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Shady Debaters; what can we do about it?

Quagmire

Imaginary talking monkey
Staff member
Premium Member
OK, for the sake of the people who for whatever reason completely misinterpreted the intention of this thread:

1. I'm not talking about creating more rules. If that's what I had in mind, I'd be talking to the staff, not asking you what you guys think.

2. Nobodies talking about punishing anybody for being stupid, or misinformed, or unpopular, or deranged. None of those things are rule violations. The people I'm concerned about are the people who are intentionally spreading misinformation, or propaganda, as part of some personal campaign or mission for the sake of promoting or degrading any religion, group of people, or thought system.


The reason this isn't already being dealt with by staff is because determining someone's intentions and motives isn't the same as determining whether or not someone's post is a rule violation.

Trying to figure out why someone's here or why they're doing what they're doing takes a lot more time and a lot more consideration than trying to determine if someone's actually breaking the rules outright.

Put it this way: if someone starts a thread saying "Christianity was created by Constantine, Rasputin, and Dan Brown at the Council of Nicaea in 458 AD for the sake of persecuting minorities and people with speech impediments!" obviously this person is either:

A. Misinformed
B. An idiot
C. A troll.

Now, we can't ban anybody for being either A or B. We can ban someone for being C, a troll, but how are we supposed to determine that that's what they are?

Lets face it: it's not easy to tell the difference between a misinformed person, an idiot, and a troll (not to say that any of these categories are mutually exclusive).

So, before any more people come in here crying "We don't want anymore rules!!" or "We'll leave if you start branding people!!!" or "Whatever!!!!", one more time:

This thread is not to inform you of any changes that we, the staff, are considering making.

This thread is to see if any of you, the members, have any ideas.
 
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Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I think the best way to realize whether someone is misinformed, an idiot, or a troll is to just wait it out. If, a year's worth of posting later, they're still the same, then it's not just a misinformation issue- they're either an idiot or a troll.

Determining between an idiot and a troll is harder. Someone who's purposely spreading misinformation, one would think, would only keep it up for so long before they'd finally decide to get a life and do something more productive. So an idiot can be recognized, usually, by their staying power.
 

Quagmire

Imaginary talking monkey
Staff member
Premium Member
I think the best way to realize whether someone is misinformed, an idiot, or a troll is to just wait it out. If, a year's worth of posting later, they're still the same, then it's not just a misinformation issue- they're either an idiot or a troll. Determining between an idiot and a troll is harder. Someone who's purposely spreading misinformation, one would think, would only keep it up for so long before they'd finally decide to get a life and do something more productive. So an idiot can be recognized, usually, by their staying power.

I have to disagree on this one: I've seen people hang out in here spewing the same consistently dis-proven crap for years. Granted, some of them are mentally unbalanced, or just unintelligent, but a lot of them aren't. Even when they are (like I said, these categories aren't mutually exclusive) after a while you can get an idea about what their agenda is.

Going back to the example in my last post: "Christianity was created by Constantine, Rasputin, and Dan Brown at the Council of Nicaea in 458 AD for the sake of persecuting minorities and people with speech impediments!"

If people have taken the time repeatedly to show this person that their information is faulty, that they're premise is unfounded or founded on misinformation, but they're still creating posts and OPs like this a year later, obviously this person couldn't care less whether what they're saying is true or not, all they know or care about is the fact that what they're saying puts a religion that they have a grudge against in a bad light. Period.

Since, true or not, it'll always serve that purpose, they'll keep using it no matter how many times it gets shot down.

That's trolling.
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I have to disagree on this one: I've seen people hang out in here spewing the same consistently dis-proven crap for years. Granted, some of them are mentally unbalanced, or just unintelligent, but a lot of them aren't. Even when they are (like I said, these categories aren't mutually exclusive) after a while you can get an idea about what their agenda is.

Going back to the example in my last post: "Christianity was created by Constantine, Rasputin, and Dan Brown at the Council of Nicaea in 458 AD for the sake of persecuting minorities and people with speech impediments!"

If people have taken the time repeatedly to show this person that their information is faulty, that they're premise is unfounded or founded on misinformation, but they're still creating posts and OPs like this a year later, obviously this person couldn't care less whether what they're saying is true or not, all they know or care about is the fact that what they're saying puts a religion that they have a grudge against in a bad light. Period.

