August 25, 2005
Managing Trolls In The Blogosphere
What to do with TROLLS? That is a question plaguing bloggers from day one, handling those people who do not contribute to the conversation, rather hurl invective, make ad hominem attacks, challenge rather than discuss and otherwise make a nuisance of themselves. Some bloggers, like LaShawn Barber have decided to cut out comments entirely, and she had plenty of justification for doing so. She was called so many vile names by trolls that any self respecting sailor would blush and disown the language that made the cliché famous.
In fact, for many political bloggers, of the left, the right, centrist, libertarian, etc., trolls are as bad as spam, and in some cases, much worse.
Trolls disrupt polite conversations, and sometimes rather impolite conversations between like minded people. In fact, some of the reasons that people go to political blogs is to A.) have their political leanings reinforced; B.) to see what opposing political thought is; C.) because they are addicted to politics and it really doesn't matter whose politics they read. This is well and good and has been a boon to the blogging phenomena. In fact, the last time this kind of phenomena took the country/world by storm involved CB radios and (ugh!) polyester. But, I digress; trolls are difficult to deal with for both the blogger, and for the bloggers audience.
Some bloggers have never had comments as such, and therefore are rather immune to the troll phenomena (although I suspect they get their share via e-mail if they publish an e-mail address on their site) So, sites like one of my favorites (Glenn Reynolds at The Instapundit) never shows troll attacks openly. Others, such as Little Green Footballs (on the right - at least as far as the WOT is concerned) and Democratic Underground (on the left) have their share of trolls and that is fairly plain to see if you are a regular reader of those sites. I have had a few myself and although I've threatened to ban a few, I have yet had to do so.
With my site, it is fairly easy to manage trolls. Most posts on my site, whether authored by myself or by my good friend and compatriot Woody draw somewhere from one (1) to twenty (20) comments. Trolls then stand out fairly well. On LFG, Charles Johnson gets sometimes upwards of 300 comments per post and managing trolls can be a much more difficult and time consuming prospect. Conservative ladies in the blogosphere such as Cao, Raven, LaShawn, Michele seem to attract brave trolls who curse and use vile language with anonymous names so they don't fear retaliation. Anonymity is both a curse and a blessing on the internet. A blessing because, for example, an employee can blog about their boss without much fear of retaliation. A curse, because some really vile stuff is out there and some folks feel that they can say or do things that they would never consider doing in front of their mother or with a boss/co-worker; and that is sad.
Reading Michele Malkin's blog, she has posted some of the words/phrases used to describe her and/or her positions. She has received some pretty nasty stuff. I don't know how she can manage it without blowing a gasket. My hat is off to her and La Shawn Barber, Cao, Raven and any other blogger who gets that kind of hate mail. And it seems, although I can't prove it, that some of the vileness from the radical left far exceeds that of the radical right. I'm not sure why, except to ascribe it to Bush Derangement Syndrome, which seems to infect even members of my own extended family (not that my family members use that kind of really nasty language).
So, what to do? Well, I think I'm going to start publishing Troll's IP address along with some of the inanities they spew, maybe even their e-mail addresses though I know that most often those are fake - lots of cowards out there... Maybe even a box on my sidebar with the same information. "The following Commenters have been designated Trolls by the Court of Rational Opinion."
Anonymity seems to bring out the worst in some folk; guess they don't have the courage of their convictions. That is sad, really sad!
Diane Wilson has this to say:
The only thing that relieves their self-hate is to see other people in pain. If you let them get to you, that only encourages them. That's why they're here in the first place.This is a "Webmaster's Challenge" from AOL Members, but it equally applies to bloggers methinks:The point is that flaming them hurts you more than it hurts them.
What makes it worse--been here, seen this before, too--is that these trolls are insiders. Yes, they hurt, they're depressed, they are at least as far down as any of us. What that means is that they know all the right buttons to push to make us angry. They have no conscience that prevents them from pushing those buttons.
That is the difference between them and us. They have turned abusive. Yes, that does make a difference. I've encountered some recovering abusers on the net, and I learned a few things from that experience. The one thing that sustains an abuser is denial; an abuser cannot allow hirself to be open to the slightest possibility that sie is harming another human being. They blame anyone and anything else in sight, but virtually all of that blame is directed at the victim, in one way or another. Abusers REFUSE to take responsibility for their behavior.
