In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

How to make trolls behave

Jill

An interesting suggestion: Cognitive therapy.

Shlomi suggests that the often-suggested method of ignoring the trolls (often referred to as “don’t feed the trolls”) is not the way to go. Neither is criticism, calling for banning, or asking a troll to simply stop trolling. So what should you do? Ask questions to clarify (e.g “Why do you feel that Python is so bad? What do you find wrong with it?”), and kill with kindness (e.g. “It’s OK to prefer Perl, we’ll still accept you here.”). As frustrating as it may be to be nice to someone who isn’t, sometimes people just want to be heard and accepted.

I have a feeling this will not work so well here, but, good thought.

61 thoughts on How to make trolls behave

  1. Somebody needs to explain to me why an unheralded banning and wiping of their existence from your blog is an unproven strategy.

  3. Just talk back to them. A few unkind, witty words, and the trolls will dissolve in a screaming hysterical fit. Good for your blood pressure, too.

  4. I’d like to hear someone talk seriously about the basic personality, motives, and desires of a troll. What makes a troll a troll? If there were a way to do it that was academically honest, I’d surely read it.

  5. Cognitive therapy will not work on trolls. Especially not anti-feminist trolls. They don’t even live in the same universe.

  6. Comrade Kevin:
    I’d like to hear someone talk seriously about the basic personality, motives, and desires of a troll.What makes a troll a troll?If there were a way to do it that was academically honest, I’d surely read it.

    Some of the research on anonymity in a crowd/mob violence/deindividuation theory has been consider relevant to antisocial behaviour online. Studying internet behaviour is a pain in the ass, though. I did read one study once that specifically looked at the effect of a troll on a (possibly feminist?) women’s community online and how the community was devastated by it and their inability to effectively cope with an unprecedented negative presence (IRC, there was a schism over flaming the troll out or trying to make peace with the troll), but I don’t have that paper on hand. If I can find the cite, I’ll pass it along. It was focused more on the community’s response than on the motives of the troll, though, and a community that was very unfamiliar with how to deal with that kind of issue.

    I think approaches probably depend on what we define as “trolling” behaviour. Some people refer to trolling as general internet asshattery. My understand was always that trolls are people who deliberately want to stir up shit and get a reaction and say inflammatory things that they don’t necessarily endorse. The idea of “not feeding” them is supposed to deprive them of the desired result so that they get bored and leave, but treating them like poor confused buggers (if they truly *don’t* endorse the inflammatory opinions they’re sharing) would probably have a similar result. It’s hard to tell a genuine troll from a sincere asshole (pun so totally intended), and it’s hard to restrict that defensive urge. Just ignoring someone’s problematic statements can feel a lot like tacit support, but playing nice, even facetiously, might get misread by other people as appeasement and complicity.

  7. Interesting. I think Deanna Zandt suggested a similar strategy for distinguishing Capital T Trolls from commenters who maybe have more bombast than genuine animosity. Then again, with subsets of trolls – the “educate me or I’ll scream!” variety, for instance – the difference kind of approaches nil.

  9. This is an interesting conversation, specifically regarding the crowd/mob/de-individualization/avatar-anonymity that comes with the comments section of a blog or news publication. I think there are trolls that occur in these places that aren’t classified as trolls just because they agree with the author’s agenda or the general consensus of the other comments. For example, the LA Weekly blog wrote the most horrendous editorial on the Lara Logan incident in Egypt. To say this piece was offensive, is putting it lightly. The last time I checked, the article had more than a thousand comments all calling for the author to be fired and reiterating what an awful person she was. While I understand the vitriol of these comments, and the immense passion these people felt, they were not being constructive. Further, there were some comments that sincerely wished the best for Lara Logan, but couldn’t understand why women were allowed to put themselves at risk. These comments came from heartfelt, concerned, readers that thought they were helping. Instead, the angry mob, went after them for being misogynists, etc.

    I’m not sure what my point is, but I guess that while trolls are awful, usually there is just one and they make themselves more obvious than comment bullies. Further, trolls at least generate conversation, whereas comment bullies inhibit honest, sometimes controversial, discourse.