Since, true or not, it'll always serve that purpose, they'll keep using it no matter how many times it gets shot down.

That's trolling.
How many trolls do you think RF has? Enough to be a problem?
 

Songbird

She rules her life like a bird in flight
Every troll is a problem.

Then troll spray may be the solution.

ats57347_258Troll_spray.jpg
 

Badran

Veteran Member
Premium Member
May be we should note small things that can help us distinguish between idiots and trolls. Things that while are not exclusive to either type, are rather more common in one side than the other. I noticed for example that trolls tend to like to bring either unreliable or dishonest sources to supposedly back up their claims very often. Idiots, not necessarily. They tend to spew their nonsense in their own words more often.

Things like this won't make us certain, but the more of them are met in a poster, the more likely he is to be a troll. We could focus on finding similarities between trolls.
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Every troll is a problem.
Well, problematic enough to develop and implement a solution that could potentially have drawbacks?

It seems a lot of people in the thread don't view it as a realistically fixable problem. There have been some suggestions, but they're known to be imperfect, like being able to vote down posts with popularity (which is problematic for a view that is held by a minority and yet correct or rational).

I put forth the idea of fixing the frubal system, to show which members are respected. The flaws in that are:
a) Who really looks at reputation points?
b) How could we fix it retroactively?
c) It's biased towards long-term members, which could include long-term trolls.

We could implement a "Like!" option where people quickly vote with a thumbs up on a particular post, and maybe even a thumb's down, but that would probably be problematic. Plus, I'm not sure how customizable VBulletin really is, never having worked with it myself.

There's the option of having a "select" forum for respected members only, but that doesn't address the issue of newcomers looking for information.

I mean basically, before doing anything that has pros and cons, the scale of the problem would have to be roughly quantified, right?
 

Quagmire

Imaginary talking monkey
Staff member
Premium Member
Well, problematic enough to develop and implement a solution that could potentially have drawbacks?

Lets actually come up with some solutions. Then we can discuss any potential drawbacks.

It seems a lot of people in the thread don't view it as a realistically fixable problem.

Great, then they don't have to come up with any solutions. No one's required to.

There have been some suggestions, but they're known to be imperfect, like being able to vote down posts with popularity (which is problematic for a view that is held by a minority and yet correct or rational).

We're not talking about doing anything that might stifle any views, unless we're talking about a view like "all religious people suck and deserve to be harassed".

I put forth the idea of fixing the frubal system, to show which members are respected. The flaws in that are:
a) Who really looks at reputation points?
b) How could we fix it retroactively?
c) It's biased towards long-term members, which could include long-term trolls.

Whether or not we're ever going to be able to do anything to fix the frubal system is iffy at this point.

We could implement a "Like!" option where people quickly vote with a thumbs up on a particular post, and maybe even a thumb's down, but that would probably be problematic. Plus, I'm not sure how customizable VBulletin really is, never having worked with it myself.

Most ideas involving any technical adjustments are going to be impractical for now.

There's the option of having a "select" forum for respected members only, but that doesn't address the issue of newcomers looking for information.

Actually, I think it would: I proposed the idea of having something along the lines of a Scholars DIR a while ago. Someplace where our most knowledgeable and well informed members could get together and discuss certain topics or answer questions without having to wade through a lot of....the usual background noise. :D

Everybody else could use that DIR as a reference desk.

I mean basically, before doing anything that has pros and cons, the scale of the problem would have to be roughly quantified, right?

Which is another reason for this thread.
 

Songbird

She rules her life like a bird in flight
Well lets not do any of those things then. Gee, that was a hard one.

I'm just letting you know I've been trying to come up with ideas. Figured it was better to post something so you know I'm involved, rather than let you wonder if anyone cared.

Ouch.
 

Quagmire

Imaginary talking monkey
Staff member
Premium Member
I'm just letting you know I've been trying to come up with ideas. Figured it was better to post something so you know I'm involved, rather than let you wonder if anyone cared.

Ouch.

:sorry1:
 

Rakhel

Well-Known Member
Please not the like/dislike. That has so many negative consequences, it isn't funny.
 
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