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I completely agree with rjbs's opinion of online discourse. It is positively shameful how many communities are filled with insults, trolls, snark, and incivilit

I completely agree with rjbs's opinion of online discourse. It is positively shameful how many communities are filled with insults, trolls, snark, and incivility. That said, I have some qualms with the proposed solution. In my experience, "patience, correction, explanation, and an outpouring of civilly-worded disapproval" are often not enough. Frequently, these methods do nothing more than increase stress and waste time. After reading Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism[1], I am convinced that banning is vastly underused. Many of us are professionals. Our time is valuable; our communities, even more-so. There are so many fools with so many maladaptive behaviors. Considering what else we could be working on, correcting them all simply isn't worthwhile. The opportunity cost is too high. I wish this problem could be solved in a less forceful manner. Sadly, banning is the most effective solution I've found. 1. http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/

symkat 14y ago
One problem I've found with banning: the rare troll on things like IRC who will take the act of banning as an act of agression and engagement in a war of "how many of my IPs can you ban while I harass your channel." Those same people, ignored or hugged will often just find harassing your channel boring and move on.
- AngryParsley 14y ago
  I agree. Different communication mediums require different tactics. In the case of IRC though, I think it's due to a lack of good banning tools. One of the reasons I love Freenode is because they have good banning tools. For example, /mode #channel_under_attack +r will prevent people from joining if they aren't identified with nickserv. Once the attacker gets bored, you can remove the restriction.
- cabalamat 14y ago
  > Those same people, ignored or hugged will often just find harassing your channel boring and move on. I wonder if an "invisible ban" would work with trolls? What I mean is that their messages appear to them, butr not to any other user. So the troll isn't aware they've been banned. Has anyone used this?
  - wvenable 14y ago
    Invisible bans only work so well; trolls figure it out pretty quick. I've used it on forums.
    - danneu 14y ago
      I run an active forum and the best tool has been to automatically compare the IP addresses of banned users (registration IP and all post IPs) against any future registration/post IP addresses and disable the subject when a match is found. Trolls will eventually forget to use a proxy and will immediately find themselves autobanned again. And all the IPs they used are added to the blacklist. It's pretty funny. My forum would've been unmanageable without this.
      - ajuc 14y ago
        This of course also punish innocent users on the same set of dynamic IPs that the troll uses.
        brazzy 14y ago
        That would be a problem for a forum with a huge audience, but if there are only a few hundred active users, the probability of punishing the wrong person should be acceptably low.
        danneu 14y ago
        The script publishes a message in a Moderator-only subforum that looks something like "Troll555 appears to be evading his ban on usernames: TrollMan, TrollDude, TrollSmith." A few thousand members log in every day and I've rarely had a problem.
    - Lockyy 14y ago
      You'd think that, except invisible banning is used on hacker news and if you turn show-dead on in your profile and then go to the profile of someone who is 'dead' then you'll more than likely see months and months of them posting as an invisible person.
w1ntermute 14y ago
> After reading Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism[1], I am convinced that banning is vastly underused. Many of us are professionals. Our time is valuable; our communities, even more-so. There are so many fools with so many maladaptive behaviors. Considering what else we could be working on, correcting them all simply isn't worthwhile. The opportunity cost is too high. Let's take it a step further. I don't think any of us would object to paying a nominal fee (say, $2/month) to obtain voting/posting privileges on HN. Although this would drastically reduce the amount of activity on the site, it would undoubtedly increase the quality of whatever activity remained. Not because a lot of people wouldn't be able to afford it, but because a troll wouldn't enter his credit card information and other personal details just to obtain the ability to flame someone on the internet.
- bitops 14y ago
  > Not because a lot of people wouldn't be able to afford it, but because a troll wouldn't enter his credit card information and other personal details just to obtain the ability to flame someone on the internet. Patently incorrect. People have been paying for the privilege of abusing others at least since the days of Ultima Online (just to name one example). So-called "griefers" have a presence in every online community, even the paying ones. Though I agree with the spirit of what you're proposing - erect a barrier to entry to make people decide how serious they are - in all likelihood it will only deter a few trolls and will almost certainly keep out future valuable contributors. IMHO, I think the best way to keep trolls out is to not respond to them, and to continue writing quality HN contributions. At times I've been discouraged over the last year that "HN was on the decline". Each time, I've been encouraged by the fact that the elders of the community seem to come back and raise the tone again. I think if you stick around long enough and learn to use your karma score as a barometer for what type of discourse is valuable and which is not, you can eventually become a good contributing member.
- wvenable 14y ago
  Trolls and malcontents have infinitely more time and will put infinitely more effort into abusing a community than good standing members will in participating. Trolls will jump through every hoop. I've seen serious trolls not care if their personal details are known; they're unafraid. But I've seen honest valuable members work extremely hard to keep their information provide.
eli_gottlieb 14y ago
A certain quote seems appropriate here: "Don't believe in yourself! Believe that I believe in you!" Eliezer Yudkowsky, folks, always ready to cite Kamina-sama on matters of sociopolitical philosophy.
- wgd 14y ago
  > People who met me in person were often shocked at how much my in-person impression departed from the picture they had in their minds. I think this mostly had to do with imagining me as being the sort of actor who would be chosen to play me in the movie version of my life—they imagined way too much dignity. That forms a large part of the reason why I occasionally toss in the deliberate anime reference, which does seem to have fixed the divergence a bit. -- http://lesswrong.com/lw/4y/on_things_that_are_awesome/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/4y/on_things_that_are_awesome/
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    I am always surprised, looking at pictures of him, how much he looks just like a total Haredi.
saurik 14y ago
Sadly, that tenant has to be balanced by a problem you can accidentally cause by following the premise of that article that was demonstrated in another article by the same author. http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beliefs/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beli...
- 286c8cb04bda 14y ago
  s/tenant/tenet/
calibraxis 14y ago
Thanks for the link! I fully agree that banning is an important tool, though oftentimes a softer approach is more effective. Like a polite, firm warning, for disruptive people who aren't trolling for entertainment nor complete "assholes". And you should request people not to feed trolls; pointing out that if they find themselves feeling a strong emotional urge to respond, it's a sign they're dealing with a troll. (Being a civil moderator is important because it sets an example — you won't overreact over some tiny irritant. And of course, recreational trolls want you to overrespond; that's their entire game.) If you do encounter truly disruptive people, then aggressively removing them from the forum is important, like you'd remove a harasser from a meeting. I like this case study of how a feminist forum had to deal with conflicting internal forces keeping them from maintaining a useful forum. (http://inkido.indiana.edu/research/onlinemanu/papers/herring_et_al.pdf http://inkido.indiana.edu/research/onlinemanu/papers/herring...)
stcredzero 14y ago
It is positively shameful how many communities are filled with insults, trolls, snark, and incivility. The net is full of people who subscribe to ideologies that hold: 1) It's always ok to f^ck with people 2) If they're not cool with it, they are wrong/evil/inferior Actually, I hold that not being f^cked with non-consensually is actually a human right. It should fit into the Maslow need hierarchy. Rejection by a group is a terrible experience for a social animal like a human being, and being emotionally abused while others in the group stand by is tantamount to this. After reading Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism[1], I am convinced that banning is vastly underused. I think the "blue pill" tactic is more economical. It is often possible to put the trollers with the trollers and make the trollers effectively invisible to the civil members. In the long run, I think that is cheaper than playing whack-a-mole with banned trolls coming back.