When trolls are ignored they step up their attacks, desperately seeking the attention they crave. Their messages become more and more foul, and they post ever more of them. Alternatively, they may protest that their right to free speech is being curtailed  more on this later.The moderator of a message board may not be able to delete a troll's messages right away, but their job is made much harder if they also have to read numerous replies to trolls. They are also forced to decide whether or not to delete posts from well-meaning folks which have the unintended effect of encouraging the troll.
Some webmasters have to endure conscientious users telling them that they are "acting like dictators" and should never delete a single message. These people may be misinformed: they may have arrived at their opinion about a troll based on the messages they see, never realizing that the webmaster has already deleted his most horrific material. Please remember that a troll does have an alternative if he has something of value to say: there are services on the net that provide messaging systems free of charge. So the troll can set up his own message board, where he can make his own decisions about the kind of content he will tolerate.
Just how much can we expect of a webmaster when it comes to preserving the principles of free speech? Some trolls find sport in determining what the breaking point is for a particular message board operator. They might post a dozen messages, each of which contains 400 lines of the letter "J". That is a form of expression, to be sure, but would you consider it your duty to play host to such a person?
Perhaps the most difficult challenge for a webmaster is deciding whether to take steps against a troll that a few people find entertaining. Some trolls do have a creative spark and have chosen to squander it on being disruptive. There is a certain perverse pleasure in watching some of them. Ultimately, though, the webmaster has to decide if the troll actually cares about putting on a good show for the regular participants, or is simply playing to an audience of one  himself.
Patrick and I were delighted to have Jay Allen invite us to be panel participants at this year’s South-by-Southwest conference, but there’s no way we can make it to the convention. Here’s a little bit of what I would have said on Liz Lawley’s panel on “Spammers, Trolls and Stalkers: The Pandora’s Box of Community.†The text I’m responding to is taken from Jay Allen’s letter.Disemvowelling... yeah, that's the ticket.“Spam, Trolls, Stalkers: The Pandora’s Box of communityâ€Â
The ease with which people from all over the world can come together and create a virtual community is one of the most powerful gifts of the internet. Sites which facilitate communityâ€â€from Slashdot and Metafilter to the single-author blog with comments enabledâ€â€do so first by making communication easy. Unfortunately, this also opens the gates to undesirable parasites who, at best, don’t care about your creation or, at worst, want to destroy it.
Yup. All points touch within the internet, and getting online just gets easier and easier. It’s an inescapable truth that for some people, the most interesting way to participate in online discourse is to kick holes in the conversation. Othersâ€â€many of them young, but some, alas, old enough to know betterâ€â€have a sense of entitlement that leads them to believe that their having an opinion means the rest of us are obliged to listen to it. Still others plainly get off on verbally abusing others, and seek out conversations that will offer them opportunities to do so.And so on and so forth: the whole online bestiary.
Must all good things come to an end due to the network effect and the shadow of anonymity? In this panel, we’ll discuss all of the things that exposure and user-submitted content might bring and how to mitigate its effect on your site’s health and growth.
Some things I know about moderating conversations in virtual space:1. There can be no ongoing discourse without some degree of moderation, if only to kill off the hardcore trolls. It takes rather more moderation than that to create a complex, nuanced, civil discourse. If you want that to happen, you have to give of yourself. Providing the space but not tending the conversation is like expecting that your front yard will automatically turn itself into a garden.
2. Once you have a well-established online conversation space, with enough regulars to explain the local mores to newcomers, they’ll do a lot of the policing themselves.
3. You own the space. You host the conversation. You don’t own the community. Respect their needs. For instance, if you’re going away for a while, don’t shut down your comment area. Give them an open thread to play with, so they’ll still be there when you get back.
4. Message persistence rewards people who write good comments.
5. Over-specific rules are an invitation to people who get off on gaming the system.
6. Civil speech and impassioned speech are not opposed and mutually exclusive sets. Being interesting trumps any amount of conventional politeness.
