5 ms·

What is the guidance regarding commenters who are obvious trolls, propagandists and bad faith actors? Being kind to them is completely wasted effort. Replying

What is the guidance regarding commenters who are obvious trolls, propagandists and bad faith actors? Being kind to them is completely wasted effort. Replying to them is also wasted effort as they won't be persuaded. However leaving bullshit unchallenged might make trusting bystanders believe that this is actually the truth.

tim333 3y ago
Polite factual refutation probably works.
- jnsaff2 3y ago
  I wish this was true. It usually leads to those super long reply-battles dang was referring to.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
    It doesn't have to. One comment refuting a contention with clear references to support the refutation is enough to make one's point. There is no stronger position than the truth, as one understands it. And if one is wrong after all, because they misunderstand the facts or they are missing some facts, it's not a loss, but a win, to find out through a, ahem, Frank Exchange of Views.
- cultofmetatron 3y ago
  yea I tried that. I posted links to all my sources as well as opinions from credible human rights organizations. they just play the game of being obtuse to the very end and then gaslight you about needing to backup my opinions as if there weren't at least 2-3 inks for every assertion I make. one side of this debate is very much NOT acting in good faith because they rely on the status quo being maintained to continue what they are doing
  - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
    So what? People will see your sources and see what the other person writes and they can make up their own minds.
    - jnsaff2 3y ago
      What I have observed is that you refute that actual bullshit with facts and then they come back with some other "whatabout" and new bullshit.
      - tim333 3y ago
        While I guess it's not in HN guidelines I think humour can work sometimes.
      - gosub100 3y ago
        thats a good indicator that you should stop commenting in online message boards. This (and a litany of other reasons) is why "internet comments" have a terrible reputation. Comment boards have been around 20+ years and no one has yet been able to create a system that doesn't encourage degeneracy.
      - dang 3y ago
        The trick is to realize that if you've made a good point, readers will be smart enough to notice that the other person is just coming back with new bullshit. You don't need the last word to win an argument; being first to walk away actually adds power to your argument. If you've said what needs to be said, no "whatabout" can cancel it, and you'll weaken your case if you chase after it. I still suck at this in practice but I'm sure of it in theory! (I'm working on a longer reply to you at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39158911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39158911, but I can't resist replying here too because I feel like I figured this one out after 15+ years of frustration.)
        tptacek 3y ago
        Say whatever else you will about him but pg was really good at this.
cpach 3y ago
It can be quite hard to be kind when it comes to a highly inflammatory topic such as Palestine–Israel. However, IMHO it’s not really a topic suited for HN. I find it hard to believe that whatever we say here on this topic will have any meaningful impact on the war.
- smoothjazz 3y ago
  Normally for political stuff I would agree, but the VCs have made this an issue that founders, engineers and everyone else in tech has to deal with because they've taken a hardline pro-Israel stance including firing people who so much as publicly state well known information. The battle between PG and the rest of the industry has ramifications for all of us. Even Paul Graham is barely powerful enough to offer a pro-Palestinian stance publicly.
dang 3y ago
(I detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39146010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39146010 - not that you did anything wrong by posting there, but I don't want the top of the thread to get too off topic. I'll try to come back in a little while and say something in response.) Edit: sorry this took me so long. Here are my thoughts based on past experience: It's not helpful to look at other accounts as "propagandists", "trolls", "bots" (or "shills", "astroturfers" or all the other similar terms internet commenters use), because there's no reliable way to distinguish between someone who is arguing for views they earnestly hold vs. someone who might be engaged in a propaganda campaign. The majority of commenters are sincerely arguing for what they sincerely think. A few may be doing something more sinister—but most people don't do such things, and there's no way to pick out the ones who are. Trying to pick them out will drive you crazy. Moreover, it doesn't matter in the end, because everyone is ultimately working with the same tool: arguing things in comments. Even the propagandists can't do more than that. When people feel like someone else is a troll, propagandist, or bad faith actor, it's usually because that person's views are so distant from your own that it seems like nobody could possibly hold them in good faith. In reality, what's usually going on is that people on the internet underestimate how different each other's backgrounds are. It feels like you're talking to someone who is either insane or lying, but most likely you're talking to someone whose background is so different from yours that it's hard for the two of you to relate to each other. I wrote about this last year, if anyone is interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35932851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35932851. I think the only way to handle this is by responding to bad arguments with better arguments and to false information with correct information—and to do this as neutrally as possible. Focus on clear information, and try not to let your feelings turn into aggression toward the other person. This is not easy, but it's in your interest to do it, because when commenters get aggressive with each other, fair-minded readers recoil. For extra influence, if you can manage it: look for a way to connect with the other person, acknowledge some aspect of what they're saying, and implicitly make it clear that you're not trying to defeat or destroy them, but rather to understand. This is a big multiplier on how persuasive your comments become. As for leaving bullshit unchallenged, I know it's hard to walk away from a thread that one feels is dominated by falsehood and distortion, but walking away is sometimes the most effective thing you can do. Here are a few thoughts which I try to remember in such situations: (1) The internet is wrong about approximately everything. You can't change that, and you'll burn out trying. (2) The one who walks away first usually comes across as stronger. (3) Other people are not that different from you. When someone seems crazily wrong, they're most likely not bad or evil, but ignorant: they don't know what you know because they haven't experienced what you've experienced. For this reason, sharing your personal experience is probably the most effective thing you can do. (4) When other people say things that produce strong feelings, try to let the feelings run their course in you before coming back to react. This is painful and hard, but it's in your interest.
dredmorbius 3y ago
Some late thoughts on this (I've been AFK for a few days): 1. xkcd 386: Someone is wrong on the Internet: <https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/> 2. Woozle's Epistemic Paradox: as epistemic systems become more prominently and widely used, they also become more attractive targets to those who would choose to manipulate them. See: <https://web.archive.org/web/20230606193813/https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_epistemic_systems_gain_social_and_political/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230606193813/https://old.reddi...> 3. More generally, all informational channels become battlegrounds, as noted by von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, numerous evolutionary biologists, and others. I've been slowly making my way through Jeremy Campbell's The Liar's Tale which is a big-picture look at this. 4. HN really isn't optimised around truth but conversation, and more specifically sustainable conversation, grounded in intellectual curiosity. There are numerous topics on which HN really is unable to have meaningful discussion (perennial ethnic conflicts are amongst these, as are other political hot topics), and its general tone-policing and penalisation of high-tension topics tends strongly to a status quo bias. (I've criticised HN for this often, despite an increasing awareness and appreciation of why those rules exist, see e.g., thread here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39023516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39023516>.) 5. Reporting blatant trolling and suspect motivations to HN mods does often work. Email to hn@ycombinator.com and link directly to the offending content and/or user, with a clear but succinct description of the problem. 6. Voting (up or down) and flagging also have their place. For sufficiently contentious threads this may well lead to something of a high-attrition zone, but often the really egregious crud does sink to the bottom. I find that higher-rated comments tend to be more anodyne than insightful, though occasionally truth does out. 7. I've found that rather than direct engagement, either supporting a counterthread, or writing your own well-reasoned and well-supported counter-thread, is often suprisingly effective. Remember that yours is always the last comment when you write it, though a thread may well have additional life. Sometimes my late efforts prove far more successful than I'd expected, and often I'll see that others have succeeded where I've either failed or failed to try. And again, supporting others' salient and productive engagement even where you don't have time or energy to contribute is highly underappreciated. 8. You don't have to attend every fight you're invited to. 9. Truth is not a popularity contest. Voting systems ultimately don't select for truth or importance, and expecting that from sites such as HN or Reddit will prove disappointing. 10. The meaningful audience is typically not who you're responding to directly, but the overwhelmingly silent majority reading rather than contributing to discussion.