symkat 14y ago

One problem I've found with banning: the rare troll on things like IRC who will take the act of banning as an act of agression and engagement in a war of "how many of my IPs can you ban while I harass your channel." Those same people, ignored or hugged will often just find harassing your channel boring and move on.

AngryParsley 14y ago
I agree. Different communication mediums require different tactics. In the case of IRC though, I think it's due to a lack of good banning tools. One of the reasons I love Freenode is because they have good banning tools. For example, /mode #channel_under_attack +r will prevent people from joining if they aren't identified with nickserv. Once the attacker gets bored, you can remove the restriction.
cabalamat 14y ago
> Those same people, ignored or hugged will often just find harassing your channel boring and move on. I wonder if an "invisible ban" would work with trolls? What I mean is that their messages appear to them, butr not to any other user. So the troll isn't aware they've been banned. Has anyone used this?
- wvenable 14y ago
  Invisible bans only work so well; trolls figure it out pretty quick. I've used it on forums.
  - danneu 14y ago
    I run an active forum and the best tool has been to automatically compare the IP addresses of banned users (registration IP and all post IPs) against any future registration/post IP addresses and disable the subject when a match is found. Trolls will eventually forget to use a proxy and will immediately find themselves autobanned again. And all the IPs they used are added to the blacklist. It's pretty funny. My forum would've been unmanageable without this.
    - ajuc 14y ago
      This of course also punish innocent users on the same set of dynamic IPs that the troll uses.
      - brazzy 14y ago
        That would be a problem for a forum with a huge audience, but if there are only a few hundred active users, the probability of punishing the wrong person should be acceptably low.
      - danneu 14y ago
        The script publishes a message in a Moderator-only subforum that looks something like "Troll555 appears to be evading his ban on usernames: TrollMan, TrollDude, TrollSmith." A few thousand members log in every day and I've rarely had a problem.
  - Lockyy 14y ago
    You'd think that, except invisible banning is used on hacker news and if you turn show-dead on in your profile and then go to the profile of someone who is 'dead' then you'll more than likely see months and months of them posting as an invisible person.