  10. Oh HELL no. Trolls thrive on attention; paying attention to them derails the conversation and community on the blog. By definition, trolls don’t “behave”. Ignoring, deleting and banning are perfectly workable strategies.

    I’m not in favor of playing nice with trolls. I’m especially opposed to further indoctrination of women that we have to be extra-accommodating with our words and our time, as if we ourselves don’t matter. Let the trolls adjust. The world really *doesn’t* revolve around them, and this dubious “therapy” isn’t likely to help them learn that. What I find therapeutic: hitting the “delete” button.

  11. Somebody needs to explain to me why an unheralded banning and wiping of their existence from your blog is an unproven strategy.

    But norbizness, that would be CENSORSHIP!!>!1! How dare you try to censor people with differing opinions!

  12. I think what feeds trolls most is spouting the idea that they can be stopped. As I try to imagine myself as a troll, I would love it if they replied to me in a comment. I would love it if they deleted my comment. I would love it if they banned me. I would really love it if they made a post in response to me, what they say doesn’t matter one bit. I probably wouldn’t even read all of it.

    I think the best way to get rid of them is to wait them out. Do not aknowledge their existance at all. Let them make their women-hating comment, leave it there, completely skip over it and carry on the conversation as if they didn’t even make their comment to begin with. Oh you can bet they will make a few more attempts, but you have to be more persistant in ignoring them than they are.

    I believe this is why I have no trolls on my site anymore. I don’t just “pretend” to not care, I geniunely don’t care if they post or not or what they say.

  13. This reminds me of the collaborative problem solving strategy we use with our unruly children. The theory is that the child would behave if he (we have 2 boys) could, but has a developmental impediment that prevents him from behaving in a socially acceptable manner. The child lacks the capacity and flexibility to process an often overwhelming world in which he is relatively powerless to assert any control. The strategy is aimed at breaking problems down to manageable levels for the child, so that he can have a hand in solving them.

    Likewise, it is possible that trolls are developmentally disadvantaged, or have difficulties processing the overwhelming world in which he has little power. However, I don’t believe that one can have the same level of love for a troll as one has for a child.

  14. I smell some doctoral research in here. But how to sell it to the funding committees…

    Just tell them that it has the potential to help challenge Shedler’s research and I’m sure someone’ll bite…

  15. I’d like to hear someone talk seriously about the basic personality, motives, and desires of a troll. What makes a troll a troll? If there were a way to do it that was academically honest, I’d surely read it.

    Its actually not that complicated. Large groups lead people to behave in more impulsive manners. Anonymity lets people go to the absolute limits of what is egosyntonic without having to worry about pesky things like public judgement. Sadism of some sort is an almost universal human pleasure. Put those things together and you end up with 4chan.

  16. Trolls don’t need hospitality.

    I’m guessing the motivation here is to make the troll pause mid-tantrum and reflect on their own actions. “Gee, you know, I never really thought about it.”

    But if it’s a troll you’re dealing with, I suspect the answer is “To make you mad,” and they’ll just resort to posting macros or random strings of letters & numbers if all else fails. Just so they can get the last word. Even if it’s not an actual word, it’s just a random string of characters that looks like words.

    Plus I do not have the time & patience to help bring a troll to see the light when doing so means that other people who would otherwise like to comment feel repulsed by the troll’s presence, knowing it’s lurking nearby. Not worth it.

    Python vs. perl sounds like a poor example to use as a demonstration when you’re dealing with somebody who openly expresses their desire for you to go straight to hell.
    Unless we’re supposed to call potentially violent trolls by some other name now?

  17. William: Just tell them that it has the potential to help challenge Shedler’s research and I’m sure someone’ll bite…

    LOL.

  18. Likewise, it is possible that trolls are developmentally disadvantaged, or have difficulties processing the overwhelming world in which he has little power.

