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

See how it works Red? If you do not live up to the expectations of the mighty, you will be sliced, diced and pureed. If you haven't crawled off yet, then you are allowed to be told "then why don't you just p*ss off already? " If this is still not enough to persuade you to leave 'their' lofty domain, you are named the TROLL. By one of the experts of all things.

Oh, almost forgot, ... and what-ever else is acceptable to take the bite out of such things.

<>
Kea, oh dear... I'd back my intellect and intelligence against several people here any day! My brother and I were both assessed as gifted, as was one of my sons. Stupid people don't qualify for Mensa! My only problem is that I have strong opinions, about life and death issues what's more, that disagree with a particularly nasty clique...


I just have to drop in and say, Redpeck! (I have disagreed with you violently in the past, but you don't deserve the bullying you're getting. You and I disagreed, but never called each other names. Pity other people can't be as mature..)

<>



I was just wondering... who exactly do you file papers with when you divorce yourself from reality?

I can easily name a dozen people on this site who have strongly held opinions, of which many are highly unpopular, who do not face the sort of treatment you do on this site. In fact, I would have to name myself as one of them. I'd be hard-pressed to find a subscriber in this forum with whom I have not had a strenuous disagreement in the past. I'm still waiting for my public stoning.

Gifted? They probably said you were "special," which means something quite different. Gifted kids don't have to wait until secondary school to be exposed to pencils that can be sharpened.

Maybe you did qualify for Mensa after all, just not the one we're all familiar with. I have it on good authority that "mensa" is Spanish for "stupid."

The provocation is extremely irritating, but could we have more use of the thread bomb idea & less personal dispute? Wasn't that the general consensus of this thread?

Has everyone read this today? A3816795

well said fatKelli

The things you can find on hootoo are amazing, I am off to read it in more depth. Thank you for pointing it out

Catching up on the backlog...(jaysus! has this thread started popping up again!)

I think redpeckhamthegratepompomwithknobson's treatment has been somewhat reprehensible here. In a community forum, she has been expressing - as a member of a community - an opinion. She is displeased at Della's treatment.

Now, as it happens, I don't think she has the whole story. And I think she's making some incorrect assumptions about general tolerance of dissent. But she has been behaving within reasonable community standards (well - at least to the same degree as others. you're all slipping!). She is very far from being another Della. But...the very fact that she has been defending Della has led to her being held responsible for all the communities ills.

I sincerely and respectfully suggest that we should all take an objectivity check here. Try to 'compartmentalise' a little. Do not let your frustration at Della's conduct spill over so that it clouds your opinions.

Why did this thread come back to life? Can't it just be left to die. I think by now everything that can be said, has been said. Just as we've been expecting a massive increase in Researchers one of the most bitter and vicious threads on here is getting placed at the top of Ask, where most newbies are expected to go, at least at first.
I've seen enough of this horrible dispute to know nothing can be gained from furthering it, despite the fact some people have reasonable claims. Redpeckham, why did you get involved, az and others, why respond when red's behaviour took the turn it did? There was no need from either party. If you were arguing kids, I'd have sent you to different corners by now
Iago

The answers to why certain of us take issue with such behaviour is buried within this thread. With Red it is explaining about trolling behaviour (and there has been some good advice on how to play devils advocate without it becoming trolling on another thread. With Della it is to do with resurgenof her misleading and lies (I am really sorry to say).

We could bite our tongues/fingers but that would turn us into surrender monkeys and leave the door open for trolling and lies rather than robust discussion. There seems to be more self-moderation on this site by its users than the moderators themselves - which I would say is good overall but it does lead to this sort of stuff going on - however on the whole once things have been bashed out and general behaviours changed there is more of an ownership of the site from everyone rather than it being an area run by others that we just happen to inhabit.

>>We could bite our tongues/fingers but that would turn us into surrender monkeys and leave the door open for trolling and lies rather than robust discussion<<
That's a fair point, I just don't think this thread is the best place to fight such a fight. I think the idea of compiling a 'troll page' listing all the occurences of such behaviour from an individual is a superb one, sorry I can't remember who came up with it, because it deals with it in a calm, thorough and relatively discreet way and so is less likely to degenerate into a flame war
Anyway, that's just my
Iago

I'd like to develop the Combustion Triangle analogy as a short term solution. A fire needs three elements to initiate and support it:

Fuel = Conversation
Oxygen = Reactive comments
Ignition = Provocative comment

These are often represented as the sides of an equilateral triangle. Remove any one side and the fire dies. If we stop posting we remove the fuel but the conversation dies. We can't stop the source of ignition, only the italics can do that. So if we remove the oxygen, by resisting reacting to the provocation, the fire will eventually die.

By reacting we introduce more fuel and more oxygen then the conflagration grows and fire can be destructive when out of control. As somebody said earlier the best solutions are self imposed.

Longer term the body of evidence is being collected to prove that the site rules are being continually broken and presumably the management will act if they wish to maintain the quality associated with the BBC.

A pretty good analogy (you aren't a safety officer are you?).

The problem is that the ignition here, the provocative comment remains, it is not an inert match or a piece of flint, it is corrosive and does not sit there inertly, it eats into fabric of the debate and can be read forever and where these comments are creating false impressions, situations and planting falsehoods into peoples heads that corrosiveness needs to be inerted and unfortunately that requires some alkali to be poured on the acid.

