How To Deal With Internet Bullies? 724
creyes123 writes "I run a free website with an online model airplane design calculator. The number of registered users has quickly climbed and I've gotten many compliments. Out of nowhere, a fellow shows up and proceeds to bad mouth the calculator in a posting in one of my forums. After I politely point out that he's mistaken and should have looked at the documentation before posting, he changes the subject and bad mouths a different 'flaw.' The cycle repeats a few more times, with no apparent end in sight. I want to encourage folks to share their opinions, but constructive criticism was clearly not his goal. I feel that the whole episode was just a massive time waster for me. What did I do to deserve this? Could I have handled this better?"
Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Insightful)
- Greg
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Thanks for your feedback. I'll keep it in mind as I plan future improvements.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:4, Funny)
I totally disagree with what you just said; further more I would like to add that you smell.
Well your father was a hamster!
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Funny)
Or 'Hilarious Lizzie', as she is known in these parts.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks Dr Phil!
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Funny)
Great! You recognised the film and you know the next line! You want a fucking medal for that? A fucking parrot can do that.
Well... this parrot is no more!
Where's my fucking medal
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Ironic Title, That.) (Score:5, Insightful)
It's redundant because just quoting movie lines at one another is pointless and stupid. You know how normal people tend to regard geeks as losers? It's because a hell of a lot of us do lame shit like this. It's an embarrassment.
Humor would be greatly stifled if the only jokes that were permitted to be considered funny are those that a majority of the public would like. Humor is personal, and if two people find a joke funny (and it hurts no one else), then who are you to say that those two people should stop laughing?
If the masses don't like that, then screw 'em. What kind of pathetic, inhibited loser stifles their own laughter for fear of not being "cool" enough?
(That said, marking Monty Python jokes Redundant is a valid reaction. You are allowed to boo other people's jokes after all. I'm just saying that fear of that shouldn't stop you from making them in the first place.)
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Ironic Title, That.) (Score:4, Insightful)
He is not defining a whitelist of humor wherein only certain jokes are permitted. He is attempting to describe a single item from what should be a universal comedic blacklist.
Then you missed mine completely. Any attempt to make such a blacklist is just elitist arrogance.
It's not humor. It's not a joke. It's pathetic attention whoring borne of an insecure ego, and your getting so defensive at it getting the derision it deserves leads me to believe you're part of the problem.
If that person finds it funny and someone else does too (as seen by the Funny mods), then it's humor whether you like it or not. It's not your place to be the high holy watchguard of humor who tells the little people what is funny or not.
(And "if you defend it, you must be just as bad" is a 3rd grader's argument. What's next, "I am rubber, you are glue?")
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Ironic Title, That.) (Score:4, Funny)
All opinions are not equal...
Bullshit. By the definition of opinion, all opinions are, in fact, equal. They are subjective, and no one opinion can be said to be better than another.
That's just the worthless sort of opinion I'd expect from a guy who doesn't agree with me.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, all high and mighty on your high horse, aren't you eh? Quoting python not good enough for you? Oooh look at me, I'm xkcd, I can turn a bloody brilliant line into a sick joke.
You think you're soooo superior, don't you, with your stick figures prancing about with your fake humanity and your fake romance. And all those pasty inexperience chubby little geeks just eat it right up don't they? They think the sun rises and sets right our of your arse, don't they?
Well let me tell you something. Those pythons worked their fingers to the bone to make a home in this unforgiving world for absurdist satire. They gave up their lives, their families, their careers in science so that you can have a nice laugh in front of the telly.
And this is what you do. You git. You stupid, bloody, heartless git.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:4, Funny)
Look, smell is not the issue here. Please stay on-topic. You need to get a haircut.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Insightful)
When you realize you're in a pointless and prolonged exchange with a time waster, bully, etc., get off the ride. "Thanks for your feedback. I'll keep it in mind as I plan future improvements."