tim333 3y ago

Polite factual refutation probably works.

jnsaff2 3y ago
I wish this was true. It usually leads to those super long reply-battles dang was referring to.
- YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
  It doesn't have to. One comment refuting a contention with clear references to support the refutation is enough to make one's point. There is no stronger position than the truth, as one understands it. And if one is wrong after all, because they misunderstand the facts or they are missing some facts, it's not a loss, but a win, to find out through a, ahem, Frank Exchange of Views.
cultofmetatron 3y ago
yea I tried that. I posted links to all my sources as well as opinions from credible human rights organizations. they just play the game of being obtuse to the very end and then gaslight you about needing to backup my opinions as if there weren't at least 2-3 inks for every assertion I make. one side of this debate is very much NOT acting in good faith because they rely on the status quo being maintained to continue what they are doing
- YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
  So what? People will see your sources and see what the other person writes and they can make up their own minds.
  - jnsaff2 3y ago
    What I have observed is that you refute that actual bullshit with facts and then they come back with some other "whatabout" and new bullshit.
    - tim333 3y ago
      While I guess it's not in HN guidelines I think humour can work sometimes.
    - gosub100 3y ago
      thats a good indicator that you should stop commenting in online message boards. This (and a litany of other reasons) is why "internet comments" have a terrible reputation. Comment boards have been around 20+ years and no one has yet been able to create a system that doesn't encourage degeneracy.
    - dang 3y ago
      The trick is to realize that if you've made a good point, readers will be smart enough to notice that the other person is just coming back with new bullshit. You don't need the last word to win an argument; being first to walk away actually adds power to your argument. If you've said what needs to be said, no "whatabout" can cancel it, and you'll weaken your case if you chase after it. I still suck at this in practice but I'm sure of it in theory! (I'm working on a longer reply to you at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39158911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39158911, but I can't resist replying here too because I feel like I figured this one out after 15+ years of frustration.)
      - tptacek 3y ago
        Say whatever else you will about him but pg was really good at this.

cpach 3y ago

It can be quite hard to be kind when it comes to a highly inflammatory topic such as Palestine–Israel. However, IMHO it’s not really a topic suited for HN. I find it hard to believe that whatever we say here on this topic will have any meaningful impact on the war.