w1ntermute 14y ago

> After reading Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism[1], I am convinced that banning is vastly underused. Many of us are professionals. Our time is valuable; our communities, even more-so. There are so many fools with so many maladaptive behaviors. Considering what else we could be working on, correcting them all simply isn't worthwhile. The opportunity cost is too high. Let's take it a step further. I don't think any of us would object to paying a nominal fee (say, $2/month) to obtain voting/posting privileges on HN. Although this would drastically reduce the amount of activity on the site, it would undoubtedly increase the quality of whatever activity remained. Not because a lot of people wouldn't be able to afford it, but because a troll wouldn't enter his credit card information and other personal details just to obtain the ability to flame someone on the internet.

bitops 14y ago
> Not because a lot of people wouldn't be able to afford it, but because a troll wouldn't enter his credit card information and other personal details just to obtain the ability to flame someone on the internet. Patently incorrect. People have been paying for the privilege of abusing others at least since the days of Ultima Online (just to name one example). So-called "griefers" have a presence in every online community, even the paying ones. Though I agree with the spirit of what you're proposing - erect a barrier to entry to make people decide how serious they are - in all likelihood it will only deter a few trolls and will almost certainly keep out future valuable contributors. IMHO, I think the best way to keep trolls out is to not respond to them, and to continue writing quality HN contributions. At times I've been discouraged over the last year that "HN was on the decline". Each time, I've been encouraged by the fact that the elders of the community seem to come back and raise the tone again. I think if you stick around long enough and learn to use your karma score as a barometer for what type of discourse is valuable and which is not, you can eventually become a good contributing member.
wvenable 14y ago
Trolls and malcontents have infinitely more time and will put infinitely more effort into abusing a community than good standing members will in participating. Trolls will jump through every hoop. I've seen serious trolls not care if their personal details are known; they're unafraid. But I've seen honest valuable members work extremely hard to keep their information provide.

eli_gottlieb 14y ago

A certain quote seems appropriate here: "Don't believe in yourself! Believe that I believe in you!" Eliezer Yudkowsky, folks, always ready to cite Kamina-sama on matters of sociopolitical philosophy.

wgd 14y ago
> People who met me in person were often shocked at how much my in-person impression departed from the picture they had in their minds. I think this mostly had to do with imagining me as being the sort of actor who would be chosen to play me in the movie version of my life—they imagined way too much dignity. That forms a large part of the reason why I occasionally toss in the deliberate anime reference, which does seem to have fixed the divergence a bit. -- http://lesswrong.com/lw/4y/on_things_that_are_awesome/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/4y/on_things_that_are_awesome/
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  I am always surprised, looking at pictures of him, how much he looks just like a total Haredi.

saurik 14y ago

Sadly, that tenant has to be balanced by a problem you can accidentally cause by following the premise of that article that was demonstrated in another article by the same author. http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beliefs/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beli...

286c8cb04bda 14y ago
s/tenant/tenet/

calibraxis 14y ago

Thanks for the link! I fully agree that banning is an important tool, though oftentimes a softer approach is more effective. Like a polite, firm warning, for disruptive people who aren't trolling for entertainment nor complete "assholes". And you should request people not to feed trolls; pointing out that if they find themselves feeling a strong emotional urge to respond, it's a sign they're dealing with a troll. (Being a civil moderator is important because it sets an example — you won't overreact over some tiny irritant. And of course, recreational trolls want you to overrespond; that's their entire game.) If you do encounter truly disruptive people, then aggressively removing them from the forum is important, like you'd remove a harasser from a meeting. I like this case study of how a feminist forum had to deal with conflicting internal forces keeping them from maintaining a useful forum. (http://inkido.indiana.edu/research/onlinemanu/papers/herring_et_al.pdf http://inkido.indiana.edu/research/onlinemanu/papers/herring...)

stcredzero 14y ago

It is positively shameful how many communities are filled with insults, trolls, snark, and incivility. The net is full of people who subscribe to ideologies that hold: 1) It's always ok to f^ck with people 2) If they're not cool with it, they are wrong/evil/inferior Actually, I hold that not being f^cked with non-consensually is actually a human right. It should fit into the Maslow need hierarchy. Rejection by a group is a terrible experience for a social animal like a human being, and being emotionally abused while others in the group stand by is tantamount to this. After reading Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism[1], I am convinced that banning is vastly underused. I think the "blue pill" tactic is more economical. It is often possible to put the trollers with the trollers and make the trollers effectively invisible to the civil members. In the long run, I think that is cheaper than playing whack-a-mole with banned trolls coming back.