I think the problem with that sort of interface is that it only stops the wrong people. The soul-searchers, the worriers, will pause. But they are generally not the trolls.

The troublesome commenters are the ones who don't believe that they could possibly be trolling. Any accusation that they are doing such a thing is simply a mask for the moderator's fear of their rightness and righteousness, or perhaps mere jealousy of their brilliance. This kind of a warning is just another piece of the vast conspiracy to hide their dangerous opinions.

So what you need is something that flashes that warning and starts an internal timer, hidden to the reader. If s/he clicks No, really, post this too quickly, flag it for moderation before displaying.

Posted February 2, 2008 1:06 PM by abi

Time spent composing might also be a good sign. When I have something a bit tendentious to say, I agonize over every word and preview the results three or four times. (And then, post-posting, I find that somebody else already said it better). I don't think trolls craft their remarks quite so carefully, somehow.

Posted February 2, 2008 1:11 PM by TexAnne

Shouldn't the flag go up when the post includes "let me get this straight"?

Posted February 2, 2008 1:14 PM by Serge

TexAnne @2:

It's hard to determine time spent composing programmatically.

Also, after one too many browser crashes, I have tended to compose my most careful posts in a text editor, then cut and paste it into the window and hit the button.

This is, if anything, faster than the typical "fire and forget" flame warrior.

Posted February 2, 2008 1:16 PM by abi

Serge, the linked Flamer Bingo thread has examples of flaggable text by the dozens and hundreds.

Posted February 2, 2008 1:17 PM by Xopher

abi, 4: Dang. Another perfectly good idea shot down by reality.

Posted February 2, 2008 1:19 PM by TexAnne

TexAnne @6:

I'm a tester. Edge cases generated while you wait. Awkwardness a specialty.

Posted February 2, 2008 1:21 PM by abi

Xopher @ 5... Oops. I didn't notice that was a link. I blame my body's decaffeinated state.

Posted February 2, 2008 1:29 PM by Serge

abi (#4): I have been finding that I have to hit reload at pandagon (and sometimes in typepress blogs, like majikthise I have to fill in a catchpa) when I take too long to write a response. They have a timer which kicks in as soon as the page loads (really annoying when the typepress blogs do it, as I have to sign in before I can comment; so what point the veification?).

So I read my way to the bottom, write my comment, fill out the cathpa, and then be told it didn't take and maybe I took too long.

Which seems to be counter to the idea we are talking about.

I know that pandagon has live view of the comment (very handy when one is using html in comments), perhaps the timer could be linked to when that starts to get used.

TexAnne: I vary. Lots of my posts, where the topic is tender, have lots of time. Things, however, which really piss me off (there was one in a torture thread awhile back) tend to get ripped out in a white hot heat of cold anger.

They may take awhile to craft, but there isn't much which I am going over to see how it's going to play/be recieved, because at that point, I usually don't care about the feelings of the other person.

No, that's not true. I just don't care much if those feelings get hurt.

Posted February 2, 2008 1:29 PM by Terry Karney

We're still talking apples and oranges here. A timeline:

(Start to comment) --1-> (Hit Preview) --2-> (Get warning*) --3-> (Hit Post)

* proposed

Terry and TexAnne were both thinking about gap 1; a long delay there could be interesting for many reasons. But it can be problematic to measure, and may vary for reasons not involved with hotheadedness.

Gap 2 is when the computer checks the content against its filters. The user can't control this. Neener.

Gap 3 is what interests me. When a commenter is told that his/her post may be trolling, does it make them stop and think? Or are they so sure of their own rightness that they click through automatically?

The requirement to preview one's post here already works that way to a certain extent, but only to the already mindful.

Note that too little think-time in step 3 shouldn't mean a ban or an auto-delete. It would just be a useful way to prioritize the moderator's workload.

Posted February 2, 2008 1:44 PM by abi

Aaaaand Abi falls into the his/her vs their trap*.

* Yes, I could correct it; I have the power. But that would be cheating.

Posted February 2, 2008 1:49 PM by abi

Hmmm. Users have different writing speeds and degrees of distractability.

Posted February 2, 2008 1:50 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Ah... Pronoun trouble.

Now it makes more sense. You're positing a pebcak error.

I confess to being not prone to enough re-reading of my comments at preview. I don't know that being told I was at risk of trolling as a result should change that. I am certain that it won't for trolls.

I am, after all, not thinking; mostly, of content (though to be honest, it's rewriting a clumsy passage, not catching typos and grammos which I use the preview to correct, so perhaps I'm wrong in thinking about how I use it) because I said what I wanted to (though often not as well as I might like).

Posted February 2, 2008 1:51 PM by Terry Karney

Digression from a digression: "grammo"! I love that!

Posted February 2, 2008 1:54 PM by TexAnne

abi: You don't like their as the indefinite second person?

I find myself of mixed mind on it, and had to go back and reread the post to spot it.

Posted February 2, 2008 1:57 PM by Terry Karney

Terry @13:
You're positing a pebcak error.

My mother, who used to do all of our car work, called that sort of thing a fault in "the nut that holds the steering wheel."

Posted February 2, 2008 1:58 PM by abi

I'd add "these people"/"those people" to the flagged list as well. They're a pretty good indicator that the person speaking or writing is getting ready to paint some group or other with a very broad and not particularly discriminating brush.

The assumption behind the phrase, so far as I can tell, is that the persons in question are not in the (virtual) room to take offense, and therefore may be spoken of freely; but the internet being what it is, one never knows who may be lurking, or for that matter who among the non-lurkers might have connections, however begrudged, to the group in question.

Posted February 2, 2008 1:59 PM by Debra Doyle

One way that ML already has a are-you-sure-you-want-to-say-this is that we can't write our post and immediately submit it. The preview step may be annoying at times, but it has probably saved me some embarassment on many occasions. (Yes, there are the other occasions.)

Posted February 2, 2008 1:59 PM by Serge

Terry @15:
I am ambivalent on the issue.

On the one hand, it rings my bells as a marker of less careful prose. I'm a grammatical snob at heart, after all, and there are Standards To Maintain.

On the other hand, it is a neat way out of a grammatical mess, now that the masculine gender no longer subsumes the feminine (and hooray for that).

On the gripping hand, even Jane Austen used it, so it can't be all bad.

I am torn.

Posted February 2, 2008 2:06 PM by abi

Abi, I'm convinced it's a pointless standard. "Their" works fine, at least in the uncontroversial cases like that one. It's when you're talking about a specific individual of undisclosed gender things start getting hairy...

