That's a gilly suit, you silly coot!
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My idea is that you're right that it's difficult to tell if a person's misinformed, an idiot, or a troll.This thread is to see if any of you, the members, have any ideas.
My idea is that you're right that it's difficult to tell if a person's misinformed, an idiot, or a troll.
Well, it comes down to Poe's law.Not impossible though.
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.
How many trolls do you think RF has? Enough to be a problem?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?
Well, problematic enough to develop and implement a solution that could potentially have drawbacks?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?
I'm with Penumbra.
Everything I've seen implemented in other forums has sucked.
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.