posting something to deliberately annoy people and get a reaction. If you added to the noise by replying to a troll, the troll won and you were seen as just as bad. Now "troll" is just used to say mean/annoying person. News sites will add to and amplify the noise with headlines like "People are annoyed at troll who said X", going against the original meaning and rule. So we now have this awful cycle of someone trolling, people discuss it, news sites get clicks from reporting it, people discuss it more, the troll is encouraged to troll more, and the news sites are encouraged to keep posting clickbait about it. I'd love if there was a way to bring the "don't feed the trolls" rule back. Like major downvoting if you're found replying to a comment or story that gets flagged as "troll".

bravetraveler 3y ago
This is a nicer way to approach something I've seen lately, but haven't had a good area to mention - for fear of being part of the problem. We like to think of HN as a place for wonder and decent conversation. Yet, I see a lot of policing of comments. Someone posts something trolling, someone replies 'you should post something useful'... while contributing to the noise. Perhaps I'm pessimistic seeing it as for nothing. Maybe the 1/N times this works is worth it. Long way to say: if you see something like this, just vote/move along
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- nadermx 3y ago
  Hacker news is also an acquired taste. Not many people want to see conversations about Usenet.
- potsandpans 3y ago
  I personally agree. Comment policing is worst and more irritating than the initial "bad" comment.
  - bravetraveler 3y ago
    Thank you! More annoying, but I really want to kind of stress distracting. We have so much stuff in a day I acknowledge there's a bit of... irony (or something) in my critique. In a way it's yet another way to police comments - but hey! Democracy, I guess.
klyrs 3y ago
For what it's worth, I do tend to downvote responses to trolls -- especially when I see somebody pouring a ton of effort into somebody who's just taking the piss.

bravetraveler 3y ago

This is a nicer way to approach something I've seen lately, but haven't had a good area to mention - for fear of being part of the problem. We like to think of HN as a place for wonder and decent conversation. Yet, I see a lot of policing of comments. Someone posts something trolling, someone replies 'you should post something useful'... while contributing to the noise. Perhaps I'm pessimistic seeing it as for nothing. Maybe the 1/N times this works is worth it. Long way to say: if you see something like this, just vote/move along

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nadermx 3y ago
Hacker news is also an acquired taste. Not many people want to see conversations about Usenet.
potsandpans 3y ago
I personally agree. Comment policing is worst and more irritating than the initial "bad" comment.
- bravetraveler 3y ago
  Thank you! More annoying, but I really want to kind of stress distracting. We have so much stuff in a day I acknowledge there's a bit of... irony (or something) in my critique. In a way it's yet another way to police comments - but hey! Democracy, I guess.

klyrs 3y ago

For what it's worth, I do tend to downvote responses to trolls -- especially when I see somebody pouring a ton of effort into somebody who's just taking the piss.