Well, if Doctorow or the Nielsen Haydens—or, for that matter, anyone who gets lots of net.attention and lots of trolls—attained their net.fame through nefarious means, I want to know about it.

“but it’s mostly the same-old us v.them.”

As in, Facts vs. Just-So Abstract Fact-Free Opinionation? OK, I think I can tolerate different interpretations of the same facts, but when people ignore facts, or make up their own “facts”, or just start to sling feces, then any further discussions along these can only go downhill.

“…disparage or ridicule some group of outsiders…”

Oh no, God forbid that any group of bloggers there disparage any group of outsiders! (Unless they’re Islamic fundamentalists, in which case they must be disparaged and ridiculed at all times.)

“I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to identify which Crooked Timber bloggers set a troll-unfriendly tone…”

“If I sometimes drive folks around here to distraction, it’s not by breaching anyone’s standards of decorum.”

To summarize: Dan Simon’s saying that he’s a troll, and he’s not a troll. Please wait while I figure out that Zen koan.

Nonsense—I don’t recall ever insinuating that any of the CT authors are anti-Semitic. Quite honestly, I don’t believe any of you to be anti-Semitic, and therefore would never make any such insinuation.

Nor, as far as I know, have I ever been banned from CT for imputing anti-Semitism—or anything else—to the authors, as you claim. Your ban, for example, Henry, came after I called you out on a ludicrously inapt historical analogy, jokingly emphasizing my point by adding, “Well, like Henry, neo-Nazis also routinely cherry-pick their historical analogies…”. You apparently took that little bit of self-referentiality as an actual accusation of Nazi sympathies, and promptly banned me. Even Orin Kerr of the Volokh Conspiracy had trouble believing you didn’t get the joke, and said so.

John Quiggin banned me, so far as I can tell, because I persisted in vigorously defending Israel. Chris Bertram banned me because he didn’t like a comment I made about Guantanamo inmates flinging feces at their guards possibly constituting a breach of the Geneva conventions against torture. And I still don’t know why Daniel Davies banned me—so far as I know, he never gave an explanation.

The simple fact of the matter is that as Crooked Timber commenters go, I’m pretty well-behaved. If I sometimes drive folks around here to distraction, it’s not by breaching anyone’s standards of decorum. Perhaps it might be worthwhile to consider the reasons more deeply…

Roy—yeah, we agree on a lot, I think.

Abb1—Thanks for the trollish behavior. Seriously. That was a very interesting Nir Rosen piece. I trollishly introduced a reference to a different article by him in last Sunday’s NYT magazine, but it didn’t spark off any off-topic discussion.

Thank you, Henry, for proving my point.

Think about it: if you were a serious, well-intentioned commenter offering a novel hypothesis about the topic at hand, and I were the one tossing in a completely incoherent, off-point snark, then any self-professedly serious, well-intentioned member of this community would simply note my irrelevance, ignore me completely, and proceed with the discussion at hand. And if I were merely a troll, I’d get frustrated at being ignored, and stop commenting.

What compels so many folks here (including, apparently, you—even after banning me!) to respond to my comments with spewings of empty hostility is not any rudeness, stupidity or digression on my part, but rather that despite my heterodox opinions, I adhere to the lofty ideals of this community far better than most of the folks here do—too well, it seems, simply to be ignored.

So “provoking trolls” that want to rile people up are relatively rare? That’s what I thought: to be deemed a troll, all you need is to be regarded as stupid… and persistent. In some cases, the persistence may be the result of having been called stupid, of course.

The catalogues of troll subspecies are both too unwieldy and incomplete. It would be an amusing—if idle and daft—exercise to attach to all purveyors of not only abuse, but also rank ideology, bullshit and disinformation—especially from the mainstream media—a name from fantasy bestiaries or medieval encyclopaedias. Marxist revenants that refuse to lie down; libertarian monopods that only need markets to stand on; the cynocephali of Decency, tame towards their masters but ferocious when angered.

Since this thread appears to be a venue for indulging in self-justification, I’d characterize my online behaviour as that of an occasional orc or goblin, in recognition of these races’ role as archetypal cannon fodder in fantasy literature. You jam your antlered helmet on your noggin, jut your chin forward, walk a crooked-legged gait and growl. Everybody sees you coming from a mile away, thinks you’re an idiot. It’s OK.