    Yah, I don’t think so. Unless “is a douchey bored anonymous person looking for attention” equals “has difficulties processing the overwhelming world in which he has little power”? :p

  19. K__: Python vs. perl sounds like a poor example to use as a demonstration when you’re dealing with somebody who openly expresses their desire for you to go straight to hell.

    (FYI, for those who are not computer geeks, Python and Perl are computer programming languages.)

    Furthermore, Python vs. Perl is basically a power-neutral argument; it’s not like there’s an axis of privilege / oppression involved in Python vs. Perl. However, on many blogs, especially progressive blogs, nearly all of the discussion is closely tied to such an axis, and very frequently to more than one. I really don’t think that massaging the feefees of trolls is in order in this circumstance.

  20. Bushfire: Cognitive therapy will not work on trolls.Especially not anti-feminist trolls.They don’t even live in the same universe.

    This. It’s true. I’ve tried it.

  21. I strongly agree with K_ and Galling Galla: trolls who are bothering a forum where there’s not an axis of privilege/opression demand a different response than those in forums where there is.

    And I think it’s also tied to identity: most python users haven’t tied that into their sense of self (MOST. There are exceptions; people can be intense!) and many python users are also, sometimes, perl users. Whereas most feminists have tied that deeply into who they are, which makes antagonism bite that much harder.

    It sucks when a perl troll comes into your python forum and barfs all over it, especially if you were having an interesting conversation about, I don’t know, the upcoming version release, but it’s not personal.

  22. A fellow blogger I know recently wrote a post suggesting that Glenn Beck is basically a troll. That he may not hold even half the views that he espouses, but is well aware that expressing those views not only gains a pile of attention, but also a pile of money. I don’t know if I believe the argument about Beck (the same has been said about Limbaugh), but it does make me wonder about dealing with trolling in general.

    “Shlomi suggests that the often-suggested method of ignoring the trolls (often referred to as “don’t feed the trolls”) is not the way to go. Neither is criticism, calling for banning, or asking a troll to simply stop trolling.” Some of this seems pretty accurate to me. The public calls for banning, dogpiling nasty comments directed at a person, and requests to stop trolling that I have seen here sometimes eventually get rid of someone, but not before the whole discussion has been derailed. In addition, readers involved in the conversation before the attacks on the troll occur tend to stop talking, and readers who appear afterward might wonder if this will happen to them as well if they say something others disagree with. It’s a win-win for a troll. They got some attention, derailed the discussion, and made people look bad in the process.

    I actually think ignoring is sometimes the way to go, as Ashley above points out.

    But something I haven’t seen much of here, nor have I done so myself, is asking a suspected troll pointed, intelligent questions (not snarky ones) without commentary, and then seeing what happens. If all a troll receives is a bunch of questions they aren’t at all able to answer, I can imagine many will just move along.

  23. Not seeing this as an effective strategy with actual trolls. I mean, these guys aren’t misunderstood or just too passionate in their dissent. The whole point of their behavior is to get to the umadbro? payoff.

  24. Lu: LOL.

    I feel like less of a nerd because someone actually laughed at that. Not much less, but a little. Thank you.

  25. The problem with ignore is that it only works if everyone is ok with it, and generally that is not the case, that is why it is called trolling. Some people do have valid reasons for responding to trolls/borderline trolls.

    Agree with the Shlomi strategy but would add that one of the main advantages is what Julie said. Asking a question is often a good way to determine if the person is actually a troll or well meaning but doesn’t get it. Give the trolly person an “out” and see if they take it, or push themselves further into the abyss. Once it’s 100% clear the person is a troll it’s much more likely they’ll be dealt with.

    Of course, the easiest I’ve seen is having a vote down button, where a certain amount of votes down gets a comment hidden, or a troll rating button as you see on Daily Kos. Having a vote up button is also somewhat helpful, since the troll’s comments are weakened in power (IMO) by seeing how many people agree with the people responding to the trolls. I’ve seen those kinds of dynamics turn attempts at trolling into pep rally-like atmosphere for the community’s majority view, which is actually uplifting rather than derailing. Eventually the troll gets demoralized as they realize their comments are only being used as a punching bag. (Of course this can also apply to legitimate viewpoints that simply are wildly unpopular on the community in question, but within the context of the community are trolling.)