smoothjazz 3y ago
Normally for political stuff I would agree, but the VCs have made this an issue that founders, engineers and everyone else in tech has to deal with because they've taken a hardline pro-Israel stance including firing people who so much as publicly state well known information. The battle between PG and the rest of the industry has ramifications for all of us. Even Paul Graham is barely powerful enough to offer a pro-Palestinian stance publicly.

dang 3y ago

(I detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39146010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39146010 - not that you did anything wrong by posting there, but I don't want the top of the thread to get too off topic. I'll try to come back in a little while and say something in response.) Edit: sorry this took me so long. Here are my thoughts based on past experience: It's not helpful to look at other accounts as "propagandists", "trolls", "bots" (or "shills", "astroturfers" or all the other similar terms internet commenters use), because there's no reliable way to distinguish between someone who is arguing for views they earnestly hold vs. someone who might be engaged in a propaganda campaign. The majority of commenters are sincerely arguing for what they sincerely think. A few may be doing something more sinister—but most people don't do such things, and there's no way to pick out the ones who are. Trying to pick them out will drive you crazy. Moreover, it doesn't matter in the end, because everyone is ultimately working with the same tool: arguing things in comments. Even the propagandists can't do more than that. When people feel like someone else is a troll, propagandist, or bad faith actor, it's usually because that person's views are so distant from your own that it seems like nobody could possibly hold them in good faith. In reality, what's usually going on is that people on the internet underestimate how different each other's backgrounds are. It feels like you're talking to someone who is either insane or lying, but most likely you're talking to someone whose background is so different from yours that it's hard for the two of you to relate to each other. I wrote about this last year, if anyone is interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35932851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35932851. I think the only way to handle this is by responding to bad arguments with better arguments and to false information with correct information—and to do this as neutrally as possible. Focus on clear information, and try not to let your feelings turn into aggression toward the other person. This is not easy, but it's in your interest to do it, because when commenters get aggressive with each other, fair-minded readers recoil. For extra influence, if you can manage it: look for a way to connect with the other person, acknowledge some aspect of what they're saying, and implicitly make it clear that you're not trying to defeat or destroy them, but rather to understand. This is a big multiplier on how persuasive your comments become. As for leaving bullshit unchallenged, I know it's hard to walk away from a thread that one feels is dominated by falsehood and distortion, but walking away is sometimes the most effective thing you can do. Here are a few thoughts which I try to remember in such situations: (1) The internet is wrong about approximately everything. You can't change that, and you'll burn out trying. (2) The one who walks away first usually comes across as stronger. (3) Other people are not that different from you. When someone seems crazily wrong, they're most likely not bad or evil, but ignorant: they don't know what you know because they haven't experienced what you've experienced. For this reason, sharing your personal experience is probably the most effective thing you can do. (4) When other people say things that produce strong feelings, try to let the feelings run their course in you before coming back to react. This is painful and hard, but it's in your interest.

dredmorbius 3y ago

Some late thoughts on this (I've been AFK for a few days): 1. xkcd 386: Someone is wrong on the Internet: <https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/> 2. Woozle's Epistemic Paradox: as epistemic systems become more prominently and widely used, they also become more attractive targets to those who would choose to manipulate them. See: <https://web.archive.org/web/20230606193813/https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_epistemic_systems_gain_social_and_political/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230606193813/https://old.reddi...> 3. More generally, all informational channels become battlegrounds, as noted by von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, numerous evolutionary biologists, and others. I've been slowly making my way through Jeremy Campbell's The Liar's Tale which is a big-picture look at this. 4. HN really isn't optimised around truth but conversation, and more specifically sustainable conversation, grounded in intellectual curiosity. There are numerous topics on which HN really is unable to have meaningful discussion (perennial ethnic conflicts are amongst these, as are other political hot topics), and its general tone-policing and penalisation of high-tension topics tends strongly to a status quo bias. (I've criticised HN for this often, despite an increasing awareness and appreciation of why those rules exist, see e.g., thread here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39023516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39023516>.) 5. Reporting blatant trolling and suspect motivations to HN mods does often work. Email to hn@ycombinator.com and link directly to the offending content and/or user, with a clear but succinct description of the problem. 6. Voting (up or down) and flagging also have their place. For sufficiently contentious threads this may well lead to something of a high-attrition zone, but often the really egregious crud does sink to the bottom. I find that higher-rated comments tend to be more anodyne than insightful, though occasionally truth does out. 7. I've found that rather than direct engagement, either supporting a counterthread, or writing your own well-reasoned and well-supported counter-thread, is often suprisingly effective. Remember that yours is always the last comment when you write it, though a thread may well have additional life. Sometimes my late efforts prove far more successful than I'd expected, and often I'll see that others have succeeded where I've either failed or failed to try. And again, supporting others' salient and productive engagement even where you don't have time or energy to contribute is highly underappreciated. 8. You don't have to attend every fight you're invited to. 9. Truth is not a popularity contest. Voting systems ultimately don't select for truth or importance, and expecting that from sites such as HN or Reddit will prove disappointing. 10. The meaningful audience is typically not who you're responding to directly, but the overwhelmingly silent majority reading rather than contributing to discussion.