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

He's someone who I ignore as an obvious d--k.

Yes...I guess I'd put him in the 'do not feed' category. There are others who I also disagree with, but would sooner debate with.

I think in his case, he thinks he's funny. But then... I suppose I think I am too. I mean...words like 'malarkey' and 'piffle' and 'balderdash' and 'tosh' are intended to suggest irreverence rather than malice.

But it's not just me. I know of another researcher, who I regard as one of the sweetest and most intelligent people on h2g2. I've seen him hounded out of a conversation...and temporarily off the site...following his witty pricking of some half-baked flummery with which he offended a couple of eggshell personalities .

So it's a difficult one, no? What reliably indicates trolling? And when should a pointed silence move into active resistance?

Yes, Redpeck is another one who exhibited trolling behaviour here and there, Mr Dreadful. I certainly had more than one run in with her on various threads.

And yes, I agree that she seems to have 'settled down' a bit lately and doesn't seem to have such a chip on her shoulder. Which maybe says that not all people who occasionally behave like trolls are *only* trolls. Perhaps they are just feeling insecure and/or going through a bad time, whatever.

But there are some that troll on purpose. And tig/shifty is definitely one of them (imo).


az

I'd say that whether or not someone could be 'defined' as a troll is largely irrelevant. I mean, whether they are causing persistant offence to a wide range of people through malice or ineptitude (_not_ you Edward, if that needed saying, which I assume it doesn't).

To be honest, realistitcally there is nothing we can do and rise above it. Pointed silences - pointed being the ones where it is stated loudly and repeatedly that a silence is being conducted is to sink to their level. Reasoning with them will probably prove frustrating. Troll baiting might be fun and relieves stress, but it isn't nice.

I have to admit that I do get a bit of a kick from troll-baiting but if they go too far I'll just hit the yikes button.

And, aside from the distress it gives others watching, why not? Though then the problem is that, as someone said earlier, you find it difficult to stup, or take everything the wrong way even when they have stopped.

*..are they being loud and obnoxious, or are they just wearinig loud and obnoxious clothing?*

Bad clothing is merely the first level of obnoxiousness, followed by:

9. LOUD VOICE!
8. Bad Jokes
7. Conversation Interuptus
6. Sympathetic talk for Boy George's drug charges
5. Extreme Political Correctness
4. Sexist and/or Homophobic Attitude
3. Social, Political, Scientific, Religious and Historical Ignorance
2. Failing To See The Point
...and the number one level is..
1. Being *One Of Them*

Reading this conversation again this evening, there were two almost invisible strands that I found particularly interesting, glinting in amongst the rest. I'll twease them out for easier consideration.


Us:

>> I suspect that part of the attraction of the collective ganging up is that hootooers do their cruelty so wittily. (kea) Post 12

>> There are certainly people here who pretend etiquette, but who behave with calculated cruelty. Other sites are rougher, sure. But high-minded viciousness is something else. (Pinniped) Post 39

>> Or are we talking personal vilification ... If [so], should we expect anything else? Lord of the Flies and all that... (Boots) Post 44 - (lovely to see you here again darling )

>> What alarmed me was how keenly the directive was applied. The point was, that it didn't take much for someone to be labeled a problem. (Sol) Post 45

>> There is such a close-knit central community on HooToo that the worry will always be that you're going to tread on the toes of someone 'important'. (Ancrene) Post 55

>> I guess also that the longer you've been around the more fixed views you have about how people should behave, and therefore the quicker you are to notice if someone doesn't do that. (Sol) 56


Them:

>> Perhaps that's what marks them out as socially inept rather than a troll? They aren't doing it on purpose to upset? They genuinely don't see why it's not going to win them friends? (Sol) Post 49

>> It's interesting that it does seem to be new researchers who it gets done to. ... Think how you ease into a group of friend/ new colleagues before letting the full force of your personality hit them. (Sol) Post 74

>> To me it seems like the sort of behaviour one adopts when they first come to a forum after feeling somehow threatened or intimidated and then feel a need to lash out. (Az) - Post 79

>> ... not all people who occasionally behave like trolls are *only* trolls. Perhaps they are just feeling insecure and/or going through a bad time, whatever. But there are some that troll on purpose.... (Az) Post 82

>> ... the two people Im thinking of can really do nothing else here but post barely comprehensible generally impolite and unthinkingly prejudiced opinion because they just are *that* different from the majority... (Blicky) Post 33


I still amn't any closer to drawing any conclusions though. But I do know one thing - I'm off for a

B

All hail the divine moderator!