7. Things to cherish: Your regulars. A sense of community. Real expertise. Genuine engagement with the subject under discussion. Outstanding performances. Helping others. Cooperation in maintenance of a good conversation. Taking the time to teach newbies the ropes.
All these things should be rewarded with your attention and praise. And if you get a particularly good comment, consider adding it to the original post.
8. Grant more lenience to participants who are only part-time jerks, as long as they’re valuable the rest of the time.
9. If you judge that a post is offensive, upsetting, or just plain unpleasant, it’s important to get rid of it, or at least make it hard to read. Do it as quickly as possible. There’s no more useless advice than to tell people to just ignore such things. We can’t. We automatically read what falls under our eyes.
10. Another important rule: You can let one jeering, unpleasant jerk hang around for a while, but the minute you get two or more of them egging each other on, they both have to go, and all their recent messages with them. There are others like them prowling the net, looking for just that kind of situation. More of them will turn up, and they’ll encourage each other to behave more and more outrageously. Kill them quickly and have no regrets.
11. You can’t automate intelligence. In theory, systems like Slashdot’s ought to work better than they do. Maintaining a conversation is a task for human beings.
12. Disemvowelling works. Consider it.
13. If someone you’ve disemvowelled comes back and behaves, forgive and forget their earlier gaffes. You’re acting in the service of civility, not abstract justice.
So, if you are a commenter on this blog, try not to act like a troll, be an adult. Disagree if you wish, use what ever language you wish, but know that there are consequences for our actions, always!
Special Thanks to Anthony at School of CIT for the drawing of the troll that I obtained from the internet. I did the colorization so I hope that he isn't upset with me.
Posted by GM Roper at August 25, 2005 10:10 AM | TrackBackAww GM, this is a good post. Thank you for mentioning my site and the issues we women bloggers face. I've been threatened with my life, just for posting something against the war...I got trolled to death by the famous Frenchie and his company; they attacked both Cao and I for weeks on end. Now I try to ignore them altogether because I just don't have any patience. It seems they come around in droves, fly by comments that they have no intention of learning anything. It's a waste of time to argue witht the perpetual commentors who are just dropping their crap...
Posted by Raven at August 25, 2005 09:05 PM
GM, why is the troll wearing a Red Sox uniform?
Posted by Mustang at August 25, 2005 11:47 PM
Hey...Mustang, I didn't notice THAT til you mentioned it. GM....RED SOX RULE. I root for them because they're my local team. I'm not a baseball fan though for sure. FOOTBALL?? YEAH.
LOL
Posted by Raven at August 26, 2005 09:17 AM
Wow, excellent ideas. I've not had any real problem myself except for a very few who dissent just for the sake of dissent. And I'm just a mere speck in the 'sphere anyway.
Posted by Oyster at August 26, 2005 11:26 AM
I only have one real troll. Well, a pair of trolls. I find them entertaining. ;)
Posted by Kit Jarrell at August 26, 2005 10:02 PM
Raven's right, we've been undergoing these attacks for quite a long time. Frenchie and her husband, for all the entertainment they've provided, also taught me the rhetoric of the TRUE LEFT (which is how they see themselves. Democrats, to them, are the "fake left"...not living up to Marxist principles.). Philippe is a self-proclaimed communist, his idol growing up was Che Guevara and he's a Stalinist. He hates capitalism, America, the US Military, Christianity, and his wife's writing reflects these same views (although she does it in a devious way--she claims to be a Christian and then tells you how you should not display your faith in public.).
The other person who's attacked me with fervor is Stephen Pearcy, who threatened me with lawsuits, and finally gave my personal information to a Progressive Magazine with a subscriber list of 75,000 leftists. So I've been inundated with leftists vitriole--which, curiously, has just made me stronger and given me a greater appreciation of the humor in all of this. Leftists don't seem to have much of a sense of humor--they're SO SERIOUS! They don't even seem to understand when you're poking fun at them, which makes it all the more hilarious.
One of the benefits of these trolls and responding to them is I've learned so much for the next leftist attack. These people, whether they realize it or not, are just arming me with more information. They're probing me to delve deeper to find the facts to back up my position. In this way, I've learned so much more than if I was just posting without a comments section.