As for whether checking the delay between warning and posting, I think you're right this would make a useful metric in many cases, as long as the trolls were generally unaware of how the system worked. Otherwise, it would only catch genuinely angry people. There are also obvious cases where trolls would get through anyway (e.g. when they are browsing multiple sites at once and switching between windows instead of waiting for refreshes). But it would be generally useful, I think.

Posted February 2, 2008 2:18 PM by Jules

Serge #3: Let me get this straight, you're proposing an automatic filter on how many phrases?

Posted February 2, 2008 2:19 PM by Fragano Ledgister

(Responding to myself)

Although, I'm not sure the pause that a reasonable person will take on seeing such a warning is large enough to be measured effectively across the Internet, as page load/resubmit times will probably vary more.

You could time on the client site, but this would be inherently untrustable (i.e., a determined troll could easily subvert it). I'm not sure if this is a fatal flaw or not.

Posted February 2, 2008 2:24 PM by Jules

I work in a call center (inbound!), and you people puts me on guard like nothing else. It isn't a universal indicator, but it's definitely a warning sign.

Posted February 2, 2008 2:27 PM by Sundre

abi: Ah yes, as in "the cause of most road accidents is the nut behind the steering wheel." Heard that from my mom too, I suspect some comedian of the day had come up with it.

Posted February 2, 2008 2:29 PM by Clifton Royston

I was thinking a client-side timer, but a basic one that simply sends two timestamps back to the server. One is the system clock time that the warning was posted to the user's browser; the other is the system clock time when the user clicked the Post button.

The server can test the returned clock times against itself, for when it sent the preview and warning and for when it received the confirmation to post. That's a minor reasonableness test that checks against the crudest of hacks. Sophisticated hackers of such a system should consider simply being less predictable.

The outcome of the test would be simply to flag the comment as of potential interest to a human moderator*. Mind you, a comment that gets the warning should probably get reviewed at some point anyway, even if the user thinks long and hard before posting it. Too many of them are the sign of an edgy thread.

</handwavey attempt at interaction design on a Saturday evening>

-----
* Or, possibly, to put it in a pending queue rather than post it

Posted February 2, 2008 2:35 PM by abi

abi: I'm less torn (though I undertand the mixed feelings). I am a bit of (despite the painful errors which come of almost all my internet work being first draft) of a grammar snob too, and it's not a perfect solution, but I think it quite workable.

I think, actually, what I want (re grammar) to see is clarity, elegance and; whenever possible, brilliantly spare prose. It's why I like Latin (though I am far from fluent and have to do more deciphering than I like; and why the Latin translation of WCW thrilled me so, but I digress).

But their works. It doesn't interrupt the flow of language, doesn't confuse the reader (and the moreso, it doesn't interrupt the flow of speech).

I think that last is important. I think I moved it from speech to writing.

That Austen used it is nice, but only insofar as it helps to stifle those who rail against it as a modern degradation of the language.

I am certainly one willing to man barricades against what I think is ugly language, but the newness of it isn't what I dislike, it's the ugly.

Posted February 2, 2008 2:40 PM by Terry Karney

It has been a while since I've used desktop based email, but I think that Thunderbird does something like that for your outgoing email. It rates emails with a series of peppers based on perceived incendiary content. (again, I think this happens, but it has been a long while, and even then I was using it as an intermediary to transfer files from one email account to another. This took 2 days, so I didn't really get much use of it even then.)

Posted February 2, 2008 2:45 PM by Michael Phillips

ITSM that we've got 2 different processes that could be implemented, both useful, and neither redundant nor contradictory, so why not use both? We can aid the posters in moderating themselves*, and we can aid the moderators in spotting problematic posts quickly, before they fuel the fire.

1. Require Preview before Post, as ML does, run a rough, fast filter over the text submitted for preview, and put up a warning if the filter gets a sufficient score. Confirmed flamers will automatically ignore this warning anyway, but people who aren't flamers by temperament but who are in the grip of passion or have had their peeves prodded might take heed and lower the scovilles.

2. On Post, record the time since the last Preview was hit (and subtract for multiple Preview hits, since this indicates some care on the part of poster). Then run the final post through a filter based on learning techniques**, assign it a total score, and bin it based on score. The bins might be

    Low score - immediate post.

    Medium score - auto delay for some period to allow the poster and recipients to cool down.

    High score - hold for moderation, highlighting  wording that contributed to the score.

    Super high score - auto diemvowel and post.

Of course, keep logs of scores that exceed the initial threshold, and keep statistics so the moderator can assess how well the system is working. The moderator could choose to keep a total score (or an average per post) to decide when to eject flamers.

* Is that better, abi?
** On the moderator side, whatever we do should make the job easier, not add tasks without making others easier. We still really don't know how moderation scales with the size of a community, and the more we assist in the scaling, the longer it will be before we find out the hard way. So having a filter that learns, based on moderator feedback about how specific posts were binned, would be a Good Thing®. The Bingo Card is a good start, but we all know how common phrases change over time and use.

Posted February 2, 2008 2:46 PM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

If you're going to have "ad hominem", you need "ad hominum" for people who can't spell.

Posted February 2, 2008 2:47 PM by Karen Kay

Fragano @ 21...

I’m just saying what everyone really thinks.

Posted February 2, 2008 2:48 PM by Serge

Bruce C STM @28:
The two problems I see are:

1. Holding some comments and posting others messes with the flow of the conversation. For an example of how these things already occur, look at this comment. This would make that kind of lack of synchronization worse. Internet conversations already require some pretty sophisticated caching in the wetware; this would add materially to the effect.


2. I am uncomfortable about the auto-disemvoweling option. Human judgement is still the best option for reading and judging social nuance and determining appropriate punishments. I'm loathe to replace that. (And I am a notorious softie, and want to see disemvoweling used sparingly and with care when possible.)

(And the grammar is better. Easier on the eye.)

Posted February 2, 2008 3:04 PM by abi

Howzabout a point-based system, where you accumulate points over time based on how many trollish tropes? The more points you get, the closer your posts' text color gets to the background color.

Posted February 2, 2008 3:05 PM by Avram

Terry @26:
why the Latin translation of WCW thrilled me so

WCW?

Posted February 2, 2008 3:07 PM by abi

Avram @32:

Only if it were on an "average points per comment" basis, because even the nicest of us sometimes use phrases like "so-called". So eventually we'd all just fade away into the background...

Posted February 2, 2008 3:09 PM by abi

Serge #30: So you are!

