h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of the things that's reminded me why I love h2g2 so much, is the class of troll we attract.

Elsewhere on the net, trolls just make do with making obscene threats, usually to do with biologically improbable sexual assaults, and hurl swearwords around constantly.

But not on this fine, upstanding website.

Oh no. With the exception of the "dearly" departed Taff, we seem to attract a higher class of troll.

One of them's really made my day today. I made the mistake of providing a sane and sober answer to a question, to be told that I'm predictable in my interactions and that I'd put the troll off ever using Ask again (if only).

So far, so passive aggressive, I hear you think. Where's the panache?

Well, it lies on the personal space. You see, cunning troll is cunning. He/she ensnares you with an act of irresistible flouncing in a public part of the site, and when you follow you're slammed with the full on troll madness.

Apparently, the community eds are merely credulous pawns in the great scheme of the Not Panicking Ltd colossus, which will ensnare us all to the capitalist yoke, churning out content for money (a horror to you, perhaps, but a bit of a busman's for me).

And this theory is spread out across a whole host of threads and journals, meaning you need to invest time and effort into finding out just what the conspiracy is all about. And once you've invested that time and effort?

BANG!

You've been trolled, wasting the time and effort on reading up on the transparently inflammatory trolling of an effing cuckoo.

You just don't get that anywhere else.

I've missed you h2g2...

Forgot the greatest quote ever:

"Facebook and Twitter are best at [making money from online social interactions] at present. Market leaders. Not Panicking Ltd may one day challege them."

Magic. The whole conspiracy is that NPL are (wait for it)...

Hoping to make this lovely neglected corner of the internet as popular as a website with 500 million users - and the troll wants us to try and STOP that from happening!

I'm hoping that this web site does get a bit more popular and appealing- not least because at some point it has to generate some advertising revenue or something just to keep it online.

It's frustrating as someone who's been putting in a lot of time- my "free" time, mind'- to helping out, and I'm not doing nearly as much as some, to read how little some of the more prolific users of the site appreciate it. Yes, we volunteered, and yes, it's a thankless job, but it would be nice if some people didn't go *out of their way* to make it more difficult.

OK - I'm going to have to go and look

pc, can you give an example? It doesn't have to be naming a name, but I'm aware that some of the volunteers feel like you do but I'm not sure which behaviours are engendering that feeling. I don't think in this case you are talking about me, but as someone who ask annoying questions, and say irritating things, I'm often left wondering what the problem is exactly when people aren't specific.

I know I don't read everything onsite, but most of what I've seen has been within the ethos of the site, and I've not really seen anyone deliberately trying to undermine c3 et al or make your/our jobs more difficult.

Even Taff, who I think is a generally a great asset to the site, when he overstepped the mark. The thing I loved about that was that the wider community stepped up and told him off.

Psycorp, I was with you until I realised who you were talking about I like the idea of a better class of troll, and appreciate you addressing this with humour I'm not sure if the person's behaviour fits my own definition of troll, because I think trolling has as its primary intent and raison d'etre disruption and all actions follow from that. I don't think that is true of this person (their motivations are not that of a troll, even if their behaviour looks like it).

I also find it interesting that the person feels free to talk about the new powers that be in ways that I don't. I don't think there is a conspiracy at foot, but I do note that it's been stated that never mind having 200 active users, what do we think it will be like when we have 200,000?! An alarming thought for the community in its current state, but it does speak to the fact that there are ideas and visions being discussed elsewhere away from the community that we don't yet know about. Some of us are arguing for greater openness, although personally I don't think we are any where near ready to consider how we will manage getting that big. The point being that IMO there *are* things to be concerned about, even if I don't see them in the same way as the person you are referring to.

T'ch. It wasn't either of the people I was thinking of, so now my curiosity is picqued.

>pc, can you give an example? It doesn't have to be naming a name, but I'm aware that some of the volunteers feel like you do but I'm not sure which behaviours are engendering that feeling. I don't think in this case you are talking about me, but as someone who ask annoying questions, and say irritating things, I'm often left wondering what the problem is exactly when people aren't specific.

I'm quite likely not thinking of the same person as Psycorp because I don't actually know who he means.

I'm not speaking of you, or any specific person. I'm speaking kind of collectively and in general of a handful of threads where people are railing against problems that aren't really there and demanding either information that cannot be publicly disseminated, or demanding that there be *no rules*. Or at the very least one rule for them and another rule for everyone else.

All that said with my mod hat off, BTW.

>>
I'm speaking kind of collectively and in general of a handful of threads where people are railing against problems that aren't really there and demanding either information that cannot be publicly disseminated, or demanding that there be *no rules*. Or at the very least one rule for them and another rule for everyone else.
<<

Can you give me a hint? Maybe point me at a couple of threads? I'd really like to understand, and to get my head around the perception differences currently onsite.

Ah - found it - and it was one of the prime suspects.

Who needs evidence when you've got intuition.

"(their motivations are not that of a troll, even if their behaviour looks like it)"

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

Or maybe it's a young swan

I never had you pegged as a goose apologist Kea

Some would say it's all the gobbling I've been doing.

I'm sure this conversation is about to turn fowl.

Not like you to chicken out?

Kea, I'm not sure I can actually pinpoint actual conversations at the moment- only because I've been really busy lately and haven't had as much time to sit and read threads for purely recreational or informational purposes. And as I am sadly unable to read people's minds (), the best I can do is guess at their motivations- in other words, back to something having feathers, webbed feet, a bill, and quacking.

I can come up with vague examples, though. People swearing excessively because a bit of swearing is permissible now. "Just because they can"- it's puerile. And this from someone who swears quite a bit- but I don't fee a need to make posts consisting almost entirely of swear words.

People who follow other people into and post all over their PS after having been asked repeatedly not to- I had someone do this to me for a couple of years, including following me into other threads to post after me. Just because the actual words don't break any rules doesn't mean the attitude behind them isn't one of harassment. That kind of thing.

And I'd agree that someone making hateful statements about another person just because they dislike their opinions or comments is flaming at the very least.

I agree on the swearing PC. I can't remember who it was, but a hootooer I follow on Twitter complained that the main concern for posters on NewH2 seems to be "can we swear in foreign?"

Yes, because posting a bunch of foreign naughty words to a conversation Just Because The Mods Can't Understand Them is oh so big and clever, as opposed to, like many other affectations, making the poster look like an enormous, immature .

Un grande titte du l'immature et moronique, surely?

D'oh! Now I have wasted a load of time too.

You know personally if any site that really pissed me off as much as some folks claim noohootoo does them, then you know I just wouldn't come here.

Jeez....

FB

(at the bird (feather bariety) punning) I'd try do a bird pun of my own... but I@d only cock it up and be left feeling like a tit...