Sure, I get angry when they leave drive-by troll droppingss (some of the language is unbelievable!), but when there is an exchange, that's when life gets very interesting. I've learned about their negative attention seeking, their need to feel superior over people who don't agree with them, the fact that even a poor schmuck with no teeth can feel "cool" by saying things the rich people say- and most importantly, their outrage that a conservative point of view is getting any exposure at all. It's reinforced the belief in my mind that the lamestream media is pumping out propaganda to control public opinion, particularly on issues like the WOT.
Great post, GM.
Posted by Cao at August 27, 2005 07:27 AM
Mustang, you might be confusing the Red Sox Troll for the Green Monster.
http://tinyurl.com/8kbd6
Posted by Woody at August 27, 2005 09:11 AM
Just a bit of trivia here...Back in the 60's or 70's, troll dolls were all the rage. We also used to call them "dammit dolls."
Posted by Always On Watch at August 27, 2005 09:19 AM
I'd recommend Cao pick up a copy of Progressive magazine down at the newstand. Never hurts to take a break from reading the rantings of the rightwing propaganda machine. It actually has some well documented, thoughtful arguments in it, and while GM won't admit it, I suspect even he has a soft spot for Molly Ivins :)
Posted by jim hitchcock at August 27, 2005 11:21 AM
Jim, what you mean is that Molly has a soft spot between her ears.... and with that, I fully admit that she does.
Molly is the epitome of a barking moonbat, she changes her mind more often than she changes here underwear I'm sure.
What she argues for one week, 10 weeks later has a different flavor. The only tie to her "columns" (most of us call them ravings) is that she hates Bush, Reagan, and any thing conservative/republican and adores anything liberal/democratic no matter how bizzare or unworkable.
Molly is a walking democratic party meme!
Posted by GM Roper at August 27, 2005 04:37 PM
Cao wrote: "Leftists don't seem to have much of a sense of humor--they're SO SERIOUS! They don't even seem to understand when you're poking fun at them, which makes it all the more hilarious."
No kidding! When you deal with people who can't think logically, you reach an inevitable stalement in discussing issues. Sometimes, just to break the "tie" and to move on, I'll toss out a little joke thinking that will break the ice enough to where we can shake hands and close out the discussion. People from the left are so wrapped up in their causes that they don't get the obvious joke and think that it is a "typical comment from the right" deserving of more attack from them or an attack on them personally. There are exceptions, JH for example, but most on the left seem very unhappy and bitter and never see anything as humorous--unless it might be Bush falling down some steps, which I would only find funny if he squashed a Democrat on the way down. It must be very sad to focus so strongly onto issues that you miss life.
Posted by Woody at August 28, 2005 10:26 AM
If I ever lose my sense of humor, shoot me.
Meanwhile, `When Dinosaurs Roamed The Earth!':
Posted by jim hitchcock at August 28, 2005 11:16 AM
I think it is very dificult to know when to draw the line , my views are left leaning and i am sure if i was to express any comment on any subject that i truly held on a number of the sites mentioned above then the owners would consider me a troll, saying that i would probably think of them as the same. I get the odd (what i would call) extremist on my site but what is an extremist well to me that means people who attack whole religions like islam every chance they get in a way very similar to how the fascists between 1933 and 1939 attacked the jews they assume because i critise government actions that i am a "communist" "marxist" or some even are stupid enough to call me (a left winger) a "fascist" a get called all the names under the sun by a few at times and i find the personal attacks hilarous but all of the above on a right leaning site would often be agreed with and the view is then that "i am the troll" personally i choose never to delete someones comments (unless they advocate murder or some other stupid point) i find that the people that 'I' describe as trolls have NO knowledge of history NO understand of the world outside their own country NO ability to debate issues (ie they have the script they believe and can not as rumsfield would say "think outside the box" and so very very quickly highlight themselves to be the complete fools that they are you know the sort i am sure they have some wonderfull theory on Iraq or something and you start to debate the details between the Shia and Sunni factions and the effect Moqtada Sadr will have when combined with the huge Shia powerbase that crosses the national border between Iraq and Iran , then you wait then 10 mins later . back comes a reply that completely misses everything you just said and just repeats like a parrot the same script they came in with so in my time i have called many a troll and been called a troll by many but i have never needed to exclude the trolls but i have always found pleasure in giggling at their percieved knowledge. one of the examples above would qualify in my book as a 'troll' comment , the view that lefties dont have a sense of humour , a huge sweeping genralization with no real factual base , everyone i know has on the left has a Huge sense of humour and it is the oposite that i see , but if made that point it would sound as mute and biased as what i just read , so i think "what is a troll" depends very much on the flip side of "who would think of me as a troll" and in the main the "troll" comment is used by all sides to try and take away from the respect and validity of the point of the 'other side'
on your point of posting IP addresses , i am not sure how well that would work , many people including myself use a number of proxy servers to access the internet . so the IP address you post may not actually (within a few hours) be the address of the poster , and some poor person could end up getting there IP attacked and never knowing why
Posted by _H_ at August 28, 2005 11:58 AM
Jim Hitchcock wrote: "If I ever lose my sense of humor, shoot me."