  26. Tony: Of course this can also apply to legitimate viewpoints that simply are wildly unpopular on the community in question, but within the context of the community are trolling.

    Also marginalized voices in hostile spaces (as in, uh, Feministe, when voting was briefly implemented here), which I don’t think is really the same as trolling.

  27. I’m still stuck on the title of the post: “How to make trolls behave”. Isn’t that one of the reasons why feminism exists in the first place — to combat how women are expected — or made — to behave? It seems more than a little strange that this is a blog dedicated to knocking down gender stereotypes, but it still wants to make others “behave”.

    1. It seems more than a little strange that this is a blog dedicated to knocking down gender stereotypes, but it still wants to make others “behave”.

      Expecting respectful behavior in certain places, from all participants across the board, is hardly anti-feminist. Good God, people, better nit-picking please.

  28. Jadey:
    Also marginalized voices in hostile spaces (as in, uh, Feministe, when voting was briefly implemented here), which I don’t think is really the same as trolling.

    Right, this has come up before. But don’t you think that forums that choose a particular perspective within the mission statement also affects what is trolling and what is not? I am speaking generally, not about Feministe in particular, although arguably it applies to some extent here as well. IRL, for example, a sustained argument in against Governor Walker’s union-busting bill would be debatable but obviously legitimate, but RedState, it would be considered trolling. And vice versa for Daily Kos. I suppose the down rate works well on Daily Kos because there are strict rules for using it and the community generally does a good job for enforcing them. There is a specific threshold that you have to cross. It is not something that happens just for a comment you disagree with.

  29. Tony “The problem with ignore is that it only works if everyone is ok with it, and generally that is not the case, that is why it is called trolling. Some people do have valid reasons for responding to trolls/borderline trolls.” Good point. Especially when there are more regular voices on board.

    Although even when it’s valid to respond to something clearly offensive or ignorant, sometimes the amount of energy expended doing so isn’t worth it.

    Also, I’m not sure a pep rally atmosphere online is really all that helpful. Might feel good for a little bit, but it often leads to shutting down collective critical thinking and consideration of valid alternative viewpoints.

  30. During the 2004 election, the commenters at Eschaton had some luck with a few different strategies in dealing with trolls.

    I remember one that used to infuriate them was when all the regulars in the comment thread would donate $5 each to Howard Dean for every trollish comment. That would shut them up for an hour. I mean, they’d brag about making everybody go broke, but the dollars added up so fast that they’s usually pipe down after we’d reached $150 or so.

    Another method was for the commenters to begin discussing science, or literature, or even *gasp* poetry. That usually drove them out after ten minutes. They’d post some Kipling or William Ernest Henley, and then they had nothing. They’d sputter a bit, and then slink off to troll some other blog.

    I suppose neither response is what I’d call “feeding” the troll, but it wasn’t really ignoring them, either.

  31. Expecting respectful behavior in certain places, from all participants across the board, is hardly anti-feminist.

    Expectations? Respectful behavior?? OMG, Jill, put away the jackboots!

    OT: I agree with preying mantis, trolls do it for the lulz and the “umadbro” not because they’re misunderstood or whatever. Hell, a troll probably isn’t going to even read your kind and well-thought-out response; they’ll say “lol tl;dr, u mad?” (or an extremely verbose version of the same) because they just want to piss people off, not meaningfully engage with them.

    Sometimes it’s useful to respond to the things trolls say, if you want to make a point or refutation, but don’t expect that to actually change the troll’s behavior — at best it’s practice for a real argument, or it’s for the benefit of the other non-trolls in the discussion or lurking.

  32. This seems very similar to what I was told about dealing with customers when I worked at a grocery store. The rule of thumb with unruly customers (or in worst case scenarios, people trying to shoplift), was to “customer-service them to death”. Interestingly, this works in the case of the would-be shoplifters (for fear of getting caught), but it didn’t work at all with the unruly customers. All it did was make them more angry that you were so calm about whatever was pissing them off so bad, and made them resort to taking it out on you (some even accused me and the other employees of conspiring to rip them off, etc.) It would be interesting to see this theory in action, but I’m not entirely optimistic.