Posted February 2, 2008 3:15 PM by Fragano Ledgister

I wish boingboing had a functional preview. The one they have now is crappy I think. As far as trolls go I like the solution we have at Sadly,No! where we relentlessly ridicule trolls. That and a good greasemonkey script are about all you need.

I don't like heavily moderated sites on the far left like Pandagon. I feel they are far too repressive, but rightwing sites are still worse. They simply ban you the moment they decide you're liberal.

The best moderation, in my opinion, is where you have a self moderating community. That should not be under estimated.

Posted February 2, 2008 3:19 PM by Brenda von Ahsen

Fragano @ 35... You're putting words in my mouth.

Posted February 2, 2008 3:21 PM by Serge

One problem with a point-based system is what if the poster disagrees with the moderator's rating of this or that trope. And what if we're spoofing those tropes?

Posted February 2, 2008 3:24 PM by Serge

William Carlos Williams, abi.

Posted February 2, 2008 3:24 PM by TexAnne

I'm a big advocate of 'their'. It's a gender-neutral pronoun that feels like part of the language, and I don't find it uglier than a lot of English. I am married to a staunch anti-verbing advocate, though.

The gaming company White Wolf used to alternate genders in their examples, which doesn't work well when there's only one singular entity of indefinite gender. Of course, some people say that singular entity is really David Bow, but I digress.

Digressing further, I believe it was Teresa who lamented that we've regressed from Usenet-era threading technology. To me, better threading and thread tagging ('knitting', 'puns', 'troll pinata with low quality-candy') would probably help a lot.

Web browsers are really not a great tool for discussions, but they seem to be the tool we're stuck with. I wonder how long until someone reimplements Usenet in Flash, if they haven't already...

Posted February 2, 2008 3:25 PM by Fungi From Yuggoth

I don't know that there's a filter that would catch all trolls (btw, was that Mrk Yrk the other day, or was I just seeing things?). I think that the best filter is the one that exists now, forcing a pause between preview and post, which gives a chance both for revision and for reflection.

It is true that there are some phrases -- and the 'Flamer Bingo' thread brought up a lot of them -- that are indicative of a troll, but they aren't sure and certain signs.

Posted February 2, 2008 3:32 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Serge #37: You liberals all operate from the same script anyway.

Posted February 2, 2008 3:34 PM by Fragano Ledgister

abi: WCW = William Carlos Williams.

I concurr, that auto-disemvowelling is a bad idea.

I, for one, am not fond of automated corrections for content. Moderation is hard, because it's a task which requires human action. Look at the e-mails, and the like, which gets spamboxed because of poor filtering, which catches words which have internal sections which match other words (I forget which, much longer word had sperm in it, and so triggered the locking up of something).

Flagging, for attention is a good idea. I know that Majikthise sends copies of all comments to the author of the post, and I've used that to catch comment spam. I've also used it to damp the flames of an incipient conflagration.

I don't think the flaming could have been caught with a filter. It wasn't large enough to trigger any system reasonable enough to all for a really free flow of ideas.

The trick (in general) seems to be paying attention to signs, hints of trouble, and then seeing to it (by careful warnings, or parallel comments) that the heat is converted to light.

Lots of that, of course, is requisate on the idea that posters are part of a community. The drawback... a sense of community can be a hurdle for the quiet posters to jump to get into the action.

I was thinking about it this morning. I know that I felt invisble, or perhaps not quite one of the crowd, for a long time after I probably was such a member.

Being the sort of crank I am, I didn't worry about it, but for someone who isn't as carefree in commenting as I am, well that probably hinders joining.

On the upside, if the group makes them welcome (or at least doesn't discourage them) then they will post, and they will come to feel they are members.

They might start with the feeling they are second class; or not quite part of the inner circle; which will seem to exist which has both a moderate number of people, and any history.

As I digress into a different, ableit related, topic altogether; healthy groups don't support trolls.

Posted February 2, 2008 3:37 PM by Terry Karney

Fragano @41:
The poster the other day was probably not Mrk Yrk - he tends to stay around snarling and whining, not come in yapping once and then vanish in the distance.

Posted February 2, 2008 3:38 PM by abi

I agree with Fungi & Teresa that we need to resurrect the better threading technology, with kill lists and even a bit of moderator intervention. LiveJournal has a good threading system, even if their 18+ warning system is idiotic.

That said, automatic "flame filters" make for a nice fantasy... but that's all they are, because you can't automate judgement. What you can do, is leverage the judgement of the "people you trust", however you choose to define that. Flagging messages for the moderator can help, if the moderator is working in real-time.

As far as moderation's scalability, I still say that moderation is ultimately an issue of leadership, with the same basic strengths (making the group mind work for you) and liabilities (failure from the top, insurrection, provocateurs).

Posted February 2, 2008 3:47 PM by David Harmon

abi/Fragano: No, I don't think it was York, if I'm thinking of the same person. One, he/she had other posts, in other threads.

Maybe it's me (and an inflated sense of how well I deal with such things) but I took him at face value, until I decided he wasn't actually engaging in the same conversation I was, told him I wasn't going to deal with those bits, and then game up on the game as pointless.

We, as a group, can be quick to pull the trigger on calling someone a troll. When we do, we can be heartless, which isn't to our credit when it's just someone who doesn't know our norms.

On the plus side; trolls don't last long. I don't know how to weigh the worry that some non-trollish people might be driven off.

I know that there are non-trolls who push my buttons (because I've had severe disagreements with people who have stuck around, and turned out to just have different visions of some things, but weren't trolls), and I worry that those who push our, collective, buttons get swamped, and so decide to hang out elsewhere.

Posted February 2, 2008 3:49 PM by Terry Karney

Fragano @ 41... the best filter is the one that exists now, forcing a pause between preview and post

... and, if necessary, why not add a third button that says "Yes, I mean it" and then your post goes up?

Posted February 2, 2008 3:51 PM by Serge

Unrelated, but related - Squee!! My friend/acquaintance Kirsten is at the same FOO event as TNH. I haven't exchanged emails with her in years! I had an old email address for her, and now I've got her blog and current email. Hurrah!!

Ok, not I'll go back to reading this thread, thinking about how to identify trolls, and being more conscientious with my grammar usage.

I will say that the preview feature prevents me from posting, prevents in a good way.

Posted February 2, 2008 3:58 PM by Tania

Terry @46:

Not the same person, I think.

This charmer was the one Fragano was referring to. I disemvoweled him with a clean heart. Maybe he was not serious in what he said, but he certainly wasn't contributing to the conversation, and could have sparked off some unpleasant reactions.