That's easy for you to say. You're a Dodgers fan.
I checked the dinosaur site, is that the same place as in Pee Wee's Great Adventure? I'm not going to start an evolution vs. creation debate, except to say that I have always been dedicated to science; but, the more I learn about the claims by evolutionists vs. honest science, the more that I move towards another position. They ask you to show more faith than the creation side.
===============
_H_ wrote: "one of the examples above would qualify in my book as a 'troll' comment , the view that lefties dont have a sense of humour , a huge sweeping genralization with no real factual base , everyone i know has on the left has a Huge sense of humour and it is the oposite that i see ,"
_H_, of course we have to generalize about comments of the left. It is absolutely impossible to list each person and to say, "Well, he has a sense of humor, but that guy there doesn't and neither does that one over there." When I say that, I speak from experience. I don't think that there is a site that has footnotes of polls or analyses of who or who does not have a sense of humor. There are just some things that have to be accepted as opinion. Letists tend to get mad rather than laugh. There are a lot of people who agree with that.
Also, in my opinion, the left (generally) overuses the terms that "he's generalizing" just to avoid an issue. This became popular in the 1960's when all debate was cut off with that phrase and the liberal would strut off feeling superior because you couldn't pull out a master list for him. That's running from an argument--not refuting it.
Demanding volumes of independent support for generally accepted views is also a way of avoiding issues. There is one liberal I know who would NEVER be satisified with any support that you would give him, because he couldn't deal with it. So, he would just say that you didn't give him support, or enough support, and, therefore, your statements deserve no response. Most people have to make livings and don't have the time or desire to try to meet unreasonable demands by leftists. By the way, if you ask them for support, you get studies from academia or the most leftist papers or publications. They expect us to accept those volumes of propaganda as independent support. Sorry, but anyone who quotes Michael Moore of Babra Streisand has little credibility to rational people.
Anyway, those are my views, and a lot of people agree with me--but, I don't have their names...if that's okay.
Posted by Woody at August 28, 2005 07:12 PM
Yes, Woody, Dinny the Dinosaur was in the movie.
The standout charge in the whole article was the part about dinosaurs frolicking in the Garden Of Eden alongside Adam and Eve...as vegetarians originally (even T.Rex!), meat eaters after the original sin!
Posted by jim hitchcock at August 28, 2005 09:07 PM
your views are your views , dont mind me i am just passing through.
one thing does confuse me though
your statement that begins "Demanding volumes of independent support for generally accepted views"
seems a little odd to me , but what do i know , i am just a poor defenseless leftie
knowledge is only pure if it has value , independent sources are all we can take as truth
surely you see that whether it is from the left or from the right
politicaly leaning articles have no scientific bases in fact
dont you desire the truth ?