Just because you stop participating doesn't magically cause the troll to lose interest.
If you can give them a non-public outlet to share their critiques, that's great, but generally you pretty much have to ban or otherwise silence the persistent ones.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't mean that everyone else will ignore the troll. You, the site administrator, can decide not to respond. However, if you have X number of users, it only takes a very small fraction of X to keep that troll going, and depending on what kind of forum you have, allowing the troll to persist could be interpreted as apathy or acceptance of what they are doing. So yes, if they are there just to cause trouble then banning them is not unreasonable at all.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:4, Interesting)
The main reason to ignore the troll isn't about getting them to go away, but more about clogging up the forum and getting troll posts or topics to stay at the top.
A forum I frequent had one of those posters that would invariably attract a lot of negative attention. I'm not so sure that it was intentional trolling, but when he'd post there would typically be seven or eight posts criticizing previous topics and a number of posts criticizing the criticism.
Had people ignored the post, there was in fact a built in feature which would automatically do so, there would just be 1 post. But because people weren't ignoring it there would now be in excess of 10 posts dealing with it. Needless to say that sort of thing really adds up quickly in terms of noise.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:4, Funny)
Wouldn't it be cool if there were some technology out there that allowed people to post to all types of hierarchical 'forums', and to control what posts they see, and even rank them by what they like to read? That would kick ass! They could call it "network news" or something.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Interesting)
In my experience banning the troll only agitates it.
I was thinking, why not give them their own little sandbox, where only users marked as 'troll' could see posts by other trolls?
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Funny)
I was thinking, why not give them their own little sandbox, where only users marked as 'troll' could see posts by other trolls?
Isn't that essentially what CraigsList is now?
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Funny)
In my experience banning the troll only agitates it.
I was thinking, why not give them their own little sandbox, where only users marked as 'troll' could see posts by other trolls?
I Browse slashdot at -1 you insensitive clod
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Insightful)
I love you. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or even better, don't tell them that they're banned. Just let them keep posting, but they're the only ones who sees their posts.
You are a genius. That's the best idea I've ever heard for dealing with trolls.
Why has no one done this before?
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that will lead to.. well let's call it craziness, once they figure it out.
Other than slashdot, I think the best mod system is multi leveled.. for example...
Warned..... Shows up with their avatar.. A blight on your good name until removed
Moderated.. Also shows up, but all posts approved by administrator before posting (extra work)
Muted...... Can read but not post.. A time out if you will.. for several days
Banned..... Permanent Solution.
Of course with all these some warning is given.. and you should have a Terms of Service (forum rules) that back up what you think is and isn't appropriate behavior... with this system, you start at the top.. and work your way down until banning. If it's a place the poster wants to use, then it will rarely get past the warned or moderated stage... all but "Banned" are meant to be temporary.. just slight attitude adjusters.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:4, Interesting)
And how do you prevent the troll from getting a sockpuppet account to check whether other persons can see their posts?
A combination of fight club rules and ip-blocking - any account coming from the same IP address as the 'muted' account for X hours afterwards can see the muted posts and/or is also muted while they are on the same IP. You could end up trolling the troll so badly that he creates an entire thread of flames between sockpuppet accounts that no one else will even see.
Or maybe you could just make all responses to a muted post visible only to the muted poster and the response poster. That at least slows the spread of the flames.
You'll never get 100% - the guy could always walk into a starbucks and log into a brand new sock-puppet account as the first access to the forum. Whatever he does, the goal is to make the amount of work the troll has to do much higher than the amount of work the board moderator has to do. Some uber-trolls will eventually install Tor and defeat much of it, but that's a lot of work and in the end you've got one more Tor user which is a good thing by itself.
You need to meet more people.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:4, Interesting)
There is at least one mod for forums sites that lets you "silently ban" the troll. They can continue to visit the site, post and continue to reply to messages, but nobody except the troll / troll's subnet sees them.