In other words, he wanted the discussion to be all about him.

Troll.

Posted February 2, 2008 4:05 PM by abi

Tania @ 48... being more conscientious with my grammar usage

Is our children learning?

Posted February 2, 2008 4:06 PM by Serge

Too many short replies to post separately. (And, speaking of posting delays, while I was writing this several of my comments were posted by other people, shortening this post significantly. That reminds me of a lesson learned in Quaker business meetings: if you actually get people to listen to each other, sometimes they notice when they're being redundant and stop. And then, sometimes they don't.)

Abi@31: There are ways of dealing with the lack of synchronization if it gets too confusing; Fungi@40 already mentioned threads. Of course, threading is problematic for posts like this one, and I sometimes find heavily nested threading difficult to format readably.

Fungi@40: "I wonder how long until someone reimplements Usenet in Flash, if they haven't already..."

How would that be different from the various Usenet interfaces that already exist?

TexAnne@14: "grammo"

When I worked in speech recognition we used to refer to transcription errors as "speakos". It's one of those neologisms that, in context at least, tell you exactly what they mean even if you've never heard them before.

Abi@7: "I'm a tester. Edge cases generated while you wait. Awkwardness a specialty."

My one successful bit of career advice was to a friend who complained that every piece of software she used seemed to crash in new and obscure ways. I was able to suggest a job where this was considered a talent.

Posted February 2, 2008 4:08 PM by David Wald

#46 Terry Karney

"We, as a group, can be quick to pull the trigger on calling someone a troll. When we do, we can be heartless, which isn't to our credit when it's just someone who doesn't know our norms."

Online groups develop cliques just like in real life. That has pluses and minuses just like anything else. Groups can have taboo subjects and those who enforce adherence to the social norms. Again, some of that is needed and some counter productive. I don't think there is a solution much better than personal judgment.

A mandatory preview before you post helps a lot. Mods should not identify too closely with the ingroup. The user should also feel like they have some amount of control.

Posted February 2, 2008 4:21 PM by Brenda von Ahsen

David Wald @51:
There are ways of dealing with the lack of synchronization if it gets too confusing; Fungi@40 already mentioned threads.

That works fine until two comments are posted on the same thread in different orders because one was held for moderation. The fact that commenter A's post was written before - and without sight of - commenter B's, but shows after it, can be a mess.

One requirement of any system is that it defaults to showing comments. Newbies that aren't yet on anyone's watchlist need a chance to make themselves at home.

I was able to suggest a job where this was considered a talent.

My colleagues and I joke about "the Abi field" (het Abiveld - I work in Amsterdam). I can break even the solidest code in ways that make the developers swear. It often happens when I'm not even trying.

It's a gift, mostly because no one would pay to be the possessor of this level of bad luck. They do pay me just fine to wield it on their behalf. It's rather like some kind of cursed sword.

Posted February 2, 2008 4:21 PM by abi

abi #44: You're probably right. BTW, what is the rule on the capitalisation of your name?

Posted February 2, 2008 4:30 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Abi @ 53... Mind you, the Abi Field is not to be confused with the Abi Poesy Field.

Posted February 2, 2008 4:30 PM by Serge

Serge #47: That's an interesting idea. How would it best be implemented?

Posted February 2, 2008 4:31 PM by Fragano Ledgister

abi #53: 'Gift' in the Dutch meaning of that word?

Posted February 2, 2008 4:34 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Fragano @54:
BTW, what is the rule on the capitalisation of your name?

Calvinball rules. Just don't call me late for dinner.

Seriously ... when I first posted on Making Light, the autocomplete filled the user name in with the capitalization that my husband put on our Movable Type blog login. Being temporarily distracted by the actual content of my comment*, I neither changed the capitilization nor replaced it with my usual net ID (evilrooster).

I've not seen any reason to worry about it since.

-----
* Not that it was much to shout about.

Posted February 2, 2008 4:36 PM by abi

Fragano @57:
'Gift' in the Dutch meaning of that word?

I see...I didn't know about that. I just mentioned that I hadn't known the word had two meanings in Dutch and the Hub's face was a picture.

(I see that [*] over there. "gift", or "gif" means "poison" in Dutch. "gift" as "present" is an archaic usage at best.)

Posted February 2, 2008 4:42 PM by abi

abi: Oh. that. I blanked it out. Read the thing (because I'm silly that way) and then promptly forgot about it, as useless drivel.

I must say, one of the things I like about disemvowelment is the pain reduction. It's rare that someone aims that sort of invective at me (well, here, at least) but when it happens (even if I'm just in the pool of targets), I'm less hurt then I am when the barbs of immediate impact are able to take effect (I don't know about the rest of the flourosphere, but written words are transparent to me, the things they represent appear to me before I really parse out the words themselves... maybe that's why I like spare prose, and don't write it).

I think, actually, that's part of what angers those who are more prone to having it inflicted on them (and why those of us who aren't so prone are careful to avoid it. It tells us we were being hurtful, or rude, or in some other way unsocial).

They want to hurt people's feelings, and that is being taken away from them. In that regard, they are being censored.

Posted February 2, 2008 4:50 PM by Terry Karney

I just ran across one in a group I moderate on Flickr. From the first moment, I knew it was going to be trouble. Pretty much got the whole troll bingo in the first couple days. (We're slow to ban, and have a rep as being decent mods, and not mods on a rampage. I'm still pushing for disemvowelling).

The thing that threw me was how friendly he was after getting a thread closed, posts deleted, etc. And now, he's left, started a confusingly similar group (except for the 1/1000th the activity) and inviting everyone over.

People annoy me sometimes.

Posted February 2, 2008 4:54 PM by eric

I've noticed that people who build a significant portion of their social lives around blogs tend to be very sensitive people. Unfortunately, the same removed, partial anonomity that attracts them to socializing online also creates an atmosphere that enables the less sensitive to push their buttons. If you want polite conversation, meet people in real life. Otherwise, I think the only answer to the problem of trolling is to grow a thicker skin and just learn to ignore people. I'm being hypocritical by saying it (fair to use that against yourself, right?), as I've violated every element of the preceding on both sides, but I think it's true.

Finally, would the admonishment to avoid phrases like "those people" apply to the case where "those people" refers to Republicans? That might blow the servers.

I think the answer, at least for me, is probably more humility, not more sanctimony. To paraphrase Tolstoy: everybody wants to change the Internet, but nobody wants to change themselves.