  33. I think it depends on whether the troll is actively attempting to derail or just hasn’t worked through a topic; whether there is space within the topic to address a well-intention albiet trollish comment; whether you feel like addressing it; and as other commentors have mention, whether someone is speaking from a perspective of oppression. If the answer is no to the above then I personally liked removing the vowels as was done in a previous thread. It gives you the gist of what was said but clearly communicates that those attitudes are not acceptable in this space. In addition, I can’t imagine anything so frustrating as writing a rant and finding that it was not really published and transformed as an object lesson for the opposite position. I realize of course that on a site as large as this one, with so many visiting trolls, the mods probably do not have the time or patience to do this.

  34. I post over at Think Progress and while I’ve done the same, by playing teacher with them (I’m a teacher candidate), I always manage to get them to ignore me if I ask for citations, examples in the primary sources (such as one troll who ignored me 20 times when pressed to go to letsmove.gov to see how it would be a coercive nutrition program, he eventually lied by saying that he had always supported it, although unfortunately, my fellow posters had flagged his posts)…

  36. What is the definition of “troll” used?

    The classical definition is someone who does not in fact hold the opinions they write, but is just there to get responses and rile people up. There is a large difference between this type of troll and those who actually believe in what they are saying.

    I would assume that the most effective method of handling them depends on their basic motivations.

  37. I feel like that approach assumes trolls don’t actually believe what they’re saying and just want to stir up trouble. With anti-feminist trolls, it’s not like there’d ever be a need to ask them to explain more thoroughly, seeing as they tend to be mansplainers anyway…

  38. The problem with ignore is that it only works if everyone is ok with it, and generally that is not the case, that is why it is called trolling. Some people do have valid reasons for responding to trolls/borderline trolls.

    My question to this community: why wouldn’t everyone be ok with ignoring? In this specific community, I think it’s pretty obvious who is reaching, struggling, or seeking to learn—and who just wants to piss people off.

    One of the reasons I come here is because it’s explicitly feminist space—something I don’t have in real life. When I read Tony’s statement above, I thought about all the times I’ve been told to have more patience, more understanding, more consideration for someone who is showing me disrespect—because hey, maybe this person is having a bad day, or hasn’t had the opportunity to learn about xyz, or hasn’t learned the basic social skills of how to deal with other people as equals.

    And that’s bullshit. It’s bullshit, because 99 times out of 100 the scenario I just described involves a person with more power and privilege than myself expecting me to back down, sit down and shut up because that’s my role. Screw that. Frankly, I’m not looking for more avenues in my life to have to think of or treat powerful people as inherently better and more deserving of consideration than I am.

    I live in central Illinois. I don’t lack opportunities to hear conservative and/or antifeminist opinions, including (and especially) those that don’t acknowledge my full humanity. I like that Feministe has had a policy of not indulging trolls. If that policy were to change along the lines recommended in the link, I would quietly take my leave. I don’t have the luxury of basking in the warmth of liberal, progressive thought with other liberal, progressive thinkers in most of my daily life. I feel like I’m in battle in the Belly of the Beast in my workaday world. I come here for a damn break from that.

    So no, I don’t think this is a “good thought”, Jill. This is my daily life. In my daily life, I have to swallow a boatload of shit from people. I have to carefully choose my battles. It takes a toll on me. The toll has built over the years (trust…older women aren’t pissed off because we’re “hormonal” or “menopausal”. I have yet to experience symptoms of menopause but I am fed up to the gills with having my back be the bridge others walk across….). “Good thought” my ass. How about recognizing that the status quo world is troll turf, and this can be just one tiny virtual space where troll mentality doesn’t have to be indulged…at all.

