Don't feed the troll...

[Antoon Pardon]

Op 26-06-13 23:02, Ian Kelly schreef:
> On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 1:46 PM, Antoon Pardon
> <antoon.pardon at rece.vub.ac.be>  wrote:
>> But you didn't even go to the trouble of trying to find out
>> what those concerns would be and how strong people feel about
>> them. You just took your assumptions about those concerns for
>> granted and proceeded from there.
>
> Jumping back in here, I for one don't give a hoot about their
> concerns, beyond the basic assumption that they feel the same way I do
> about Nikos' threads and wish that he would leave.  I just want to
> maintain a positive and welcoming atmosphere around here.

So what do you think would be a good approach towards people
who are behaving in conflict with this wish of yours? Just
bluntly call them worse than the troll or try to approach them
in a way that is less likely to antangonize them?

> I expect
> that most of the posters here are adults and can fend for themselves
> regarding their own concerns, and I'm not interested in being the list
> mom.

It is not about being the list's mom. It's about approaching
people, whom you would like to influence in changing their
behaviour, in a way that is more likely to gain you their
good will towards you.

If what you want is indeed a positive and welcoming atmosphere,
I would say such an approach would be more effective in getting
it.

>> Why should I care about the rational you gave. It is based on
>> your own assumptions, on how you weight the possible outcomes against
>> each other. Someone who doesn't care about trolls or even may
>> enjoy observing a heated exchange may come to an entirely different
>> conclusion on what behaviour is good for the group in case he
>> extrapolated his own preferences on the group.
>>
>> And you may not have purposely made things up to justify your
>> proposal, but how you went about it, that is probably what you
>> actually did. Because that is what we as humans generally do
>> in this kind of situations.
>
> "Made things up"?  This response to the situation is not just our own
> assumptions at work, but the collective experience of the Internet,
> going back decades.

The collective experience of theachers is that punishment for bad 
performance works, despite research showing otherwise.

Besides I was talking about rurpy's basic assumptions about what
the costs would be for various subgroups in different scenario's.
These were all based on his own interpretations. What he did
was trying to imagine how costly it would feel for him, should
he have be in a particular situation with a particular preference.
As far as I can see he didn't ask other people what their preference
was and how costly particular situations would feel to them.

So yes he made those up. Now I accept he was trying to get at an
honest estimation of factors involved, but human biases working
as they do, there is little reason to think his result is in
any way objective or useful.

>> Now as far as I am concerned you can be as blunt as you want to
>> be. I just don't understand why you think you should be so
>> careful to Nikos, while at the same time you saw no need for
>> careful wording here.
>
> Nobody is suggesting that we should make any effort to try to avoid
> hurting Nikos' feelings, contrary to what you seem to be implying
> here.

I am implying nothing. I'm just pointing out the difference between
how rurpy explains we should behave towards Nikos and how he behaved
towards the flamers. If there is some sort of implication it is with
rurpy in that difference and not with me in me pointing it out.

> Be as blunt as you want with him, but please recognize that
> troll baiting /does not work/ as a means of making the troll go away
> and only serves to further degrade the list.

It's not clear to me what you are precisely saying here. Do you think
being blunt is a form of troll baiting or not? Because my impression
of those who are bothered by the flamers, was that being blunt was just
a form of troll baiting and would just cause similar kind of list 
degradation.

Do you think being blunt is a good way in keeping a welcoming and
postive atmosphere in this group?

>>> Second, I *am* concerned in that I find a lot of Nikos's responses
>>> frustrating and I realize other people feel the same.
>>
>> Stop telling you are concerned. Start showing.
>
> How?  By joining in with the flaming and being just as
> counter-productive?

I am not so sure it would be counter-productive. A joint flaming
of a troll can be an effective way to increase coherence in a
group.

> I'm not going to try to "show" my concern because
> it is not important to me whether others can see it.

I doubt that is a good way in keeping this group positive
and welcoming. But it is your choice.

>> Do you have mumbers on that? Otherwise those three decades of internet
>> don't mean much.
>
> The only actual study on the topic that I'm aware of is this one:
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jun/13/internet-trolls-improbable-research

Thanks for this. Unfortunatly there is not much to rely on. The only 
thing I can get from this, is that there can be more ways than one to
handle trolls.

-- 
Antoon Pardon