Hello. My name is Benny1967 and I have a problem: I feed trolls. I cannot go to sleep when I see somebody's wrong on the internet.

I know I shouldn't do it and I just make them stronger this way, but I can't help it.

Now I found that putting trolls on my ignore list helped me with my disorder. I usually don't get to read their rants, therfore I don't answer... and don't keep these threads alive.

Now I wonder why other people don't make this forum a better place for themselves by doing the same. Wouldn't it be great if some well known troll could open thread after thread here and they would all remain empty because nobody can read their posts?

Until today, I thought it was everybody's free decision whom to put on ignore.... but then I read a post that made it clear this one user had no idea the ignore list even existed (because he wished for that feature here).

So I'm wondering:

Is my reasoning right that if people would make better use of ignore, this place wouldn't be so attractive for trolls? Or am I too naïve?

And if I'm right - what could be done to make the ignore list more visible as a feature here? Put a link that says "I think this user is an idiot" under each avatar? No. But something that's at least a little bit more obvious than the current implementation...? What do you think?

I have never put anyone on an ignore list anywhere and don't plan to start now.

A link to the right side of "Thanks!" would be great.

My two cents.

Ignoring can help, with one caveat: people tend to quote the trolls to rebut them. So that works against the person using the Ignore feature.

I would still like to see an "Ignore Thread" feature, as well as the ability for members to completely hide threads (from their own view only) that are below a certain rating threshold.

you're right in the first paragraph - and the ideas in the 2nd one are good. what one could also hide threads started by people on the ignore list.


as for the "quoting trolls" issue you brought up: yes, it'd be perfect if these quotes would also disappear. but usually they are published in a context... most of the time somebody will answer the troll in a way that supports my view... which makes my impulse to answer go away. this usually works as a means of self-protection for me so i don't reply & keep the thread alive.

Can I bump this old thread? I agree that it would be good to make the feature to ignore a forum user more easily discoverable.

Currently, to ignore a user on talk.maemo.org, you have to click on their name, then View Public Profile, then User Lists, then Add to Ignore List. It would be nice if instead you could click on their name, then click on Add to Ignore List in the drop-down (just as we can currently add someone to Contacts).

i think that making the ignore list and functions more accessable is needed.

But (i know shouldn't start a sentence with 'but') it isn't addressing the problem. The real problem is controlling trolling and other disruptive postings. I'm not sure there will ever be a way to prevent it but i'm sure there's way's to punish it and reduce it and nip it in the bud. The hard you make it for people who's only purpose is to annoy, disrupt, argue, provoke etc the better. i've seen new accounts which have nothing put troll posts. and some old accounts which are the same, Is it a case of more moderation or more enforcement of the rules?

all i know is it's very frustrating trying to read a long thread and 50% are replies to trolls.

Making it harder on normal users to do things is no benefit. make it harder on the trolls.

An "Ignore" link next to the user's name in a post would increase convenience & usage of the ignore function.

However, it still leaves many flaws in trying to suppress trolling. Part of the problem is that in the social structure of a text-based online forum, the social feedback channels are missing or very attenuated. The result is that the trolls cannot see that their behavior is unsuccessful via being socially shunned by observing how many people ignore the troll, and newcomers to the social structure are manipulated by the troll, causing damage to the social structure, because they are unaware that a post is from a known troll.

The "karma" scores are interesting approaches, but the first thing you notice is that "thanks" drive the karma scores up, and the trolls thank each other either out of amusement or as a trolling sustaining strategy.

The problems of maintenance of social structure are interesting when the structure differs via reduced communication structures from "live" social structures. It would seem that some replacement mechanism could be devised, but so far aside from authoritarian policing, nothing self-sustaining & even modestly functional has appeared.

Up/Down rating of each post by a user, afterwards factored into something like the karma score, would seem to go far in that direction, but it's been seen in other forums that trolls easily manipulate it by making broad, vague statements at the beginning of the post (like "everyone should try harder") but complete the post with language designed to be socially destructive. It makes the Up/Down score of a single post problematic, since it contains at the beginning a broad, generally agreed-upon, & usually morally postured statement as well as the following destructive content.

The ignore function itself works against maintaining the social structure in some ways: for example, the more people who ignore a troll, the more who do not see & publicly refute the troll's destructive posts. Newcomers to the community therefore get long statements about the community from the trolls which they assume are subscribed to by most of the community, because they are unrefuted.

The only thing I can think of that would replace part of the social feedback mechanism would be to publish a score of how many people ignore a user. This would give people who are socially destructive unintentionally information that their behavior is causing them to be socially shunned, & so can modify their behavior, just like people in live social groups do; & it would give newcomers an indicator of who is not actually a significant part of the community because of their socially destructive behavior, and it would reduce the incentive for trolls to post as they see that their posts are not read by many except newcomers who can tell that they are trolls anyway.

It is not hard to exploit the missing social mechanisms in an online forum, but fabricating functional replacements is proving very difficult.

@rotoflex

I have thought of those methods you mentioned and agree they can all be exploited. The biggest impact seems to be on new users who come here for help or to join a community because they've discovered maemo and want to meet people who like the system and use it.

I think clear definitions of what is acceptable behaviour is good but if it's not enforced then it's pointless.

I like the idea of seeing how many people are ignoring a user when they post is good. seeing how many thanks someone has is misleading. as state above.

Are there admins for each section? like 1 for each maemo device section etc?
A good system i've seen is people who have a positive impact on the forum are reviewed and given a status above the standerd user. These people are what you'd call trusted by the mod's/admins. there are a few user's i trust when they post.

Making it easier for the common and new user to determine if someone is trustworthy or just blowing hot air is a must. and i esspecially think it's important to revamp the forums due to the impending influx of new users when the n9 is released. Alot of people come here for help and the easier it is for them to get it the more positive the impression of the system and community as a whole is left on that person. If we want to continue as a maemo community we need to make it a place where people enjoy going. Putting trolls back under the bridge is a big step towards that.