Full of Win, IMHO
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:4, Interesting)
It's fucking weird and beyond me, a British friend, after driving me to the point of rage in a face-to-face conversation, abruptly apologized and explained that every time his family gets together for Christmas or Boxing Day or whatever, they have these artificial, screaming arguments with each other, over any topic they come up with, be it India's economic situation or France's space program. Sort of an advanced, free-for-all, last-man-standing-wins version of Python's Argument Clinic. And they fucking enjoy it. Then it hit me: I've never been able to transmit a concept to this guy without him disrupting with some irrelevant and confusing interjection.
Anyway, it sounds more like Being Hit In The Head Lessons to me. Or like you say, plain old Flinging Douchebaggery. Mind Games. Making Noise. Pushing Buttons.
Recently, something truly weird and abrasive happened. A friend who manages an upscale bistro with a cool bar, was there having beers with some more friends, when a common acquaintance showed up with bizarre company: A cigar smoking, up-and-coming American arms dealer. This young republican asshole had the nerve to declare that his government is beyond reproach, while every other government is corrupt.
Holy cow, now that's a Flamebait situation if I ever saw one. But the guy was not playing Mind Games, he was being serious. Needless to say, the whole thing turned into a prolonged, very nasty screaming match at point-blank range.
Later, my friends said I should have been there that night, to help verbally and logically kick the guy's ass, but I thought "why bother"? I wouldn't have changed his mind, already damaged goods, I don't need to pointlessly overload my nervous system and ruin a perfectly fine evening... again.
Be it cynical Mind Games or willful ignorance, cupping hands over ears while screaming "Mary had a little lamb", some people are simply beyond the reach of rational discourse, a lesson that cost me a lot of pain to understand.
Case in point, my mother "refuses to believe that she comes from a monkey". Ironically, she always brought the subject up, yet to her, I'm the Troll, she suffers because "I'm going to hell", and often attempted to guilt-trip me about it (it's all about her, you see). After learning to let go of that emotional muck, everything else seems like a milk run now.
Wow, that was a long rant, sorry.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Insightful)
One of my favourite sayings:
"Never mud wrestle with a pig. You get all dirty and the pig likes it."
We may be the ones being played (Score:5, Insightful)
Clicking through the forums, there appear to be a total of 31 posts in the entirety of the forums (unless registered can see more forums or some such).
It appears that the subject of the thread that is linked to in the story is an unstructured series of bug reports and technical commentary about cases not considered by the software, and suggestions for improvement. The instances where the alleged bully deviates from the topic at hand, the comments regard the forum software in use, and after the first response, the alleged bully withdraws his complaint to return to a discussion about the technical merits of the software.
As a scientist (but not an aviation engineer), the comments, questions, and responses between the allegedly bully and the software author appear to be about technical aspects of the software, and there appears to be a mutual understanding and agreement about issues that got fixed.
The discussion appears to be professional, with the occasional attempt at absurd humour thrown in.
Am I missing something here? Is this story an attempt to generate hits for an otherwise non-notable website for a niche app?
Re:We may be the ones being played (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, according to the roster, the majority of the new (pre-slashdot) non-posting users appear to be registered in a pattern consistent with automatic account generation using approximately 2.5 username formats, with no indications of the standard network effects that would show up if people registered and attracted their friends to this resource. I would guess that there are fewer than 10 accounts tied to humans in total (given profile content and posting history), and that BlackHawk0's "bullying" contributes the highest volume and quality of content in the forums other than the administrator.
Re:We may be the ones being played (Score:5, Insightful)
I would agree with what "Magic5Ball" has said. The major contributor to the discussion hasn't critised the website owner personally or used offensive words. The guy does seem to know what he is talking about even if he/she sounds a bit egotistical. I've known people like that before, and usually they don't know that they are being a bit abrasive. If it resorts to name calling then it is bullying.