i do , infact i would feel enlightened if someone from the right came along and prooved me wrong , for i have learnt something
but so often these days the right 'seems' to have an agenda way way ahead of its politcal routes
for example , all the lovely stories going round about new links between al-qaeda and saddam
you wont find these stories coming out of the white house
you wont find these stories coming out of the CIA or the NSA , they wouldnt dare
the reason is they are what they are , they are single sourced claims that have not been verified by anyone
but 'most people' i debate with from the right . just EXPECT me to accept these kind of claims that there own political masters have already rejected out of hand
as for painting whole groups with one brush , why not say "the lefties that 'I' speak to dont seem to have a sense of humour" that is fair , nobody can question that , you can still make your point without sweeping accross hole areas of subjective pseduo logic
anwyay as i say , i did not come here for a huge debate , just making my point and moving on ,
i respect your right to think whatever you like and i assume you respect mine too
so let us make it simple
'SOME' of you people will always be trolls to me and I am sure to 'SOME of you i will always be seen as a troll
i am happy for you to think of me as you wish , and i will view you as i do
but please dont assume that the 'right' has all the knowldege and truth and sense of humour etc whislt the left has none
i am mature enough to see that both sides have plenty of truths and boths sides also carry plenty of baggage that warps their view of the world from a left/right perspecitive
the truth is usually somewhere in between
so respect to you all for what ever thoughts you hold
but i would not want to enter into some pseudo debate with ANYBODY from ANY SIDE who desires to use their own politial sources over and above real facts from real independant research
my regards to you all
take care
Posted by _H_ at August 28, 2005 11:55 PM
_H_, thanks for dropping by. I hope you know that we respect sincere views even if we disagree with them.
Regarding independent sources...there were two points:
First, some statements don't require sources as they are clearly opinion, non-verifiable, generally accepted, or based on observations which can only be verified by the one making the statement. In other words, "independent" sources don't exist or demand too much research for the purpose intended. Sometimes it just is not worth the trouble. You should recognize these situations and not expect proof or be willing to research it yourself.
Second, if I think that an independent resource is in order, I almost always find that the liberal with whom I am conversing will throw out that source because he doesn't agree with that person. For instance, if I said that Ann Coulter said that Jane Fonda drove a red bus, and that was a fact, the liberal would deny the truth simply because Ann Coulter said it. In such and many cases, you can't offer any acceptable proof to someone who rejects your facts or sources in advance. (BTW, the NY Times is not an independent source. See how it works?)
In reality, there are few independent resources available for political issues. Everyone has his own agenda. About the only independent resources that I see are in science magazines where facts are determined and presented based on experiments that hold up under outside duplication of the results. It's a fact that water has two hydrogen atoms. It might be political opinion to make a statement that U..S. industry polluted that water.
It would help to view comments under blog entries as conversational English, for which publishing and academic standards of support or wording would not be appropriate. Let's look at one example. In one particular comment of mine, you wanted a source for my view or a refinement of the way it was presented; i.e. "why not say "the lefties that 'I' speak to ...." I don't think that there is any doubt as to what was meant by what I said. If the purpose is communication, then that was accomplished. That's the nature of conversations.
If held to overly high standards of grammar, explanation, and support: then communications end--and, that's worse. It's almost as silly as me demanding that you write in American English and drop those useless "u's" (e.g., humour) whenever you come to an American site. Pretty dumb, huh? If I know what you mean, then however it is presented is good enough.
Further--generalizations foster discussion. If I say that people from Great Britain talk funny, there isn't a rational soul in the world who wouldn't understand that I meant the language as spoken over there is not what I'm used to here. To debate that wording detracts from the essence of the meaning and reduces the possibility of more discussion.
So, demands for "acceptable" sources and precise wording of statements in conversation hinder exchange of ideas. Take what you can from what is said rather than be overly critical and reject positions whose presentation might be better if only under more professional circumstances.
As you can see from your comments and mine, there are no independent references whatsoever, but we managed to understand each other. Isn't that the basis for even more understanding?
Sincerely, thanks for dropping by and please come back--with useless u's and all.
