August 1, 2005
bad troll day
Hey Robert, I can relate to how you feel.
That being said, I don’t subscribe to your “never delete comments” principle. If somebody comes onto my blog and doesn’t know how to behave, I delete his sorry ass. I just don’t care. And if he comes on anonymously, I care even less.
The sad fact is; a good, widely read blog is a magnet for no-life, passive-agressive schmucks [especially if said blog is written by a Microsoft employee]. And your passion, authority and success makes them feel bad about themselves. So they try to take it out on you.
Sure, you could argue that deleting comments dilutes one’s authority. Then again, taking abuse from a bunch of anonymous no-hopers dilutes plenty, too.
Arnold, you are entitled to your opinion. But your behavior begs the question, so what are you doing that’s particularly interesting? My first guess would be “Not Much”.
Keep up the good fight, Robert.
[NB:] You’ll need to read the comments of Robert’s post in order to get the full story.
Hugh
I wrote this in Joi Ito’s comment’s recently:
Anyone can pop onto a forum and post a grating comment. It is not really speech. It is simply static in a larger system. With all those fingers on those keyboards, some are not attached to real participants.
If someone were to post “Kill Mexicans” on my blog, I’d delete it. Not because I feel threatened, or offended, or consider it to be hate speech. I’d delete it because it is not speech, it is not a statement. It is a tittering troll that is delighted to see the words he just typed smeared all over the wall.
It’s not censorship. It’s not even editing. It’s weeding. Removing the troll droppings so that the trolls are discouraged and real commentary can grow.
In Joi Ito’s postings about Trolls, he linked back to your Happy Troll article, which I’ll link to here:
http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/001172.html
It is important for bloggers to remember that blogs are cheap and easy to obtain. A blogger is does not have to provide a forum for free speech. If someone really wants to make their little troll noises, they can go and get a blog and see if writing FIRST POST all day gets them any whuffie.
I’m of the “generally don’t delete comments” school. I manually authorise every comment as a last step in preventing comment spam, and I’ll basically let anything through. Where I try to differ is in not engaging the troll like Arnold, but I suppose I don’t attract quite the same level of troll as would a MSFT evangelist.
Hugh,
As a wise man (You) told me when I launched my Blog..
“Your Blog is like your living room. Don’t let anyone come in and crap in the middle of your living room.”
You wouldn’t let any customers, clients or prospects treat you like that in business life (or friends in personal life). Why would it be ok on your Blog?
Delete and Ban the IP without any remorse.
Damn straight, Howard
Amen.
ditto.
No trolls allowed in my living room or my blog.
As the Satanic Bible says, treat guests in your lair without mercy if they misbehave.
I got “don’t crap in my living room” I think from Jeff Jarvis…
Wise words on blogging from Hugh MacLeod
This post should be of interest to all bloggers, as should Robert Scoble’s post that started it (or, more accurately, Molly Holzschlag’s post).
Wise words. There the web has a goodly low-life population who can’t …
Never converse or argue with trolls, they need food to survive, starve them.
Sadly, I’m forced to agree with PXLated. I’ve tried, on occasion, to take Robert’s approach and try to get past the trollishness to bring the conversation back to the topic at hand but the truth is, people like Arnold aren’t actually interested in a frank exchange of ideas — only in hearing themselves pontificate.
Thanks as always Hugh for calling it like you see it.
Yeah, I wish I could learn that lesson.
I’m all for anything that increases the signal-to-noise ratio. There are already too many blogs and too many comments.
More thoughts on blogging …
I don’t what to turn this blog into a blog about blogging but after sleeping on it I want to come back to the post that Robert Scoble made yesterday regarding how bloggers feel when they get a negative reaction to their blog.
A big part o…
Any inappropriate comments on a forum I own are deleted, and if the person is a repeat offender, their IP is banned. I
I think we should attack the homes of trolls with rocket launchers, blow them up, and when the surviving trolls flee into the streets, mow them down with machine-guns.
I know these views aren’t popular… but I have never courted popularity.
A. R., what a fabulous idea! Troll hunt, first round, this Saturday. Bring your own missile launcher. Used ones available: apply Col. M. Gaddafi, The Dreadings, Tripoli, Libya.
actually, it ‘prompts’ the question, hugh.
/sorry. had to be a schmuck.