Re:We may be the ones being played (Score:5, Interesting)
This is how the conversation petered out:
In any case, the warnings are a minor problem compared to the invalid airfoil data. I hope that you manage to get it all straight though. The software might be impossible to 'fine tune' properly (but I simply have no idea about it), but a lot of real-world data is available in various books and publications, so it hopefully shouldn't be a major issue.
Seriously, that's an Internet bully? Sorry, but you need to grow slightly thicker skin if you want to interact with people. I mean ANY people, not just on the net. Yes, he came across as a bit of a know-it-all, and pointed out some perceived flaws in something you've obviously spent a lot of time on and care about. It's always hard to hear one's work criticized, but try not to take it personally. The guy seriously didn't strike me as the type that's going out of his way to offend you. Try not to take it in this light.
Honestly, I think it's a bit of an insult to him to describe him as a bully. Over-bearing, maybe, but certainly not a bully.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're the moderator, just shadowban their account.
They can post, but nobody sees their posts except for the bully.
Eventually they leave, since they think that everyone is ignoring them.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In the past I've dealt with trolls by doing a mod on the forum code. Once tagged as "troll", all threads just seem to end with their comment. Nothing more is shown in the thread following their rant except for their further rants when they look. Everyone else sees the normal thread. Just one strategy that helped out a few times.
It's your forum. Delete his crap and move on. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Insightful)
So, essentially, what you say is that, if I want to fuck with someone, I just need to register their nick on your forum and let the troll inside of me get creative, and you do all the work for me?
What forum do you run again? A service like this could come handy some time.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And that's why /. has the moderation system.
Allowing moderation from other users may help the problem.
Re:Why not just say ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you run the forum, the best solution is to ban him, and ban him with every new account he makes.
Re:Why not just say ... (Score:5, Insightful)
A friend of mine came up with a much more clever solution to recurrent trolls. Simply create a user profile that hides his posts from everyone but the troll himself. This way, he keeps ranting away, confident that he's being heard, until he gets disillusioned by the lack of interest and leaves of his own volition.
Genius, if you ask me.
Re:Why not just say ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It still is frustrating for the troll. He's trying to get attention and suddenly no attention is granted. Is he being ignored? Is he already on the "troll list" again? He registers another account and writes again. And again, no response. He never knows whether he truely is ignored or whether he is on the "troll list".
When you ban him, he gets feedback. He was banned. He knows he got your attention and you did something. When you "silently" ban him, you deny him this kind of feedback.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Where's TWITTER (Score:3, Funny)
I wonder what TWITTER'S feelings are about this matter. He's strangely quiet about it, the little psychopath.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How about that beehive, kick it, them bees wont get ya.
All in all, I think it is fun to toy with the anger mongers...fun for me, AND I get to let off my own steam ;)
Re:Why not just say ... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why not just say ... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, let everyone from his IP address see his posts. Else trolls with half a clue will "verify" with a second account whether they're being heard.
Relax (Score:5, Insightful)
Your best bet is to just relax. Remember, when you argue with an idiot on the internet, two idiots are arguing.
John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/ [penny-arcade.com]
Yes, some people are mean on the internet, that's what IP-bans are for. No, you can't talk them into being nice, you slap an IP-ban on them, delete their posts, and forget about them.
Re:John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (Score:4, Informative)
Most cable and DSL providers will assign you a different IP if you merely change the MAC address of your router (a 10 second procedure from your browser). You don't even need to use proxies; IP bans are useless and trivial to avoid, unless you're willing to ban an entire ISP (and I've gotten Shaw banned completely from quite a few IRC channels in my day).
Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Winning an argument on the Internet is really hard, because people can trump you with their dickhead status or their real status. If you're trying to form a logical argument, they can make something that sounds cool and is easier to register, and people will accept it. Sometimes they just claim the argument is over, after they make a (flawed) point, leaving you unable to counter their blatant insulting of your intelligence (which usually paints you as wrong even if you're arguing over whether or not 2+2 = 7).