A slapstick performance before an unwelcoming audience, basically.

It wasn’t foolproof by a long shot, but it was simple and worked pretty well.

(I expect someone to angrily point me to an assortment of greasemonkey implementations; thanks in advance, someone!)

Online communities are destroyed when the community that created them is dispersed and ceases to renew itself. This happens when the majority of the members no longer think contributing to or reading the group is a
worthwhile use of their time and potential new members think likewise, hence no new blood. The community dies from lack of interest and joins the ranks of the dead groups or cesspits (cf most of Usenet these days, though there are other reasons for that too).

How does this happen? I have seen it happen to several formerly excellent communities that I have been a member of and I think there are three primary ways:

i. Feud

The group is taken over by feuds between several members or several factions who fight. Content is driven out by fighting about the feud as all the posters either post about the feud, or turn any content thread into an iteration of the feud. Those who are not interested in the feud go elsewhere and so it’s only the feuders left. The feud then continues or the victorious party is left there, but with only the ruins to play in. No new people are interested in joining, seeing that the group is a flame fest. It doesn’t take very long for this to happen.

ii. Internal trolls

A certain troll (or group of trolls) on a group keeps posting stuff which is OT, personal attacks, political nonsense etc. Instead of ignoring the troll(s), the members post replies to the troll(s), feud with the troll, discuss the troll(s), poke the troll(s) etc. Even worse,
because the troll(s) is posting OT, other formerly good members decide it’s alright for them to post OT stuff too, which is then debated, discussed, flamed etc and thus the problem expands. On Usenet the trolls often cross post to spread the fight. Content is forced out and members leave or do not appear as in (i). Generally this happens with political trolls or cut ‘n’ paste commandos and they are the most dangerous for this. This situation also often leads to (iii), especially if the group has become a political flame fest and free for all.

iii Invasions

Once a group has been recognised as showing lack of self restraint by its members, out of the blue trolls will add it to their target list. They’ll crosspost and do all the other stuff that out of the blue trolls do in order to cause flame fests. The more members respond to them, the more encouraged they are. Out of the blue trolls will also simply appear on a group and try to cause mayhem. Once again, if the members respond, the trolls win. A combination of (ii) and (iii) are certain death. It is quite possible for a single dedicated troll with a couple of enablers to destroy an online community remarkably quickly.

The defining facet of a troll is that it is an energy creature. It gets energy through seeking and getting attention. There are several kinds of trolls though.

Obsessive trolls: they troll about their demons – they wish to tell the members of their group all about them.

Provoking trolls: These are the classic trolls, who are actually rarer than the other kinds. They try to provoke a response from the members of their group by saying ‘outrageous’ things. They often think they are witty.

Political trolls (also includes religious trolls, ideological trolls, nationaist trolls etc): come in obsessive and provoking varieties, plus cut ‘n’ paste commandos and crossposting trolls. Some are internal trolls, some just appear out of the blue.

Crossposting trolls (usenet): some use crossposting to cause a bigger fight on their own group (usually for political reasons or to aid their battle with someone they don’t like). The other kind appear out of the blue. They have no interest in any of the groups they post to, they just want to start a big cluster f*ck fight.

Cut ‘n’ paste commandos: are a subtype of political/ideological troll. These creatures post by posting whole articles on controversial topics lifted usually from the comment pages of right wing US publications and almost always completely irrelevant to the subject matter of the community. They attempt to stir up political controversy by this means and usually flood the group with such content. Their posts are usually crossposted over a number of communities, often chosen for their likely opposing viewpoints on a topic so any responses are likely to cause a big fight. Some of them seem to choose their targets ranmomly, or pick groups that are vulnerable to trolls due to lack of discipline among the members. For some reason they mostly seem to be American.

Out of the blue trolls: they appear on a group and attempt to cause mayhem, which they do until the populace gets wise to them and stops responding. Then they move on.

The way to deal with each kind of troll varies, and one needs to work out what kind it is first.

Sophia