Generally, fuel, oxygen and ignition sources are benign on thier own around here they are not.



Where it is blantant trolling evidence works. Where it is far more subtle disruption and behaviour that is difficult and only internal discussion can solve these things. As I have said before the hootoo mods cut us a fair amount slack (or are just too darn lazy to be bothered and are just there to pick up the pay cheque at the end of the month...BUT I am sure that is NOT the case at all. BIG).

Safety officer, perish the thought .

Individual examples of provoctaion may not, in themselves, constitute trolling but viewed cummulatively they most certainly will. It's only a matter of time. If it persists the volume of evidence builds, if it desists because the fire has no oxygen then all's well. We could have a win win here.

Some good points made in the last few posts.
Apart from the provocative statements made, the main character of the offending posts is their fatuosity. If this is self evident, there's no need to point it out, other researchers can see it for themselves.

Heads up to Teaswill for using the thread bomb alert

It's good question - why are we engaging with the conflict here rather than posting an alert?

I guess for me there is still some hope of us learning something - although alot of the last day's backlog seems to be about point scoring, there is some really good stuff here too.


>>><>
Kea, oh dear... I'd back my intellect and intelligence against several people here any day! My brother and I were both assessed as gifted, as was one of my sons. Stupid people don't qualify for Mensa! My only problem is that I have strong opinions, about life and death issues what's more, that disagree with a particularly nasty clique...
<<<

Della, IMO high IQ is not equivalent to real intelligence. There are plenty of smart people out there who still do really dumb things. I have no idea what your intellectual skills are, but what you demonstrate on h2 in the D wars conflict is either trolling or stupidity. Perhaps it's an emotional thing, I don't know, but you do seem to enjoy the conflict. Why else perpetuate it?

<<My only problem is that I have strong opinions, about life and death issues what's more, that disagree with a particularly nasty clique..<<

But you know that I have debated issues with you in the past and had no problem with you having different views than me. Could it not also be the same with the dirty angels? It's missing the point (is that deliberate?) to say the issue is the issues. It's not. The problem is *how* you communicate in those serious threads (as well as in the D wars in general). Yes people don't like what they see as your homophobia or fundamentalism, but the *conflict* arises out of the how the communication happens. It is entirely possible to disagree with people without ending up in perpetual conflict with them.

This is what I mean about stupidity. If I was in a group of people and I kept getting a negative response, I'd either leave, or alter my behaviour, or I'd continue if I was enjoying but then I'd have to stop complaining about how others treated me (although I guess a masochist might stay because of the negativity too).

>>I think redpeckhamthegratepompomwithknobson's treatment has been somewhat reprehensible here. In a community forum, she has been expressing - as a member of a community - an opinion. She is displeased at Della's treatment.
Now, as it happens, I don't think she has the whole story. And I think she's making some incorrect assumptions about general tolerance of dissent. But she has been behaving within reasonable community standards (well - at least to the same degree as others. you're all slipping!). She is very far from being another Della. But...the very fact that she has been defending Della has led to her being held responsible for all the communities ills.<< Edward

Edward, I understand that there has been quite a reaction against Red here, but I disagree that it's out of proportion to her own behaviour. She may not be breaking House Rules, but her behaviour is agin the general ethos of this thread. Of course the fact that she hasn't read it only makes matters worse. I find her postings to be arrogant - she appears to have no respect for people here, nor the huge amount of work that went into this thread.

I have no problem with red or anyone wanting to stand up and challenge how Della gets treated. I've done so myself in the past. What I do have a problem with is someone doing it in this thread when they obviously have no intention of actually communicating about the issues. red seems to want to just say what she thinks and not have to discuss it. That too is fine, but then she should just say what she wants and leave it at that.

Several times I have attempted to engage with her about what she has said and she is obviously ignoring my posts totally. Now that is fine - happens all the time . But unfortunately it looks so much like one of Della's behaviours (posting provocatively and then refusing to reply to people who respond to her) that it's very easy to see her behaviour as trolling.

Also, I'm not sure if you are aware but this isn't the first time that red has behaved like this so there is some history.

As with Della, I can't tell if red is simply trolling, or if she is actually stupid in that people here are all quite capable of explaining things (like what is in the backlog, and what the issues are given that red has no idea about them) but red seems unwilling to listen and learn. Personally I tend to think that she likes winding people up. Well, she's wound me up. She's also lost most of the respect that I had for her (from a previous thread) *shrug*, but as she doesn't give a sh*t about other people here I suppose that is by the by.

Which leaves us with the problem of what to do when someone posts in a trolling manner?

Regarding whether the Mods or Eds will step in if a body of evidence is gathered over time - I doubt it. The time to do something is when a troll/flamer is very active.

One of the Eds has said that if Della's death threat had been yikesed at the time they could have done something. I think by the time they got involved the whole thing had gotten so complex with so many researchers involved that it would have been hard for them to take action without seeming to take sides.

Personally I'm surprised that both Della and Apparition weren't put on premod over that, but I can see the Italic's point - everyone else's behaviour was pretty bad too by that stage.

<>

It *was* yikes'd at the time. Within hours of being posted, I believe.

az

Oh please not this again!