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If You Post on Ricochet, Do the Job Right
I put up an OP a couple of days ago, and it was so delightful that I didn’t want it to end. But of course, all good things must come to an end (so they say).
What made the post especially fun was that we had a controversial topic with people sharing honestly, forthrightly and fairly. There were a few dustups, but they were pretty mild, and the discussions of differences were genuine and tactful. In other words, it was just about a perfect post, IMHO.
I commented on the nature of the discussions, and one person commented that it went so well because the usual trolls hadn’t shown up. I don’t know who the current trolls are, quite honestly, but I think the commenter was at least partly correct. There could be a number of reasons for their not participating: (1) they don’t like me, (2) they don’t like my views, (3) they didn’t like the topic, (4) or you can fill in the blank. Then the light bulb came on. I wondered if the managing or moderating of my own posts makes a difference.
From the first time I posted on Ricochet, I tried to be courteous to people: after all, I was honored that they were commenting, and I still feel that way. Only rarely did I get caught up in a nasty argument, and I tried to make sure I apologized afterward. More than that, when people started to argue vehemently with each other, I stepped in. At first I would be polite. Then I gave them a piece of my mind: get off my post! Surprisingly, most people did. (You can always flag a post as a last resort.) It usually took a certain level of nastiness for me to intervene (usually the result of personal attacks), but people seemed to take me seriously. Sometimes people who were known for trolling on other posts were courteous on mine, even when they disagreed with me, and I always recognized them for being gracious.
So when we write posts, you might think our only job is to write an intriguing, beautiful, newsworthy, or funny post. And it should be well-written, too. And we should participate with comments.
But perhaps just as important as all of those responsibilities is managing our own posts.
Now I realize that task might bother some of you posters: you want to get in there and duke it out. Or you don’t want to get into the middle of a fist fight and take a right jab. Or you think you’ll make things worse because you’re not especially tactful. Or you might have trouble determining if the “discussion” has crossed the CoC line; sometimes it’s really hard to tell where that point is.
Those might all be true, but they aren’t responsible conclusions to draw.
So I’m appealing to all writers of posts to keep an eye on your posts. Step in in the comments with at least a cautionary tone if things start to go south. And tell people to leave when it gets seriously ugly. You don’t have to be ugly to do that.
For some of you, it might seem difficult. But some of you out there do a great job of managing your own posts when people behave badly—what do you say to stop it?
And I’d like to hear from moderators whether this whole idea of posters moderating their own posts is bogus: is it only the moderators’ job to moderate posts?
For you people who like to troll, stay off my posts. Please.
Published in General
I did say as a last resort!
Indeed. Unfortunately what seems like trolling to one person may be perfectly legitimate argument to another, what us mods have sometimes termed the problem of the True Believer.
A case in point would be this:
Suppose there is some position that is held by (for argument’s sake) 90% of Rico members. Just for fun, let’s make that position that Dogs are better than Cats. Now notice that the position says that dogs are better than cats, not that cats themselves are necessarily bad. Further, most people here don’t have much of an emotional or intellectual investment in the position. Sure, they may prefer dogs to cats, or cats to dogs, but as far as issues go, it’s just not that important, for the vast majority, there are no True Believers in here.
But… there will be those at the far fringes of those two positions who do actually believe that either cats or dogs really are bad, and that anyone who owns the “wrong” animal is themselves a bad person, and of that group there will be a vocal few for whom this issue is of very high importance. These are the True Believers, and they are highly motivated to write posts or make comments condemning the other side. They don’t necessarily come across all the time as “Trolls” to those somewhere on the spectrum of their own side, but they sure do to the opposite side, no matter where they are on the spectrum. They are very polarizing because their extreme and absolute position brooks no disagreement, and their posts and comments frequently demand one to hew to their binary outlook.
Are these extremists actually trolls? No, because they are sincere and consistent – they really believe what they say. But they are divisive, and can be quite rude, either overtly (by insulting others), or more subtly (by hewing to the strict letter of the Code of Conduct while routinely insinuating that others are morally defective, mentally handicapped, or traitors).
I’m just glad that one mod took that triggering Possumist picture off of her avatar. I was thisss to quitting my membership and returning to the more Raccoon-friendly HuffPo.
I can always bring it back you know! :<
:0