  39. Jill, I didn’t mean to word that as if it was personally directed at you. It’s a common theme I see on left-leaning or progressive sites—-the “but education is a part of our work, and how can we know what a person’s motivation is…”

    What I’m trying to get across is: we already gave “at the office” (on the jobsite, in the classroom, at the union hall, in religious congregations, in community organizations, in our home, over the course of our upbringing, etc. etc.). To ask us to continue to do this is asking too much from people who’ve given enough already. I dig troll-free space.

  40. Seconding everything La Lubu said. Honestly, I don’t think it’s my job or my obligation to provide any kind of therapy for some douchecanoe that has no problem showing disrespect or outright hatred towards me and mine. And I have to spend enough time in the majority of my life being quiet, making room, and making allowances for people with more privilege than me.

    Fuck that noise. I’m all for lowering the banhammer on these douche maggots.

  41. Love disemvowelment. It’s helpful as a reader to get the gist of what stands and what doesn’t. Also, the schadenfreude.

  42. Most of these comments suggest a lack of understanding of trolls. There’s a difference between flaming and trolling. Many trolls have sophisticated methods- and don’t use outright insults, but flamers are outright loud,obnoxious and insulting. The troll sometimes has a purpose, and other times they’re just bored. It helps to be able to determine whether a user is a troll, flamer or just an asshole.

    Spam trolls (obviously incendiary remarkers) should be blocked- because they do not contribute and they clog up the comments- and are annoying. They might enjoy being blocked; but who cares? If I had my own blog I would block repetitive attempts- but occasionally leave messages if they’re funny. Talking to trolls is a good stress reliever.

    Have you ever trolled before? I once attempted to play around with racist blogs, but it became too depressing so I quit. Trolls don’t care if they get a reaction- just the act of putting their “thoughts” out there is sufficient. Even if no one responds, the likelihood that people are reading their information excites them. There aren’t very many ways to “win”, but there are ways to make the blog a friendlier and more productive place.

  43. “I think it’s pretty obvious who is reaching, struggling, or seeking to learn—and who just wants to piss people off.”

    La Lubu – I’ve been called a troll half a dozen times on this site. I have seen others across the gender spectrum also called trolls because their views weren’t the majority view here, as opposed to just being an asshole looking for kicks. I’m not sure it’s as obvious to everyone as you say it is.

    But I hear your frustration with any form of indulging people who are either being personally abusive in comments or deliberately trying to piss people off and shut them up.

    The way I see it, the more people engage with those looking to cause trouble, harm, and destroy conversation, including repeated calls for banning, the more opportunity that person gets to cause trouble, harm people, and destroy the conversation.

    In addition to ignoring, I love Kitty’s suggestion. Asking for citations and primary sources is an excellent idea. If you’re gonna engage, why not up the ante to a level few will be able to respond to.

  44. What about using them as teaching aids? As other people have mentioned (somewhere), the point of responding to a troll isn’t to change the troll’s mind, but to show the audience (who might be less inclined to confront someone like the troll, or less well-versed in refuting nonsense, etc.) how to respond, etc.

    Silence is often confused with complicity or agreement, yes?

    That said, I’m not saying that every single troll should be engaged in this way. There’s obviously some that are just worthless. Basically, there can’t be one blanket procedure to deal with them.

  45. I’m with La Lubu. If coddling the obnoxiously privileged is part of a community’s ethos, I am not going to want to be part of that community.

  46. For me the most important factor when deciding whether to engage with a “troll” is if I believe it can be productive. Too often it is a poster that will never, under any circumstance, change their position.

    If the poster is someone who is prepared to participate in a rational and open-minded discussion, their original position is less important to me. Whether they are speaking from a privileged position is also irrelevant IMO.

  47. Stoner with a Boner: B) require a captcha-though this would potentially irritate legit posters.

    Captcha is terribly ableist, pretty much blocking people with low vision from participating in the site. Captcha utterly blocks screen readers, for example.