Posted February 2, 2008 4:55 PM by Jonathan Birge

#3 Serge: 'Shouldn't the flag go up when the post includes "let me get this straight"?'

Ouch.

Posted February 2, 2008 5:00 PM by skzb

I find his/her is too clunky for speech and having a grammatical hold in spoken language gives "their" a leg up for written language. Then again, Baltimore English has a new gender neutral third person pronoun.

Posted February 2, 2008 5:00 PM by anaea

Which is mightier, the poison pen or the cursed sword?

On topic --
There are clinical diagnostic programs that are supposedly more accurate than human diagnosticians (can't give specifics, sorry), and while it's nice to imagine a kindly physician proffering a dx after due consideration, the computer model may actually be a healthier choice. But when it comes to recreational online discussion, too much automation in moderaton is probably counter-productive. I agree with those that said that judgment can't be automated, and that a healthy community helps police itself constructively.

It took me a long time to work up the gumption to start commenting, but I really like it here. People get worked up, but they stay civilized, and I think there's a positive feedback loop between (among?) participants and moderation methods.

Posted February 2, 2008 5:01 PM by Debbie

Randall Munroe (XKCD) is experimenting with an IRC automated moderator that targets lack of originality and uses that as a proxy for weeding out noise (and stupidity). IRC lends itself to this more readily but the principle might be usefully modified to provide such an interactive warning for comments or for feeding a "to be moderated" queue.

Posted February 2, 2008 5:05 PM by Joe Mansfield

abi 53: I was in QA for years. It got so software broke when I was just trying to use it. I found new bugs in Word just trying to write up my reports!

Posted February 2, 2008 5:09 PM by Xopher

skzb @ 63...

(Must... not... pun back!)

Posted February 2, 2008 5:10 PM by Serge

Jonathan Birge @62:

Your entire comment reads like a "you people" assertion (you people are oversensitive). I'm sure it's unintentional, but it's there. A couple of specific reactions:

I've noticed that people who build a significant portion of their social lives around blogs tend to be very sensitive people.

I'm not sure I agree with that statement. But then, I can't tell who "builds a significant portion of their social lives around blogs" - I don't know what even the most prolific posters here do with the rest of their time. For my part, I find that the people I meet online run the gamut from frail flowers to autodirected flamethrowers.

Maybe the more thick-skinned people I know virtually are actually very socially active in person as well. How would I know?

I do strongly disagree with your premise that "If you want polite conversation, [you should] meet people in real life." I think that you can have a fine polite conversation online, even about the most contentious of subjects. I've seen it many times here. It does require moderation, and it helps if the commenters are willing "to change themselves" - they have to see the people onscreen as real people, worth treating with respect and care.

(On rereading, it strikes me that that last comment sounds like I think you haven't done so. That's not the case; it's a generality.)

Posted February 2, 2008 5:15 PM by abi

Debbie @65:

I'm glad you've started commenting. I've enjoyed your contributions to the banter around the place.

Posted February 2, 2008 5:20 PM by abi

Xopher @67:

When I'm tired and stressed, het Abiveld gets out of control. Then I break operating systems, infrastructure, hardware, networks, building security systems, my own body, furniture, and colleagues. (I can think of at least one specific incident for each of the above categories.)

I can even break brokenness. I've had bugs that developers were proud to have found vanish as soon as I lean on their desks.

Posted February 2, 2008 5:24 PM by abi

abi @ 71

Would you by any chance be related to the physicist Wolfgang von Pauli? He was reputed to be able to destroy lab equipment simply by waiting to change trains in the railroad station of the town where the lab was sited.

Posted February 2, 2008 5:32 PM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

Abi @ 70... Does the Abi Field also work with mainframes? My group's system has some COBOL programs, all of which I wrote 13 years ago, and they never broke. Come to think of it, they're the only part of our system that never breaks.

Posted February 2, 2008 5:34 PM by Serge

abi #58: I just wondered. I shall probably be inconsistent.

#59: I thought you might be making a subtle pun. (I slipped the phrase 'least poisoned gift' past my Dutch dissertation advisor years back, when my Dutch was better than it is now, having just been to Surinam).

Posted February 2, 2008 5:34 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Fragano @74:

Just tried the gift pun on a Dutch friend.

It fell entirely flat.

Sigh.

Posted February 2, 2008 5:40 PM by abi

Hmm. Might be worthwhile to rig up a simple Bayesian filter to see if it could detect trolls. They work rather well for spam, after all.

Problem I have with comment threads (and Usenet, for that matter), is that I don't treat it like an Instant Messaging system, and an awful lot of folks do. I'll post something and, instead of sitting there hitting "refresh", go on and do something else for a while. By the time I get back, the thread has drifted or just run down.

Posted February 2, 2008 5:40 PM by lightning

Serge @73:
Does the Abi Field also work with mainframes?

Yes, though it takes more effort. But have twice crashed a mainframe. Once was even intentional.

The intentional crash included an error message that started, "NOW IS THE TIME FOR ALL GOOD MEN TO KNOW THAT USER:SUTHEAA HAS" followed by the set of kernel violations I managed to commit.

It was under very unusual circumstances. Not repeatable.

Posted February 2, 2008 5:47 PM by abi

Working hypothesis: discussion group trolls are after attention -- eyeballs, arguments, any sign that they're getting people irritated with them.

Corollary: if you ban them, they will go away and irritate some other poor chat room.

Conclusion: what is needed is not a simple ban, but a mechanism that deprives trolls of attention while not being obvious to them, so they keep whacking on the pinata, unaware that they're not annoying anybody.

I'd do this, hypothetically, on an IP-address basis. Give the human moderators a "ban" button for each poster. If they hit the "ban" button for a suspected troll called Fred, thereafter whenever the static HTML page for the discussion is updated (by a posting) Fred gets a page of his own, with his comments visible -- everybody else gets a different page, with Fred's effusions filtered out. Incoming connections from Fred's browser are then served Fred's ego-page in place of the ordinary discussion page.

The conversation seems to be going on, and Fred can post normally, but for some reason everybody is ignoring him. (Meanwhile, as far as everybody else is concerned, Fred has dropped off the map.)

Thoughts?

Posted February 2, 2008 5:47 PM by Charlie Stross

Abi @ 77...

"Gaze into the eye of the SUTHEAA and despair!"
(That sounds better if you think of Nicol Williamson speaking the words.)

Posted February 2, 2008 5:59 PM by Serge

Abi (69), it strikes me the same way. Also, the last time he was here he was posting as "Jonathan," and many of his messages lost some fraction of their vowels.