It's stupid.
Re:Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Winning an argument on the Internet is really hard, because people can trump you with their dickhead status or their real status.
Or as Wikipedia has shown, by their persistence.
Re:Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Winning an argument on the Internet is really hard...
Nope, winning an argument on the Internet is easy. Convincing your opponent that you've won is often impossible.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Winning an argument on the Internet is really hard...
Nope, winning an argument on the Internet is easy. Convincing your opponent that you've won is often impossible.
And that's not unique to the Internet either.
Re:Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
This is in no way restricted to the internet. It's called Rhetoric, and some people are very, very good at it.
A well practiced Rhetorician can hold firm to their position and outright win any debate no matter what that position is. It's a spectacle as breathtaking as it is devastating. You cannot win, not with your training and experience, i.e. which is probably next to none.
The first mistake is to be calm and reasonable. You have lost at this point. They will berate, accuse and generally inflame the entire discussion until you lose your composure in some small way, at which point they will accuse you of flying off the handle or being unreasonable/oppressive.
The second mistake is expecting them to be logical about things. It's not about logic. It's about sounding like you're in the right. They will spout utter flasehoods and stand firmly by them as long as there is a morsel of plausibility or deniablity. Simultaneously they will select minor problems with your opinion and declare them to be gaping holes or fundamental errors. You're wasting your time trying to point out their lies/errors, as they will easily counterpoint with another one or else move onto a completely new fantasy. All of this puts you on the back foot.
The third mistake and worst mistake is thinking that the purpose of your debate is for one to persuade or win over the other. Never going to happen. You're not going to listen to this polemicist, and they most certainly have no interest in winning over you. The purpose of the debate is to win over the crowd/audience. To win over the undecided, unsure and uneducated.
By engaging fruitlessly in such a debate, by being on the receiving end of one explosive reply after another, you are feeding the crowds doubt about your opinion. Each illogical and emotional reply to you seems ridiculous, but the crowd listens because they generally have no way of telling truths from falsehoods. They see two talking heads, and one of them is fiery indeed, and using language and appealing to emotions they easily understand. What are you going to respond with? Facts!? You're wasting your time, unless your position is a rock hard science, and even then, you could be up against a creationists/crank.
The only way to win, is not to play. Do not feed these trolls. Simply saying "You're arguments are flawed/irrational, and I won't grace them with a response", is vastly more effective than fueling their tirades. The longer you fail to do so, the more impossible it will be to exit the debate without having "lost" (the crowd).
If you absolutely must engage with such a debater, and I counsel strongly against it, then you might benefit from studying logical fallacies [wikipedia.org], which your opponent is employing in spades. Being able to point out not only his errors, but what type of error it actually is, is a very powerful countermeasure. Just don't rely on it. These guys can be extremely competent, and the best ones have studied most of those already.
You are not trained in Rhetoric, and they are. I repeat, the only way to win, is not to play. Give them no oxygen, because they'll just burn brighter.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is in no way restricted to the internet. It's called Rhetoric, and some people are very, very good at it.
A well practiced Rhetorician can hold firm to their position and outright win any debate no matter what that position is. It's a spectacle as breathtaking as it is devastating. You cannot win, not with your training and experience, i.e. which is probably next to none.
It works in any situation. The promise that "we just don't have it yet but we will soon!" is a major rhetoric (bullshit) point. Two examples come to mind.
Stem cell research (political shit): adult stem cell treatments are stable, simple, and easy; they don't get rejected by your body and tend to involve just triggering a simple cellular reaction from bone marrow stem cells (see chemotherapy, which uses this to rebuild your bone marrow; but they work for muscle and nerve tissue too, among other things).
bully? (Score:5, Funny)
Killfile (Score:3, Informative)
Killfile him. Ban him. Ban his IP. There's many options available for that. Use them.
