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Trolls (2008)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Trolls (2008)

#101

Post by wanorris »

_delirium wrote: post #62
hyperbovine wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the best things about the 'net is that, frankly, none of this really matters. I disagree. I think the shift from personal to electronic interaction is largely to blame for the level of shrill nastiness that pervades our present-day culture. It's okay to express yourself in ways that would have been completely socially unacceptable, or just plain embarrassing, in past times. Social norms can be stifling, and…

One of my hobbies is reading a lot of history, and I don't see much support for this narrative. American politics has long been really nasty. Take a look at the 19th century presidential campaigns: there is some pretty shrill stuff in there. The 1828 election in particular was really nasty. And people regularly fought duels---actually shot each other---over politics. Political brawls were not uncommon. A Congressman…

I think it is true both that politics were more substantive 30 years ago and that many 19th century presidential campaigns were incredibly nasty.

There tends to be an ebb and flow in these sorts of things. I think that there is a clear case to be made right now that the decline in common news sources among people with different political views in the last 20 years has led to nastier politics. When everyone more-or-less agreed on the facts and many of the terms of debate but disagreed on what the outcome of the debate should be, I think the form that debate took was healthier.

But that period was the byproduct of a limited number of TV news programs all of which adopted a sort of consensus mainstream agenda, combined with a newspaper system with one or two papers per town that tended to do the same. This was a specific period, not an all-purpose "in the old days" thing.

In some earlier eras, it was common for there to be a number of different newspapers in a city, each of which had quite a different agenda -- as still survives in the UK, for example.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#102

Post by daenz »

The fact that official moderators (read: people with super-user powers) are needed on a forum indicates that the regulating powers are broken by design.

Back in late 2009 I built a forum that allowed every user to temporarily ban any other user. There were restrictions... bans lengths were temporary (and voted on democratically), expiring after the voted time limit, you could only ban a person you replied to, and everyone would be able to see that you were the person who banned the parent post. Other than that, the forum was completely anonymous, and it was able to regulate large numbers of trolls (mostly from 4chan). They seemed to appreciate the equality and the natural regulation.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#103

Post by angersock »

scott_s wrote: post #46
_delirium wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like honest discussion also, but also enjoy discussion that's "playful" in various ways, especially when it's on the gray-area border between serious and trollish. You can get interesting sides of people when they have something of an alibi because they aren't "really" saying something (but aren't "really" not doing so, either). I do think it's probably better if it's in areas where there's at least tacit agreement…

Playful discussion requires familiarity and trust. Trolls poison trust.

Even in the most openly hostile troll communities (FYAD, /b/, etc.) there is a solid "trust": you will be trolled.

This idea of trust is a very strange thing, to me. If I present an argument or point logically and it is accepted, then there is no problem. If I do so and it is rejected logically, there is no problem. If I do so and are assailed with noise and rubbish, then it is usually pretty clear that it's just garbage and to be ignored.

If I seek affirmation and reassurance from people online instead of flesh-and-blood folks I can talk to directly, I being to wonder if this is actually an okay state of affairs. If my support group could be replaced with a bunch of clever Python scripts, Markov models, and machine learning algos, I would suggest that something is deeply wrong--and that is exactly the sort of inscrutable interface forums provide.

Only when you start to "trust" the personas you encounter online and become invested in your model of them do you actually run the risk of getting hurt. Treat it like a game, learning what you can when you can and ignoring the rabble, and things go best.

:)

Re: Trolls (2008)

#104

Post by wanorris »

jbooth wrote: post #90
_delirium wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my hobbies is reading a lot of history, and I don't see much support for this narrative. American politics has long been really nasty. Take a look at the 19th century presidential campaigns: there is some pretty shrill stuff in there. The 1828 election in particular was really nasty. And people regularly fought duels---actually shot each other---over politics. Political brawls were not uncommon. A Congressman…

Yeah, things used to be rougher, but they also used to actually get something done on occasion. Can you see the current congress accomplishing that?

The current Congress can't get anything done because one of the political parties has decided that it isn't in their interest to get anything done, to keep the other party from getting credit for it.

I don't mean to call out the Republicans for being uniquely unpleasant in this regard -- there have been periods when the Democrats have been just as calculatingly obstructive.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#105

Post by watmough »

chrishenn wrote: post #18

I hope that trolling can be kept out of HN by the simple goodwill of the people using the site. I can't think of many forum systems that can effectively remove the incentive to troll. I put up a forum online for people in my journalism class. They're nice people, but something about the fact that the conversation was online turned the discussion into something pretty dumb. My hope is that people who grow up with the…

I've seen some relatives' kids accounts on Facebook. I'm not sure I can be as optimistic as your last paragraph. If anything, I'm pessimistic that many kids are writing utter utter trollish garbage online that may never ever go away.