Posted February 2, 2008 6:03 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

abi:

"Your entire comment reads like a "you people" assertion (you people are oversensitive). I'm sure it's unintentional, but it's there."

Hi, abi. I see your point. I think much of it was. Some of that was sloppy use of words, but I think some of that was also in my intention, though I didn't make the connection to being a "you people" type post in the pejorative sense.

For one, I should've said "the most sensitive people I know tend towards online socializing." I think that's pretty defensible, even if it is a generalization masked by an observation.

About our major disagreement: I didn't mean to say you can't have a polite conversion online. This blog is a good example of that most of the time. Again, I was imprecise in my words. I should've said "If you never want to encounter rude people, your best bet is to avoid the internet."

I'm still unresolved about the "you people" type posts, however. It's unavoidable to generalize. The human brain is basically a generalization machine. We could never carry on a conversation composed entirely of specifics. I think whether or not a generalization is fair is a matter of degrees. I took Terese's comment about "you people" to mean avoiding divisive over-generalizations. I don't know how to define it well, but it's one of those things that fits the "you know it when you see it" paradigm, like the famous Justice Steward quote about pornography. When people say "The Left" or "The Right" (and I have) I think it's pointless and something that we'd do well to avoid. But saying something like "people who do X often like Y" seems reasonable (apart from the issue of veracity) unless you think the entire field of psychology is a waste. (But then that would be a valid "you people" statement, so either way I win:-)

By the way, did I just invent the parenthetical smiling comment? I doubt it.

Posted February 2, 2008 6:17 PM by Jonathan Birge

Teresa (80): Did I get retroactively disemvoweled in the discussion on guns? I only remember being disemvoweled a long time ago.

Anyway, maybe I misunderstood what you meant by "you people" comments? Did you mean generalizations of any sort? I'd be interested in your comments on my reply to abi.

Posted February 2, 2008 6:23 PM by Jonathan Birge

Charlie @78. A BB my husband moderates has a system something like that. When someone is being a pain, but they don't want to outright ban him, there's a setting they can turn on for his username which leads to him having a huge amount of trouble getting the page to load without errors, or it will load, but they're unable to post. They've had troublesome posters stuck in purgatory like that and eventually just go away. Oh, and its existence is a secret to non-mods, which makes it much more effective. And kind of evil. :)

Posted February 2, 2008 6:28 PM by kouredios

abi @70 -- thanks much!

Posted February 2, 2008 6:39 PM by Debbie

#81 ::: Jonathan Birge
For one, I should've said "the most sensitive people I know tend towards online socializing." I think that's pretty defensible, even if it is a generalization masked by an observation.

Sorry Jonathan, sweeping generalizations are not in fact defensible, even if you think they are.

--

abi is clearly worth her weight in gold. I'm crossing my fingers and so far my browser has not crashed by her presence here.

Posted February 2, 2008 6:40 PM by Brenda von Ahsen

I think the only answer to the problem of trolling is to grow a thicker skin and just learn to ignore people.

That is the authentic voice of a long-time troll and flamer. Beyond redemption.

Posted February 2, 2008 6:48 PM by James D. Macdonald

Jonathan @ 81: "If you never want to encounter rude people, your best bet is to avoid the Internet" is somewhere between incomplete and badly misleading. The accurate advice--which I personally would advise anyone against taking--is closer to "If you never want to encounter rude people, your best bet is to avoid human interaction." The reason I would advise against doing that is that most humans who avoid human interaction long-term either are already weird in less-than-helpful ways, or become so from the lack of human interaction. We are a social species.

Books can help, if you need to be that alone (for whatever reasons), because books let you at least hear from other people, even if they don't hear your responses.

The reason I would call the original assertion "badly misleading" is that it implies, if not actually stating, that avoiding the Internet significantly reduces your chances of running into rudeness. Selecting your locations, online and elsewhere, is more effective. There is no real-life equivalent of a killfile such that I would not have to deal with the next door neighbors who used to have loud fights with the windows open, nor yet with people whose idea of human interaction is to get on a train and claim, loudly, that civilization is doomed because it tolerates people like me. I can shut my browser down at any moment; on the subway, I may be stuck at least until the train finishes going under the East River.

Posted February 2, 2008 7:08 PM by Vicki

abi #75: Ah well, what can I say. Some people have a gift for it. Some don't.

Posted February 2, 2008 7:14 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Fragano @ 41: ... the best filter is the one that exists now, forcing a pause between preview and post

Serge @ 47: ... and, if necessary, why not add a third button that says "Yes, I mean it" and then your post goes up?

A while ago I asked if it was plausible that hitting the 'Post' button could be followed by 'Are you sure? (Y/N)'. My notion was this could prevent accidentally posting when you intended to hit preview; I've done it, and I've seen other people complain of doing it. I was told that re-designing the interface to support this would probably be a complicated big deal, with the possibility of breaking things.

It occurs to me, would it be a big deal to separate the 'Preview' and 'Post' buttons (say, move the 'Post' button down or over a substantial distance on the page) so that hitting it accidentally would be unlikely?

Posted February 2, 2008 7:19 PM by Rob Rusick

Jonathan @81:
There are many ways to be rude on the internet; some of them overlap with real life ways to be rude and some do not. "You people" comments happen to overlap with many of the more offensive in-person behaviors. They are, in short, telling your audience that they are part of a general class of person, then insulting that class of person.

"You liberals are a bunch of commies."
"You Americans are all warmongers."
"You bloggers are oversensitive."

This is different than a generality which excludes the addressee. That may be rude too, but it's rude in a different way. (The trick, of course, is that you don't know who the addressee is on the internet!)

Your comments seem edgy to me. I suspect you're dancing around a feeling, or a grudge, that you hold from your last appearance here. If this is the case, stop with the generalities and strawmen about psychology and just say what you're gonna say.

Or, alternatively, let go of the tension, stop trying to start an intensive argument about definitions (the dullest type of argument, really), and join the chat.

Broken any mainframes lately?

Posted February 2, 2008 7:53 PM by abi

A more general comment, if anyone is in any doubt:

It is the belief of the moderators of this blog that even the opinions of the thin-skinned are worth listening to. Frequently -- in my experience, at least -- they are actually more interesting than those of the excessively thick-skinned, who approach every conversation as a potential battle.

The result of this belief is that the community conducts its conversations in a way that allows the (relatively) thin-skinned the freedom to express themselves. This does not include encouraging them to toughen themselves up; rather, it includes encouraging the thicker-skinned not to make a virtue of that trait, or a necessity.