Deal with it judiciously, but carefully (Score:4, Insightful)
TREX them (Score:5, Insightful)
What you do is you take their comments, and edit them, to make them say exactly the opposite of what they are saying. So, if they say
Rob Sucks!
You can edit it to say
Rob did a great job.
Or something like that. It's really frustrating for trolls to find that their comments become benign.
Or, just ignore them. That works too!
Finally, what some people do is a little tricky. You ban their IPs, so that nobody *but them* can see their post. They think they are posting some vicious flames, and it shows up when they view the site, but nobody else (not even you, if you want) see it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
thats quite clever, may I suggest that it's too obvious however. The awesome version would be to slowly reduce the % of users that can see his posts to 0 thereby making him think that no one likes him. Nothing more crushing to the troll than attention starvation.
Hide his comments (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd try to set up the forum so he is the only one who can see his posts so he thinks his messages are getting through and everybody else is ignoring him.
I believe the following covers it: (Score:5, Funny)
...nicely [mothership.co.nz](~50KB jpg).
I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.
--George Bernard Shaw
ban'em (Score:5, Insightful)
Quit whining (Score:5, Insightful)
That thread is really tame. You have an incredibly tiny forum with very few threads, and the first critical comments in a short 12-post thread send you running to Slashdot for help? Wow. Go over and read some forums with a lot more posts and grow a thicker skin. Seriously.
Re:Quit whining (Score:5, Informative)
No kidding! I actually RTFA for a rare change, and the "bully" in that thread actually seemed like he wanted to help improve the product.
The "criticism" included hateful words along the lines of "you might want to lower the warning threshold for propeller speed because plastic propellers often can't tolerate those forces". Again, bullying? No! That's called a bug report.
If you're reading this, creyes123, you might really want to consider laying off the caffeine. Not everyone is out to get you.
Crap. Did I just bully?
Slashdot's the bully! (Score:3, Insightful)
While reading through the thread, I came across a note from the hosting provider indicating that he'd exceeded his CPU quota. I guess that's Slashdot bullying people now!
To be fair (and playing the obligatory devil's advocate), the accused bully may very well have been a troll. Remember, not all trolls are alike. Some can use fairly detailed information during their games. Perhaps one clue lies in the post wherein he attacks the use of phpBB--completely unrelated to the original discussion. "carlos" replies
Re:Quit whining (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Believe it or not, I RTFA'd for once. The "bully" seems pretty confused and uses some slightly abrasive turns of phrase, but he seems genuinely interested in helping improve the tool. He doesn't constantly "change the subject and bad mouths a different 'flaw.'"... he seems to stay right on target with his list of 8 things he perceives as problems. Also, some of those things really WERE flaws, like the RPM warning bug you described. Lastly, he hasn't posted in a week... he probably thinks YOU'RE the bully be
Suggestions (Score:5, Informative)
You're the one in charge (Score:3, Insightful)
It's like a usenet flame-war, or a telemarketer. If you continue to respond, it only encourages them to continue the exchange.
Give them one polite response, maybe two if you're feeling generous. After that, ignore their posts. Deny them the satisfaction of harassing you. If their posts continue or worsen, expel them from the forum. It's your site, and you set and enforce the acceptable use policy for your forum. If you don't have an AUP posted for your site (I can't tell; you just slashdotted your own site!) then the first step is obvious.
Modified 3 strikes (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with a 3 strikes rule, is that it does not differentiate between 3 strikes in 2 days and 3 strikes in 50 years.
Take a guess as to how often you can allow someone to lose it. I would guess once a year is probably a place to start. So, we might then say that assigning a "half-life" to the incident of 6 months would be fair. Any time an incident happens, we start keeping track of this exponentially decaying strike. If we had 1 strike at day 0, one at 6 months, and one at 1 year; the first strike has decayed to 1/4 and the second to 1/2. So the "score" at the time of the third strike is 1.75. Another strike at 1.5 years would see the total: 0.125+0.25+0.5+1. At this rate, it would take a long time to attain a score of 3. If this works with your group, keep it. If people are getting out of line too much, obviously the half life is too short.