Of course, there will be kids that are smart and don't do this, but kids that want to 'fit in' or 'be popular' may well end up rolling with the crowd and posting things that will hurt them later on.

As parents, we should be looking out for our kids, both in real life, and online.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#106

Post by firefoxman1 »

I was thinking along the same lines yesterday about why there are so many negative comments online and not offline. I think one of the main reasons (that PG didn't cover) is that in the real world, people associate together in groups.

Nobody wants to be around a negative person, so not only does the negative person have a minimal negative impact on the people around him (since no one will listen), but the main problem arises when he gets online. Not only is this troll frustrated that no real people will listen to his negativity, but when he jumps online he's equal to everyone else. There are no groups. Nobody looks at his username like they would his face in the real-world and says "oh he's an ass, don't listen to him." I think it's partially because faces are easier to remember than usernames, and partially because we associate a whole personality with a face so we can avoid this person next time.

When everyone's equal they each have the same impact. This would be a beautiful system if there was 0 negativity online because the new guy with great ideas would be heard just as well as a 10-year online veteran. But in the online social world its strength seems to be its weakness. How am I supposed to know if the person commenting is a really cynical person or a constructive criticism-type person until I've fully read his comment, and by then he's already made his impact on me.

I don't think modern social networks have this problem as much though. I only socialize with my real friends on FB, Twitter, and G+.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#107

Post by Roedou »

oscilloscope wrote: post #5

That's 8,000 unique visitors per day? Didn't realize HN readership was so small. I catch people in San Francisco scanning new articles, but it must be location bias. http://www.google.com/trends?q=hacker+news%2C+reddit Edit: That number was from 2008

As well as just search volume, Google has a surprisingly good handle on unique visitors to websites:

http://trends.google.com/websites?q=reddit.com%2C+news.ycomb...

Re: Trolls (2008)

#108

Post by vaksel »

interlagos wrote: post #91

I've been hellbanned here on HN on at least three different IP addresses and accounts...that I am aware of. Probably more. In each case nothing I'd ever said would be considered trolling by any rational observer. Here on HN, however, as with most communities where you start to recognize the regulars (tptacek, raganwald, etc), "trolling" is redefined to simply mean "going against the grain". There was one discussion t…

what does hellbanned look like on HN? Can't login? Can't post? Can post, but noone can see it?

Re: Trolls (2008)

#109

Post by 3pt14159 »

rjd wrote: post #69

There is a couple more cases which add to the mix. 1) Devils advocate. People that interject with an opposing view, even one they don't believe. I often do this one myself cause another poster to go into deeper description. Often just asking for an deeper response will be ignored, but opposing a view will always bring out an argument. 2) Denial and Righteousness. Essentially nasty fan boys. People who have brought in…

Sort of meta-related (in that I'm disagreeing with your facts, and therefore the judgement changes):

I disagree that most hackers are --TJ types. They are more likely to be -NT- with a bend towards INT-. The N is _the_ trait that tends to abstractionism, so it would make little sense for a hacker to be -S-- at all. If you look at the polls here it comes out in spades:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=943722

The reason that we argue is that as Rationalists, the truth is more important than anything except for the fact that there is a truth. It is why Rationalists are likely to pick up an Aristotelian view of the word (though that might be a tautology since I think it is an axiom of that worldview).

There is a reason why people are not usually grouped in the --TJ category (the broad categories being -NT-, -NF-, -S-J, -S-P). The reason is that the most important variable, the one that correlates to income, happiness, intelligence is the second letter. It fundamentally effects how you approach the world.

Re: Trolls (2008)

#110

Post by robbrown451 »

figgles wrote: post #96
robbrown451 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Karma systems actually do that quite well, or at least have to potential to. Humans are like clay, and mold themselves to their environment. If you have an environment where there are no repercussions for bad behavior, you can expect such bad behavior. (read the recent NYT article on Steven Pinker, and how he was an anarchist until he saw how quickly people start looting when the police and firefighters wen…

So you can remove the human factor?

I don't know what "the human factor" is. Or maybe I should say, I don't think there is a single "human factor". Humans in a first world, upper middle class neighborhood coffeeshop behave very differently than humans in 1994 Rwanda, or the humans in the Stanford Prison Experiment. It's not that the humans themselves are different (or started out different), it's that the environment in one place encourages a different sort of behavior than the environment in another place. (I guess you could say I tend to favor Situationism over Dispositionism)
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