  48. La Lubu:
    Jill, I didn’t mean to word that as if it was personally directed at you. It’s a common theme I see on left-leaning or progressive sites—-the “but education is a part of our work, and how can we know what a person’s motivation is…”

    What I’m trying to get across is: we already gave “at the office” (on the jobsite, in the classroom, at the union hall, in religious congregations, in community organizations, in our home, over the course of our upbringing, etc. etc.). To ask us to continue to do this is asking too much from people who’ve given enough already. I dig troll-free space.

    I’m thirding this (after Sheelzebub).

    It’s my impression that most trolls on Feministe *do* believe in what they are saying; they are committed to a viewpoint that devalues and dehumanizes women, POC, PWD, trans* folk, queer folk, and other marginalized people. No amount of cognitive behavioral “therapy” over the ‘nets will change their minds. I don’t come here to waste my energy to “educate” these people, and indeed, there are times I need to take a break from Feministe because so many people are demanding that marginalized people educate them – and Feministe is one of the better mainstream sites out there.

    I’m all for ignoring and banning[*] folks who come onto this site for the purpose of pushing their dehumanizing agendas onto the readership, whether or not they’re trolls according to the classic definition.

    [*] But don’t stop the Feministe Top Trolls competitions! They’re fun as hell and send a signal to potential trolls that they’ll be mocked.

  49. “Trolls don’t care if they get a reaction- just the act of putting their “thoughts” out there is sufficient.”

    …uh-huh.

  50. As the former sole blogger for Feministe — granted, when Feministe was a much smaller blog, and the blogosphere was a much smaller place, and I had much more free time to play on the internet — I effectively “converted” some of our worst trolls into some Feministe’s biggest defenders. At the time our worst trolls were men’s rights activists whose oppression generally boiled down to “patriarchy hurts men too,” and convincing them of such really wasn’t a terribly difficult thing to do once you made the effort to feel their pain on a personal level. I still get emails from some of these guys just to say what’s up.

    [This was also the time when the worst blog fights we had weren’t circular firing squads, but actually involved warring with bloggers from the other side of the political spectrum, which for me actually ended in some interesting phone conversations and other weird interactions. We could fight, make mean jokes, and get annoyed and hateful, but it was mostly with an underlined mutual respect. That’s ancient shit now.]

    Broadly speaking, this is one of the things I miss most about a smaller more naive internet, where it felt safer to be capital-Y You in your growing, ebbing politics and itchy, scratchy skin and put yourself out there to be known as an individual, warts and all. I feel like the pressure to be politically “right” in words and deed erases some of that safety and prevents these more personal interactions from coming to fruition like they used to.

  51. Just reading Lauren’s comment brings sadness. Sometimes it feels like a competition on many blogs covering social issues to see who’s the smartest, most articulate writer with a badass, power sarcastic, no-nonsense streak to boot.

  52. Also, Galla’s point about captcha is a good one. I only have slight sight issues – some color blindness and eye muscle weakness – but I still struggle with reading those things sometimes.

  53. Maybe it’s me–but I remember things very differently. I remember that I–and other feminist bloggers were accused of being part of a circular firing squad for pointing out some messed up assumptions/attitudes (where are the women bloggers/the Kos pie fight/Liza not deferring to her ‘betters,’ etc.) I remember the tone lectures directed towards us, I remember the erasure, and I remember the patronizing attitude from people who were supposed to be on our side. I remember being told, repeatedly, that voicing criticism was silencing and unfair to the progressive (mostly White) men who had fucked up, that they felt like they couldn’t say anything if any woman criticized what they said.

    So I can’t get too upset if someone objects to something I say that comes across as ignorant or insensitive. The fact is, we’ve all done things to marginalize people with less privilege than us. I don’t think that I don’t have the room to grow or learn; I think that people pointing out your fuck-ups actually give you that opportunity. Someone being irritated with something you wrote isn’t the same thing as writing you off as a person–the bloggers who have alienated some folks to that extent made repeated and really bigoted statements in the face of criticism or acted in grossly bad faith.