Old saying here on Slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
Where's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
He's more coherent than 90% of the clients I've ever dealt with, and was willing to admit where he was wrong in some points. From my outlook, this man is a model poster and what you should really be encouraging in your community rather than freezing like a deer in headlights. Communities absolutely thrive on the [conceived] ability to alter the outcome of the product that has brought them together. Machiavelli wrote a book on just this type of thing.
If you need him to temper down his comments, simply remind him that you're a small shop and appreciate his patience as much as his input. Tell him that you don't check the board as often as you check your emails, and you would appreciate it if he were to continue this thread via email with you -- like telling someone to bypass your secretary with a direct line, it can be very flattering.
It's YOUR site - nuke him. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's your site, not his. If he feels moved to flame your work he can go start his own site and do it there.
Delete him, delete his posts, and if he comes back delete him again. He'll give up fast enough.
Geeks! (Score:3, Insightful)
Geek and troll duke it out over some damn model airplane calculator.
Upset geek generates Slashdot story, asking about how to handle this.
Good grief.
disemvowel him. (Score:3, Insightful)
Earth to sysop (Score:5, Informative)
It's your site, where you are god. Delete the junk and ban the fucker! How hard is it ?
I know we're supposed to be non-confrontational and all that bullshit, but if someone barged into your home, started harassing you to the point of frustration, would you ask your shrink how to peacefully deal with it, or would you shove the bastard out the door and release the hounds ? /thread
I RTFMB (Message Board), and don't see a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
While the 'complainer' wasn't the most diplomatic person in the world, it looked to me like he could possibly have been raising some valid points. The submitter certainly engaged in back-and-forth, mostly civil academic debate. I certainly saw no bullying. If the submitter's time was wasted, he encouraged it.
To come and whine to Slashdot about 'bullying' is pretty ludicrous, or just obvious traffic-whoring.
XKCD guy is that you? (Score:3, Funny)
Just let him be... keep arguing and soon you will be like this guy
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/llog/duty_calls.png [upenn.edu]
Profit? (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Start a website
2. Post a tool that a small number of the general populous would give 2 shits about
3. Find an asinine excuse to post it on Slashdot
4. Get web traffic
5. Profit?
Doesn't look like bullying to me (Score:4, Insightful)
I dont know anything about airplane design (model or real) but I read the whole thread and it looks to me to be a discussion between two experts with differing opinions on a highly technical subject.
Personally, I think this is a case of "Precious Programmer" - a programmer who has got their back up when their "labour of love" gets some fairly serious, detailed crititism. I am a programmer and I understand the feeling when something you've poured your soul into gets criticised by someone who DOES know what they are talking about, and they've gone through the software with a fine-tooth comb (which is a good trait for a beta-tester hint hint).
Mind you, there's fault on both sides - the guy doing the criticism, while his views/concerns on the calculations might be valid, should understand that the intended audience for this software is the beginner/noobie model aircraft person, not the aspiring airline designer (who, I would hope, would NOT be using an online model aircraft calculator to design their planes!), so I would think some safe assumptions in the coding of this software are valid, and he should understand that (particulary if he IS a programmer like he says)
Keep the discussion to email (since 1% of your forum's users would probably understand what the hell you are both going on about!), agree to disagree, grow a thick skin, offer to use him as a beta tester(!) and continue with what you are doing if you believe in it. It looks like a good idea on the surface...
To the Editors (Timmmay) (Score:5, Insightful)
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, editor!!! You actually let this guy use a cheesy, "Please help me with a bully," plea to drive traffic to his site?
What the hell?
Note: I'm not posting anonymous, mod me the fuck down.
He's no troll, you are! (Score:5, Insightful)
Jeez, I just read your exchange. I can summarize it like this:
Him: "Hey, your software is cool, here's some detailed info on what I think is broken."