Posted February 2, 2008 7:59 PM by abi

The result of this belief is that the community conducts its conversations in a way that allows the (relatively) thin-skinned the freedom to express themselves. This does not include encouraging them to toughen themselves up; rather, it includes encouraging the thicker-skinned not to make a virtue of that trait, or a necessity.

This is just a lovely way of addressing a problem that's bothered me tremendously since I first used the internets. Thank you.

Posted February 2, 2008 8:02 PM by julia

Charlie@78: Trouble with IP-addresses is that many people have work and home ones, and I've seen trolls who know how to spoof them to get past bans. The idea of trying to help the general web ecology by getting them to hang around unlistened to somewhere is probably too ambitious - most of them will wander off if not interacted with. You could of course try to code up some kind of Eliza-bot, but it'd have to be pretty good to keep their attention for long.

Posted February 2, 2008 8:19 PM by Adrian Smith

I don't like heavily moderated sites on the far left like Pandagon.

Unless Pandagon has changed markedly in the months since I left, "heavily moderated" is not a phrase I would use to describe it. Hell, slanderous and threatening remarks aimed at co-bloggers weren't always enough to get someone banned.

I suppose I did tend toward a heavy hand with the bunny videos for a bit there.

More on topic, I'd think some sort of retroactive metric for "why is my last comment in moderation?" would be helpful, perhaps adding a record to the cms_user_wanker_permanentrecord table for future reference.

Posted February 2, 2008 8:23 PM by Chris Clarke

julia @92:

I can't take credit for anything but the precise wording. It's a distillation of, or a musing on, this post from Creek Running North.

Reading that was the tipping point for me, when I realised that the ones who cry "censorship" are often themselves the censors, drowning out and driving out people who don't like being argued with all the time. People who care what the others in the conversation have to say, and are open to being changed by it. People who are not trolls.

I know whom I would rather have a conversation with, too.

Posted February 2, 2008 8:24 PM by abi

Aaaand the man himself posts just above me. How cool is that?

Posted February 2, 2008 8:26 PM by abi

abi @ 95: well, Chris is a very rational and civilized fellow (don't tell him I said so)

Also I've spent many a downtime happily arguing with his trollbot.

Posted February 2, 2008 8:31 PM by julia

julia, you take that back.

Posted February 2, 2008 8:46 PM by Chris Clarke

neener.

Oh, hell, I'll save some time: nnr.

:p

Posted February 2, 2008 8:57 PM by julia

abi, #34: even the nicest of us sometimes use phrases like "so-called"

I don't!

*beat*

I use soi-disant. With italics if they're readily available; if not, I enclose it in asterisks. That's because I'm a snob about my trollery; when I descend to that level, I want there to be no doubt about it whatsoever.

And at #59: IIRC, "gift" also means poison in German. It can lead to some... interesting... misconceptions between native speakers of German and English!

Terry, #60: They want to hurt people's feelings, and that is being taken away from them.

That's key, I think. It's like stealing their candy, and they react at the same level of emotional maturity as an infant.

Jonathan, #62: No matter how many times I re-read your comment, I can't shake the feeling of, "Shorter Jonathan: You people are all too sensitive. You need to get out more."

OTOH, it also occurs to me that if you were attempting, for the sake of the discussion, to provide an example of flat-out trolling that would pass any moderator without difficulty, you've done an outstanding job.

And at #81: I should've said "If you never want to encounter rude people, your best bet is to avoid the internet."

Hooboy, am I going to take issue with that! I've encountered people in the grocery store who were as rude as... well, not as rude as the worst of online trolls, but definitely as rude as the garden-variety ones. Customer service people (such as clerks and stockers) see this all the time.

Posted February 2, 2008 9:05 PM by Lee

#94 ::: Chris Clarke
"Unless Pandagon has changed markedly in the months since I left, "heavily moderated" is not a phrase I would use to describe it. Hell, slanderous and threatening remarks aimed at co-bloggers weren't always enough to get someone banned."

My experience is my experience. Somewhat like ali I seem to have a talent for finding someone's Achilles heel and then grabbing it. I'm doing better though. I'm one of those who know what you are feeling before you do.

A long time ago I used to meet with some friends on IRC and I would at times wander off to another channel and watch bored sys admins pretend that they were lawyers and philosophers. "Oh, is that right? Well, let me. touch you. right. ::here::" And then they'd fall apart. This happened more than once. However I have decided to only use my powers for good.

;)

Posted February 2, 2008 9:06 PM by Brenda von Ahsen

Abi @ 90... Broken any mainframes lately?

Are you sure that the Abi Field isn't something like Magneto's? That'd be in keeping with your daughter being known as Electrogirl.

Posted February 2, 2008 9:13 PM by Serge

The rudest people I've ever met were in person. I think that's a function of the inernet being at a remove.

The most recent example was on my flight home from Germany last Dec. A young woman (about 22-25) had been sitting by the window, an aisle up, and across the aisle from me. It turns out it wasn't her seat.

She hadn't waited at all. I know because I was one of the first on the plane. She just looked about, as though for her seat, and sat.

30 minutes later (it was a long boarding, almost 45 minutes from when I sat, to when we were all aboard, and another 15 before we pushed back), the owner of the seat came aboard, looked at the seat, and got the attendant; who very politely informed the woman (and her companion) they were in the wrong seats.

As she gathered her things she left the row, into the aisle and said, with venomous force, "Bitch".

I was shocked.

I also couldn't help wondering if she was the one who stole my marzipan; since she didn't remove her things from the overhead until she got off the plane.

I was very tempted to tell her, as she was getting off the plane, just what I thougt of her, but I didn't.

Posted February 2, 2008 9:20 PM by Terry Karney

Teresa/Abi:

You people[1] might want to distinguish between two goals:

a. Someone who is intentionally trolling, or at least stirring up sh-t for fun.

b. Someone who is unintentionally pouring gasoline on smoldering embers.

I think filters to slow down/stop (a) will not be all that useful, because you're in an adversarial situation--the trolls have an incentive to learn how to get past the filters. It seems unlikely to take long for determined trolls to learn how to get past the filters, in the same way that you can insult someone to the point of justifiable homicide, without ever raising your voice or using any bad language.

There's some value in doing something like this to help (b). There, the gasoline-pourer[2] will benefit from getting a hint that maybe they should rethink their words.