Not quite sure what conclusions you're looking for, Ben, but it's been an interesting thread.


az

"has been"?

Thank you for your contributions then, and thanks for all the



B

'Has been'.

Present perfect. An action started in the past that continues in the present.


az

Fairy nuff.

Can't tell you're an English teacher, Az...

<>

Sorry, I think you're wrong. There are some perfectly reasonable views that are completely unacceptable in the h2g2 group-think, not that all people here indulge in that group-think, but the ones who do are the loudest and most confrontational. (Influential, too... often it seems it's not what you know, but Hoo.. sorry, who... )

<>

Well said, Ancrene.

*unlurks*
Hi y'all

I've been following this thread a bit, also find it interesting in many ways.

This idea of someone being 'important' is something I don't quite get. The italics mostly seem to stay out of the fray nowadays (based on what I've seen) and they're the only ones who actually appear to have an elevated status onsite. Some people are treated with more respect than others by some researchers, but I think that's more a matter of people responding to capacity for insight and communication than some arbitrary idea of 'importance'.

Sure, we have a King and a Prez and a bunch of people with stinkin' badgers, but that's not a real heirarchy, is it?

Phew, backlog.

>>>>
"I did notice in a recent thread that the people who continually spoke out against the villifying of a certain researcher weren't actually in the relevant threads that much. "

How do you know what is or isn't being read by any researcher?

Kea, you seem to be saying that apalling behaviour by a group of researchers towards an individual in a thread where that individul has not caused a problem is ok if 'the group' perceives the individual to be a pariah because of behaviour elsewhere.
<<<<

Not sure where you got that from kelli

Just to clarify. I think that that collective response to repeated trolling, spamming, disruption of threads through one's style is understandable. As I already said there are times when this crosses a line of what is acceptable to me. Hassling someone in a thread where they have 'behaved' is not good IMO, but I can also understand that if someone is disrupting multiple threads then it's natural that if they are concurrently in another thread 'behaving' people are still going to be narked with them.

In terms of people not involved in the relevant threads (meaning people that aren't posting in them), I think they do have an outside, perhaps more objective view that is valuable. I also think it's likely that if the 'troll' was in the threads they are active in they might have a different perspective - the example I gave was if the troll was in Peer Review. There is no doubt that regulars in PR do respond collectively to what they perceive as inappropriate behaviour. But if someone persisted in posting in a way that was still within the House Rules, but that annoyed the sh*t out of most people in PR I'm sure something would get done.

>>>>
There was a similar thing in the Atelier a little while ago, redpeckham appeared and started telling us we were boring and that h2g2 shouldn't have serious threads and then denied trying to cause trouble! She has settled down lately though and is now capable of composing multi-sentance serious posts.
<<<< Mr D.

Here's an example of what I mean. I saw red accused of trolling elsewhere but I didn't really get it. Her posting appeared aggressive and she seemed unwilling to accept feedback about it. But I didn't see her trolling. But then I wasn't in the Atelier threads .

What annoyed me about the people telling off others about their treatment of LW was that they weren't active in the the threads that the rest of us were complaining about. There *is a difference between reading a thread, and being an active participant in a thread where someone is spamming/trolling/being an @rse. In the case of LW it's non-serious threads on Ask and Misc Chat. Some of those threads are totally disrupted by LW and the subsequent reaction to him. I do wonder if people think the reaction is an overreaction simply because the threads aren't considered important. Hence my wondering what the reaction (and perception of reaction) would be in somewhere like PR.

However I am getting sidetracked. One of the reasons I raised the issue of the collective reaction in another thread was because I wanted to get past the "trollpariah as victim/reactor as bully" view and the "trollpariah as complete idiot who always does wrong view". But if people don't accept that there is a valid problem being reacted to then people just get stuck in there is a problem/there isn't a problem you're overreacting.


Like others I haven't seen anyone here labelled a troll, spammer, total @rse without their being a reason. So if we can accept that there is a reason, we can then look at the reaction and tease out what is going on.


I like the term pariah because it implies some kind of responsibility on the part of the people reacting. If we stop worrying about who's right and who's wrong, then we can look at the range of behaviours (including our own) and see what's appropriate, what's understandble but OTT, what's not acceptable, and (not least) what's effective*


*I suspect that most longterm reaction to pariahs is simply out of impotence. If the Eds don't do anything, and if the pariah doesn't change, I think people get into this state of perpetual hassling the pariah simply because there is nothing else to do (apart from avoiding threads totally).

I'm also sure that people enjoy the game. From some of the pariah dramas I've seen, participants on all sides are getting something out of it. I know with the current one with LW, some of the threads have been very funny.

I'm also open to the idea that people are picking on the weakest link. I have some trouble getting this because I just wasn't brought up that way. I've definitely become more tolerant of it, and occasionally engaged in it myself since being on h2g2 though

This is where my personal edge is - how much do I think it's ok for people to be mean to someone because they're disruptive and won't change? The premod thread where I got to say how frustrating the LW stuff is also led me to remembering he's a human being, and considering the kinds of things that might lead him to behave like he does. I've had a couple of times in my life where I've been on the receiving end of collective scorn, and both times it was where people were annoyed by me but couldn't see the underlying issues that were in *my life that made sense of my behaviour.

*

tig = shifty. I'd totally missed that

*

>> >
<>
<<<

I do wonder if the "Important" people are simply the ones who aren't so worried about being important or not

Is it me, or is it noticable that the people who 'get' what Ancrene says about 'someone important' are, by and large, the Europeans, and that the people who don't, by and large, aren't?

For a number of Europeans (and others, of course) h2g2 has a concreteness that it cannot have for more isolated people, because it is a place where we meet and chat with real-life friends, lovers and exes. The abstract nature of inter-reactions here blends into reality, and gains a harder and sharper edge.

Or maybe it's simpler than that.

Like wolves and chimps, humans are a hierarchical pack animals. Like dogs, we sniff each other's metaphorical @rses when we meet. The more important you are in the pack, the less all-consuming an issue your status within the pack is to you. But if you are new to a group, and not sure about where you fit in, then you need to find rapid answers to the question of "who's important and who isn't?"

Yes, in theory no-one here is more 'important' than anyone else, but surely this whole conversation is about how we - hootizens / humans - behave *when we get into groups*?

But this talk of real life interactions had distracted me with an image - what would the reaction be at a typical meet if someone turned up and said "hi, i'm tig lol", or howled "I'm Lord Wolfden"?

Serous question.

<>

Quite possibly az going "gaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Unless we actually meet hootooers in person we can only go by their hootoo personality, which may or may not be anything like their RL personality.

Am I the only one here who doesn't consider conversations here the same as 'being in a group'? I'm actually not a group person at all and never have been. I find being with more than two or three people somewhat distracting as well as less interesting as conversation usually becomes more 'diluted' when more people are involved. But here in a conversation thread, even though many people may be involved, it seems (to me) more like speaking with several individuals rather than a group. Not sure if that makes sense.


az

Well I would always be prepared to give someone I knew here but didn't like a another chance and let them have a pretty much clean slate.

My hootoo persona, whilst essentially me, is sufficiently divergent from my RL persona to realise that what you see on hootoo aint necessarily what you get. And I *try* to be me. some folks play games and characters and the person I *think* I know may well be totally different from the person at the keyboard like.

There probably isnt anyone I have encountered on h2g2 that I am not interested to meet, heck I would even like to see what Justin is like in RL!

<>

The idea that some Researchers have more influence than others is one that really bugs me. Last week someone (can't remember who, possibly Ancient Brit) was saying that the moderators pay more attention when certain people press the yikes button because they have more influence.

This influence thing is quite often directed at Hoo and to be honest I don't give a f**k how much "influence" he has, if I saw something I disagreed with I'd damn well tell him and hang the consequences.