  54. Sheelzebub: I remember that I–and other feminist bloggers were accused of being part of a circular firing squad for pointing out some messed up assumptions/attitudes (where are the women bloggers/the Kos pie fight/Liza not deferring to her ‘betters,’ etc.) I remember the tone lectures directed towards us, I remember the erasure, and I remember the patronizing attitude from people who were supposed to be on our side. I remember being told, repeatedly, that voicing criticism was silencing and unfair to the progressive (mostly White) men who had fucked up, that they felt like they couldn’t say anything if any woman criticized what they said.

    Oh yeah, I remember that too. I’m being all nostalgic for the 2001-2004 era even before then when this whole thing wasn’t as organized and monetized (which really took off around the pie fight era, circa 2005-6?) (was that the point when you and I and others started organizing ourselves as too?). I mean, “feminist blogging” didn’t exist yet, and my blogroll consisted of the fifty vaguely-liberal women blogging that I could find, covering a really inspiring range of topics. This thing — career bloggers, Feministe, book deals — is so big now I can’t get my arms around it.

    The difference between this kind of blogging and the kind in the OP is that this is personal and has personal stakes. If we’re arguing Mac vs. PC, it may get heated but it’s a rare bird that will get offended by the topic at hand unless it’s “umadbro?” bullshit. When our personal experiences and deeply held beliefs are at stake, it’s a different circumstance altogether. At one point, I’m saying it was possible in this particular space to manage opposing opinions, considered trollish now, in another way. I don’t think that’s possible any longer.

  55. Captcha is terribly ableist, pretty much blocking people with low vision from participating in the site. Captcha utterly blocks screen readers, for example.

    I’ve seen some captcha’s with a little speaker button next to them — does that spell out the text verbally (I’ve never actually clicked it)? If those exist then it would be less ableist, at least.

  56. Bagelsan:
    Captcha is terribly ableist, pretty much blocking people with low vision from participating in the site. Captcha utterly blocks screen readers, for example.

    I’ve seen some captcha’s with a little speaker button next to them — does that spell out the text verbally (I’ve never actually clicked it)? If those exist then it would be less ableist, at least.

    Yeah, it’ll speak the text, or maybe some other phrase. But that doesn’t fix all issues. However, I think a longer answer than that will contribute to a derail away from the OP, so I’ll leave it at that.

  57. Lauren, I remember that time too (hell, I still wonder about “Masculiste” at times; hope he’s working—it’s hell out there for tradespeople), but….what made that possible wasn’t just the smaller space, but the people coming to it. I mean, I didn’t think Masculiste was a troll because he didn’t express himself like a troll; he wasn’t making provocative statements and flouncing off. And of course, part of the reason *I* could see him as not-trollish was because we shared so many background traits; we were both rust-belt, Sicilian-American tradespeople around the same age. Our lives were similar and we had familiar ways of speaking.

    But…as space gets larger and broader, we lose that. Like you, I still think I could do that—communicate with non-feminist others and bring them around to questioning their original assumptions……but it isn’t going to happen here, or at any of the other large blogs, because large blogs are a lightning rod for bona-fide trolls. People who are questioning, or who are angry ‘cuz they’ve been “done wrong”—aren’t coming here anymore. And they aren’t going to smaller blogs either.

    (p.s.: hope all is well with you and yours)

  58. I’ve seen some captcha’s with a little speaker button next to them — does that spell out the text verbally (I’ve never actually clicked it)? If those exist then it would be less ableist, at least.

    Its a moot point when it comes to trolls anyway. Filling out a captcha takes less than a second for most people. They’re designed to be easy because they’re designed to weed out bot spam. They also have the effect of creating an access bar to PWDs. Hell, 4chan uses a captcha to post, that alone ought to make the idea look useless.

  59. Python and Perl? Are people still using punch cards as well?

    I kid, I kid. Though, now I feel like we should have a discussion over whether Emacs or Vi is better.

  60. David: Python and Perl? Are people still using punch cards as well?

    Y’no, I actually did cut my teeth on punch cards. And COBOL (there’s a language that needs to DIE already). Yup, I’m that old.

    David: I kid, I kid. Though, now I feel like we should have a discussion over whether Emacs or Vi is better.

    To which the standard answer is generally “What? You don’t use sed?”

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