One thing I've really appreciated about ML is that, over time, I've found myself being more polite in other online discussions. I was pretty experienced in online discussions before, and wasn't going around looking for flamewars, but being here has made me pay a lot more attention to the impact of my words, to the possibility of taking people who have p-ssed me off royally and finding common ground or agreement with them, even seeing them become part of my community.

[1] Sorry, I couldn't resist. After all, the silent lurkers all support me.

[2] Yes, I've been that guy.

Posted February 2, 2008 9:33 PM by albatross

Terry @ 103:

Oh, man, ride the train during rush hour some time (and I take one of the most civilized lines). People get on fuming after whatever psychic violence they've encountered, or think they've encountered, during the day, and they proceed to take it out on the people around them in the most provocative possible way, as if they're quite sure that everyone around them is terrifically impressed by how right they are and how much we're all just dying to join with them in beating up the oppressor.

The oppressor is generally someone who bumped into them while they were shoving their way into the car like a fullback.

A plague on all their houses, but particularly on the house of anyone who demands that I participate.

Posted February 2, 2008 9:45 PM by julia

Rereading abi's first comment, I think at least one of those people had thought about the distinction I was pointing out.

Posted February 2, 2008 9:52 PM by albatross

abi, et al:

Ok, enjoy the irony of this (c.f. the last line of Teresa's original post) but I think I should just bow out. I don't really know how this went so badly, as I was coming back because I enjoyed and appreciated the previous debate I got into, even if I didn't handle myself as well as I'd like. I really don't think I was trying to troll, though maybe you are right that I have latent issues from last time, abi.

This whole environment seems to put me in a very unhealthy mood and I get a bit obsessive and come across quite badly. I agree there was an edge to what I said, but I didn't mean it to be insulting, or noninclusive of myself. I was, after all, here and doing the exact same thing.

I think I'd get along with most or all of you in person, even James. I don't know what the hell goes wrong in this format, but it would be best for me to just avoid it.

I know people usually make posts like this as a manipulative tactic, but you'll have to take my word that I'm saying it because I felt a bit of attachment to some of the people here and didn't want to just go with my gut instinct of just deleting the link from my browser and acting like it wasn't real people on the other end of the wire. For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I'm really a better person than this in "real life."

Posted February 2, 2008 10:25 PM by Jonathan Birge

Jonathon@107: Dude, for what it's worth (I have no status here) I think most people would reckon you could adapt if you gave yourself a chance and lost the chip on the shoulder. I mean, "I've noticed that people who build a significant portion of their social lives around blogs tend to be very sensitive people" on a blog which is clearly quite important to a lot of the regulars...come *on*. Scattergun or what? Target selection is key. I myself have a tendency to troll, but I troll *one person at a time* - which isn't really trolling, unless they have friends. And not here. Well, maybe once.

Posted February 2, 2008 10:44 PM by Adrian Smith

Johnathan Birge: Wait, don't go.

Speaking for myself, yes, I think you were on the edge of a poor trope, one that can be used by trolls.

I don't think you were trolling. I don't recall the last time you were here (not my job... I just hang out here). So this is as a blank slate. I think you were trying to do what the rest of us are doing, i.e. trying to figure out how/why trolling can be ameliorated.

It may be the methods you advocate aren't the sort this crowd likes (I, for one, am not fond of the, "grimace and bear it" school of dealing with rude people, so that aspect of it isn't my idea of a good system, no matter that I have a thick skin, and few people can find the buttons which really hurt me; though pissing me off/frustrating can be done with moderate ease), but (so long as you are arguing in good faith) that doesn't mean you aren't welcome.

I don't know how to make you feel less put upon, but perhaps you might want to find a topic you don't have anything invested in, and try to join in that discussion.

Then, when you've got a better internal feel for the rules of the game here, you might try getting into things like this one, where you have some investment.

Posted February 2, 2008 10:49 PM by Terry Karney

julia: But that train is in NYC, yes? And we all know the people who live there are rude as a normal state of being.

:)

Seriously, I was ever amazed at the people who were rude when I was riding crowded busses, it made no sense to me.

Posted February 2, 2008 10:52 PM by Terry Karney

Terry @ 110:

@#%$%

Posted February 2, 2008 11:08 PM by julia

Terry @ 110: Wow, it's a municipality-wide application of the K.A.D.!

Posted February 2, 2008 11:11 PM by Chris Clarke

Chris Clarke: New York is special.

Seriously, again, I know all New Yorkers (in fact probably not most) aren't rude, but that's the stereotype, and there are a lot who cultivate it (oops, there I go, actually using a flavor of, "those people").

It's the only city I know which has what I can only describe as ex-pats.

Posted February 2, 2008 11:26 PM by Terry Karney

I've been spit on while having a seizure, in real life. I don't think the net can compare.

My response now to the "people should get thicker skinned" argument starts with "Why?" If someone's going to be required to make an accommodation, why not make it start on the other end?

Posted February 2, 2008 11:30 PM by Bruce Baugh

Eh. We're overcrowded and stressed and cranky.

We like that about us.

We're capable of great things if they're called for.

Terry and Chris, I'm surprised if you haven't met. I've been going back and forth with both of you for years.

I think you'll enjoy each other.

Posted February 2, 2008 11:57 PM by julia

This place is rubbing off on me. I just composed a simple, intellectual query in the service of Truth, and when I clicked Preview, the %$#! browser crashed. Firefox, no less!

As I attempted to say, just out of curiosity and with no intention of starting a flame war or worming company-confidential information out of the minds of our Gentle Moderators: Teresa, Abi, and anyone else who occasionally sits in, what percentage of ML comments do you touch as a moderator?

Posted February 2, 2008 11:58 PM by Brenda Kalt

Jonathan at 107: possibly my troll detector's settings are way off tonight, but I didn't think you were trolling; and unless our esteemed moderators Who Must Be Obeyed insist that you leave, I'd like to add my voice to Terry's -- stick around for a while. Have a cookie. I made 'em myself...

Posted February 3, 2008 12:09 AM by Lizzy L

It would be pretty easy to write that as a Perl module for MT Teresa . . .

Posted February 3, 2008 12:09 AM by lisa spangenberg

Lizzy L @ 117... our esteemed moderators Who Must Be Obeyed

Mrs.Rumpole is an ML moderator?

Posted February 3, 2008 12:22 AM by Serge

Chris, @112: I used to run into that all the time on Usenet. There were a few people in the groups where I hung out who were just total flaming assholes, and NO ONE EVER CALLED THEM ON IT. And when I pointed out once, in utter frustration, that if I said something half as nasty about men as a class that this particular one kept saying abo