You: "Oh, wow, thanks! Okay, let me look at this...okay, I think you're right about this, but wrong about this. Did you click the metric button or something?"
Him: "Thanks for the response. Yeah, I clicked the metric button, which is why you're seeing metric units. Well, I kinda think I'm right about the second thing. Here's why...man, these screen shots were hard to attach and format commentary for, while I'm still writing this, I'd like to add that you should consider using some other software for this forum."
You: "Metric confuses me [ed: who knows why you made a 'Metric' button if Metric confuses you]. Please RTFM. Also, I ignore a bunch of stuff right now but I think it's unimportant."
Him: "Awesome, thanks. By the way, I found this other weird stuff. And I do think this stuff is important, because saying its accurate could actually hurt or kill people. Just sayin'."
You: "Okay. And wow, I didn't look at that other thing. Here's how I fixed it. Thanks! Also RTFM."
Him: "Cool. But I think your fix is wrong because of this disastrous situation that could put a kid's eye..."
You: "You're wrong. **EDIT** Oh, you're right! I'll make that more clear. **TO SLASHDOT** OMG TEH TROLLZz!!11!!"
I mean, the guy wrote a total of five posts (which puzzling make up over 12% of the total posts on your "recently popular" forums), and they all used a lot of "I" messages, none were inflammatory, and they all had a lot of detail about what's wrong with your app (I mean, the guy posted screenshots of your app detailing what he thought was wrong...it's pretty clear that he spent a *long* time writing up what he wrote up).
That he followed up in the same thread with new problems, well, maybe you could say, "let's start a new thread for that new problem." For the most part, the "new problems," were very related to your responses, though.
I think that you need to start taking criticism and suggestions more openly, especially if you're going to operate a forum about your website. And please, please, don't think that I'm a jerk for telling you all of this. I really mean it in the best way. Internet software is cool, and I'm glad to see you writing something fun, so keep on writing the good write, and keep on foruming.
And don't dismiss guys that criticize your software, especially if they use screenshots to do so :).
Re:Elimination (Score:5, Funny)
Redirect his browser to an illegal porn site (with an IP-specific refresh tag), then call the FBI. BAM!
Re:Elimination (Score:5, Funny)
Create a "Trollcage" (Score:4, Interesting)
Instead use some scripting to make his posts invisible to everybody, but himself (only someone visiting from his IP gets to see his posts/comments). He will think he is successfully posting his trolls, but nobody else sees them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No mod points for me, so I just wanted to say: this is a great idea.
This shouldn't be the only thing in your bag of tricks, but it should be your very first attempt. Hold off on trying anything until after (if) the bully is clever enough to figure it out.
If your forum software doesn't support this natively (I think most don't) and you cannot implement it yourself, any competent PHP developer should be able to implement it for you for just an hour of billable time.
Re:Create a "Trollcage" (Score:4, Informative)
So, you basically add him to everyone's ignore list. That is a rather neat solution.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm looking into writing a filter that will update the IP addresses in the troublemakers list based on the username. So, no matter where the idiots login, they'll get routed to the second site. So far, he's
Nothing is perfect (Score:3, Informative)
However, dicks stand out in a crowd, and it's obvious when a repeat offender comes back. Simply rinse and repeat. Few clicks, done.
Re:down (Score:5, Funny)
Hence troll problem fixed!
A bit of a weird way to go about it, but each to their own...
Re:Forum Rules (Score:4, Funny)
So.... how long did it take before you banned yourself?
Re:Is he right ? (Score:5, Funny)
Judging from his first few comments, he's not really right -- he's taking a tool designed for planes using electric motors, trying to make it work for planes using internal combustion engines, then complaining that it won't work, and thus sucks. He also admits that he didn't read the tutorials, expecting them to be worthless. It's like answering an ad for a used car, driving it into the water, then complaining that it was a really crappy boat.