Mark Wadsworth has one of his polls up and on this occasion it is regarding troll comments. At the moment, deleting them is coming in a close second to publishing and ignoring them. Over the years I’ve come across countless discussions and opinions on this one. On the one hand there’s the freedom of speech argument that says people have the right to voice an opinion and on the other – the one I favour – is that sometimes, discussion is damaged by a free for all.
As a general rule, when I am commenting on someone else’s site, I am impeccably polite, no matter how strongly I feel about the issue and no matter how intemperate the host’s choice of language. I don’t go to someone’s house and insult them, so I apply the same approach with their blog. I expect the same here.
Having had a run of trolling comments hit this place in the past few weeks, my attitude has hardened and I’ve become less tolerant. If someone cannot be civil, they get the boot. I don’t engage with them and I fail to see why I should provide them with a platform. All first time comments go into moderation, which is a WordPress default, so a first time commenter who wades in with ad hominems can be deleted without anyone being any the wiser. It does become a problem when a regular commenter goes bad – i.e reasonable discussion descends into ad hom. Then, I tend to be more relaxed, but even so there’s a limit. While I won’t go back and retrospectively delete, I’ll put that person into moderation and monitor the position for a while. If they go back to normal, then fair enough. If the ad homs continue, well, so does the deletion.
Ultimately it’s case of my gaff, my rules. My rules are pretty relaxed, but I have little patience with fools and none with trolls. If you can’t disagree with me without resorting to logical fallacy and insult, then I won’t engage with you and I don’t pay for this place to provide you with a platform to insult me. Fortunately, this applies to a very small minority.
Ultimately it’s case of my gaff, my rules.
Exactly – I see no reason why you should accept the shite.
More importantly, the regular readers you have will be in broad agreement with you and your views – they won’t want to read trolling shite either…
The problem is sometimes people who come on with half-baked but superficially plausible arguments, who aren’t regular commenters but for whatever reason want to have a go. Do you waste hours of your life arguing with them line-by-line, ignore them and thus implicitly concede the argument, or delete their posts and risk the accusation of censorship?
The last. I can live with it 😈
If people disagree with me politely, I’ll either let the statement stand or argue the case.
As you say; your gaff, your rules. As blog owner, you don’t have to justify your treatment of, or put up with people who are from an emotional standpoint, hardly potty trained.
😈
Maybe a header of “I reserve the right to censor, delete and/or ban whomever, whenever and for whatever reason I choose.”
Fuck’em if they can’t take a joke. You are more tolerant than most and have explained yourself on this point more than you should have to. Instead of explaining why you would ban someone or censor them just do it. People can tell from your remaining comments what type of policy you truly have.
I’m astonished this even needed saying.
A personal blog is not a public space. “Freedom of speech” rights do not apply.
Try standing in someone’s garden and screaming at the owner through their window or letterbox and see where that gets you.
Just because something is happening on the internet, it doesn’t follow that the activity falls into the Public Domain. A private website or blog is *private*. You abide by the owner’s rules, or you can get lost. It really is that simple.
Maybe I’m just misinterpreting “troll” or maybe I only get comments from the same people but I’ve not found the trolling too bad. There was one over the Knox issue. I tend to get more piss taking through the email.
The right to Free Speech is not a Right To Be Heard….OR a Right To Response.
In space no one hears a troll scream. 😆
Odd, that, isn’t it? I get very few emails and only the one that I can recall from a troll. All of my abusive or insulting comments are on the site itself. For a long time it was just fine, but of late I’ve had a bit of a run of it. I guess that’s the way it goes.
It’s a moot point.
What, exactly, constitutes a troll post?
I often find myself in the comments sections of posts with which I strongly disagree. And I make apparent my disagreement, in no uncertain fashion.
I do, however, endeavour to maintain an acceptable degree of civility.
And that, surely, is the crux of the matter. If a poster can maintain a degree of politeness, then regardless of his/her opinion, it has to be acceptable.
We are all entitled to our opinion.
It’s a question of civility.
The civility is the crux. I don’t mind someone disagreeing with me. It is the intemperate and insulting comment that uses the ad hom and other logical fallacies that irritates me. And as such, I will reserve the option to delete without further ado.
Longrider – A troll is a troll, whether he’s polite or insulting because he’s usually playing some sort of disruption game. The majority of trolls I’ve seen simply go away if they’re ignored, though for everyone in the chat room/comments/blog to ignore the troll is a difficult thing to achieve – there’s always someone that will feed the troll.
This is an enlightening article on trolls, worth a read.
http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm