Trolls vs. troll behavior

[Bryan]

I can't begin to tell everyone how great it is to be a part of this campaign that is truly changing history. Think about it. During this critical crunch time, it's important that everyone keep the forum guidelines in mind, both to follow and to understand that you don't have to put up with abusive / trollish behavior here. The guidelines are your ally against those who wish to disrupt progress. Some of the important ones to consider are:



+ Insulting or personally attacking other users is not allowed by any member. There is very little tolerance for violations, particular for new members. Reason: Insults lead to relational which often result in disruption, which dilute the resources of members and the intent of the forum.

+ Off-topic posts - Posts that do not relate to the threads intent are subject to being deleted.

+ Topics posted in the wrong sub-forum are subject to being moved or deleted. Please understand the sub-forum division before starting a new topic. Suggestions for new sub-forums are always welcome. Reason: Leads to most effective use of users resources.

+ Any form of antagonizing other members is not allowed by non-established members.

+ If you are to be critical of another users ideas or message please do so in a respectful manner. It is possible to discuss your points as to why you feel the way you do, ideally you should include alternate suggestions or acknowledge you have none.

+ No excessive / pointless negativity on the campaign, its future or elements of it. All messages with a negative tone about the campaign from new users must provide supportive facts as to why there is a perceived negative and provide some suggested solutions to the issue.

Source:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=22

Bear in mind however, the best defense against this is not to yell "troll" or the like, it is to flag the post for the moderator team by selecting this icon on the right: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/gfx_RedWhiteBlue/buttons/report.gif

You're welcome to add a polite note in the thread and possibly indicate the post was flagged (a very valid thing to do if the violation is totally obvious).

Moderators will do our best to be quick and fair- if you disagree you're welcome to send a PM to Josh (the Admin)- we won't alway be perfect. :)

I'll conclude with a repost of my "There are no trolls here" thread, I think this is important to keep things positive.

On with the r3volution!


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In many forums there are often individuals who decry others as "troll" and the like. While this may be mildly entertaining and accurate, there are often problems with this tactic to maintaining good community decorum.

My personal philosophy is that there are no trolls, there is just troll behavior. Claiming someone to be a troll assumes you understand the intent of the poster, in our case here, if they are truly a supporter of Dr. Paul or not.

Here at RPFs.com, in this campaign of freedom and peace we do not want to assign people into groups such as if they really support Dr. Paul or not or if they are a troll or not. However, if there is disruptive behavior it should be dealt with. It doesn't manner if the people truly support Dr. Paul or not- we can never really know that but we can study and understand how individuals deceptively engage in troll behavior to incite disruptions against our campaign objectives (different than healthy debate and disagreement). The goal of the forum guidelines and sub-forum structure has been crafted to best deal with issues of disruptive behavior to the forum community and they can continue to be refined, suggestions are always welcome:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=22

Some people argue that we should quickly ban disruptive users, in some cases it may be justified but in other cases if we banned Dr. Paul supporters who are engaging in postings that are possibly harmful to the campaign they'd just go elsewhere and continue to do the same. So in my view, it is an asset to the campaign for the more wise and politically experienced users to help lead the way.

As Bradley in DC stated so wonderful in his "Supporters taking it to the next level" marquee piece: we are the leaders and ambassadors - we need to act like it.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=22808

[AlexMerced]

Here Here, no negativity, positivity yields positive results, which is why negative attack ads don't help.

[Bryan]

Here Here, no negativity, positivity yields positive results, which is why negative attack ads don't help.

Thanks- bump for the Sunday afternoon crew. :)

[McDermit]

Haha, established members are allowed to be antagonistic, but not the noobs. Nice.

Are we allowed to flag a post and ask a mod to send a reminder to established members that their antagonistic methods might not be the best way to go about things? There are a couple that ALWAYS seems to be acting a bit "trollish." :P

[Ron Paul Fan]

I think the current troll policy is a decent policy, but the problem we have is that we see people as groups and that they derive their rights as belonging to groups. We don't get our rights because we have a certain amount of posts, or because we've been here for a couple months. We get our rights from our Creator as individuals, so every individual should be treated the same way. So if there's antagonistic behavior by a newbie that is disruptive, it should be dealt with. But if there's antagonistic behavior by an established member that is disruptive, it should be dealt with. So it isn't the issue of established or non-established, but rather it's the concept and understanding of individual right. And if we understood that, we wouldn't be dealing with this very important problem.

[Bryan]

Haha, established members are allowed to be antagonistic, but not the noobs. Nice.

Are we allowed to flag a post and ask a mod to send a reminder to established members that their antagonistic methods might not be the best way to go about things? There are a couple that ALWAYS seems to be acting a bit "trollish." :P
:) The key is what an established member is- it has nothing to do with post counts or date joined-- it has more to do with visible and defined contributions to the campaign. These types will rarely be antagonistic anyway.

But yes, antagonistic methods should be flagged.

Of course, the guidelines can always change based on community demand.

[Bryan]

I think the current troll policy is a decent policy, but the problem we have is that we see people as groups and that they derive their rights as belonging to groups. We don't get our rights because we have a certain amount of posts, or because we've been here for a couple months. We get our rights from our Creator as individuals, so every individual should be treated the same way. So if there's antagonistic behavior by a newbie that is disruptive, it should be dealt with. But if there's antagonistic behavior by an established member that is disruptive, it should be dealt with. So it isn't the issue of established or non-established, but rather it's the concept and understanding of individual right. And if we understood that, we wouldn't be dealing with this very important problem.
Thanks as always for your posts Ron Paul Fan. :)

[American]

I have no faith in your political process for this forum. What I do have confidence is that new members will be scared away for the lack of moderation and administration to the obvious naysayers and consistent negative postings in the grassroots section, or posts convincing people with the "We cant win" attitude.

This is an information war we are in and this forum plays a part in it. We all see the negative articles out there and now we allow the same people (probably) to post links and other nonsense to that article driving up google rankings and making the article more popular then it was if we hadnt been sent there.

I disagree with this policy, but its your forum Bryan. The purest Libertarian's and other campaigns that are here will gladly make this a battle ground of misinformation.

I guess the focus for this forum is now to just keep the members we have and forget any new support.

I have flagged posts in the past, the problem is people cant see that it has been flagged and I have never seen anything done about it. I Have seen them moved after 10 pages of replies to the hot topics section.

[lx43]

Its almost impossible for me now to keep track of whats going with this site much less all the other sites. There so many post to read with such little time. This site has grown rapidly over the past several months which is great and what we want, but the more this site grows the more people (and occasional troll) we will have. It just apart of success.

[Ron Paul Fan]

Thanks as always for your posts Ron Paul Fan. :)

Hey, no problem Bryan. That's what I'm here for. This forum has been growing by leaps and bounds so somebody must be doing something right. As far as dealing with trolls go, you mods have plenty of shortcomings, but the message of liberty has no shortcomings. We should strive for a forum policy of freedom: peace, commerce, and honest friendship.

[Bryan]

I have no faith in your political process for this forum. What I do have confidence is that new members will be scared away for the lack of moderation and administration to the obvious naysayers and consistent negative postings in the grassroots section, or posts convincing people with the "We cant win" attitude.

This is an information war we are in and this forum plays a part in it. We all see the negative articles out there and now we allow the same people (probably) to post links and other nonsense to that article driving up google rankings and making the article more popular then it was if we hadnt been sent there.

I disagree with this policy, but its your forum Bryan. The purest Libertarian's and other campaigns that are here will gladly make this a battle ground of misinformation.

I guess the focus for this forum is now to just keep the members we have and forget any new support.

I have flagged posts in the past, the problem is people cant see that it has been flagged and I have never seen anything done about it. I Have seen them moved after 10 pages of replies to the hot topics section.
As I've said, policy is up for debate and directed by the community so disagreement is part of what we're about. I know this is an informational war and a negativity war, we do have some guidelines to deal with that:



+ No posting of any proclaimed campaign announcement that is not supported with a link to the campaigns homepage or other directly verifiable source.

+ No excessive / pointless negativity on the campaign, its future or elements of it. All messages with a negative tone about the campaign from new users must provide supportive facts as to why there is a perceived negative and provide some suggested solutions to the issue.


Post up if you think there is more that can be done to deal with misinformation, etc. The mod team is going to be growing this week to deal with the growing pains.




Its almost impossible for me now to keep track of whats going with this site much less all the other sites. There so many post to read with such little time.
Understood- this is part of why new sub-forums come up (despite Ron Paul Fans desire :)). There are some tools you can use to deal with this, for example, you should be using the "New Post" feature which can be tailored to only search in desired sub-forums. See:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?p=198905

Still, we are open to ideas on how to best deal with these issues, we are getting 6K+ new posts a day. :)

[Wayne Hammond]

+ No excessive / pointless negativity on the campaign, its future or elements of it. All messages with a negative tone about the campaign from new users must provide supportive facts as to why there is a perceived negative and provide some suggested solutions to the issue.

Agreed 100%. Some go out of their way to be excessively negative, without so much as a shred of restraint or supporting evidence.

This should be a positive, uplifting campaign - our goal is a positive one, with the good of future generations at stake.

Most of the founding fathers gave their fortunes and lives for the ideals on which our Republic was founded.

We need to remain positive; disagreeing when necessary with reason and firm resolve, yet seasoning our rhetoric with decency, inclusiveness, understanding and an ability to judicially use the http://www.ronpaulforums.com/gfx_RedWhiteBlue/buttons/report.gif icon.

:)




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[r3volution]

bump

[davidhperry]

Post up if you think there is more that can be done to deal with misinformation, etc. The mod team is going to be growing this week to deal with the growing pains.

If possible, it would be GREAT for people to have some sort of reputation associated with their account. That way, it de-emphasizes a low/high post count and allow the community to more directly value the contributions of a particular user.


Haha, established members are allowed to be antagonistic, but not the noobs. Nice.

Are we allowed to flag a post and ask a mod to send a reminder to established members that their antagonistic methods might not be the best way to go about things? There are a couple that ALWAYS seems to be acting a bit "trollish." :P

I agree. I think some of the members with higher post counts are getting by with being antagonistic more than should be tolerated.

[BeFranklin]

///

[Wyurm]

:) The key is what an established member is- it has nothing to do with post counts or date joined-- it has more to do with visible and defined contributions to the campaign. These types will rarely be antagonistic anyway.

But yes, antagonistic methods should be flagged.

Of course, the guidelines can always change based on community demand.

I'll take this opportunity to remind everyone of this cool foum feature as well:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/profile.php?do=editlist

That is the ignore list. I do wish there was an ignore button near the "make this user a buddy" button, but ah well. The ignore list is one of the most awsome tools that is rarely used when it should be. I spent about 6 months moderating for a large game forum and constantly had to deal with trolls, flamers, idiots, etc... If everyone would just take the small amount of time to ignore that user, they will go away.

One thing though, as tempting as it may be, its not a good idea to post that someone is on your ignore list.