Posted by Woody at August 29, 2005 09:43 AM
always a pleasure , and my trip was worthwhile
for you have told me that the stuff i read is "an opinion" that is wonderfull and i agree of course , that is what it is
sadly it seems that most of the sites that i discover do not view their ramblings as a "opninion" but as a fact and to reach the point we already have here is beyond the hope of even the likes of me , for how do you debate with someone who believes every single world of the opinions on their site is a "FACT"
it pleases me that you have the wisdom to release that these kind of statements are NOT facts or even close to FACTS , they are just opinions
as for demands for accepable sources , well
there are plenty , what do i call an acceptable source
well for me that would include
anything actually said by the white house
and leaked CIA,NSA,MI5,JIC etc reports
united nations documents
reports from the IAEA
i wont go on , and i am flexible enough to accept that if someone had a paranioa that was telling them one of those sources was wrong , then i would be happy not to use it
but there needs to be this distinction made and i am pleased that you make it
as for my pedantic remarks on the wording of you comment about lefties sense of humour , well when you (and i am sure this works the other way round) spent a lot of time talking to righties , you get used to(the ones i speak to) this overrated pseudo anger that comes accross in bucket loads and prevents any kind of intellectual debate from taking place
with someone like yourself , i have no problem droping my ideology for a moment to discuss the framework behind the debate
when i meet the other kind of rightie , and come under a barrage of attack , with out any real factual debate going on , then my tone changes , i become very pedantic , and will argue every god damn full stop and comma and if they are willing to drop the crap , then of course so am i
as i am sure we agree , we come from different camps here and , this is not something we would be destined to agree with
i do not question you if you claim that the lefties you talk to often use the requirment of valid sources as a means to stop debate (how could i , i have never seen you) but i just draw the line if that accusation is placed towards me , for my reasons are the exact opposite of what you say
i wish to remove the "opinions" of the left or the right and look at the "facts" on issue such as iraq or iran or the WOT etc
anyway i apreciate your honesty
i commend you
Posted by _H_ at August 29, 2005 11:18 AM
"For instance, if I said that Ann Coulter said that Jane Fonda drove a red bus, and that was a fact, the liberal would deny the truth simply because Ann Coulter said it."
Really believe that, Woody? Yeah, I suppose you do. It makes things so much easier.
The reality is you get would get lambasted for using Coulter as a source because she's on record for being a hateful screwball who is on record as having little regard for the truth and who says some remarkable stupid things. The very fact that you would use a screeching propaganda machine like Coulter as a source for truth vs. say, a reputable news organization
is what we question.
The reverse certainly IS true. You automatically cast doubt on anything printed in the NYT, or spoke about in the MSM, because they have a built in `liberal bias', yada yada yada, blah blah blah. It's a lot easier than using critical thinking skills to challenge preconcieved notions. Karl Rove loves guys like you.
Saying we would deny the truth simply because Ann Coulter said it is such a cop out.
Posted by jim hitchcock at August 29, 2005 12:50 PM
`preconceived'. I learned how to spell from reading the National Equirer. That's a joke.
Posted by jim hitchcock at August 29, 2005 12:52 PM
JH: "Saying we would deny the truth simply because Ann Coulter said it is such a cop out."
Jim, I chose an extreme example. The premise, based on my experiences (happy?), is correct. I have used very decent sources, albeit conservative, but most conservative sources get rejected by certain liberals because they think that conservative sources are wrong. I gave up debating with someone you know because he wouldn't accept any conservative sources as legitimate. Yes, there are exceptions, but I'm just stating a generalization--which is okay to me. BTW, I only know that Ann Coulter is "bad" according to the left because of your and rosedog's reactions--not from where I stand.
_H_, no kidding about the pseudo anger. Sometimes I wonder if these angry people have a life.
One thing, Jim & H, that I have learned, is that you view things in a similar way as I--only from your perspective. For instance, I once wrote that the Republicans need to get some backbone and quit letting the Democrats run over them. Then, Jim wrote back that he feels the same way about the Democrats. I couldn't see it because of where I stood. I might call the Democrats a bunch of crooks and Jim thinks the Republicans are. It goes on. I just never saw that before.
Also, as H pointed out and as has been discussed before, opinions are not facts. However, an opinion could actually also be a fact depending on how it's stated. For instance, I might write that it is my opinion that Bill Clinton is a liar. That is more an analysis based upon historical information. At what point does opinion quit becoming an opinion and become fact? Maybe opinons could be also titled analysis based on some facts.
Anyway, it is hard to discuss things without setting some ground rules first. In our cases, there are no ground rules except common sense and courtesy. Fortunately, we have that.
Thanks to you both for enlightening me.
Posted by Woody at August 29, 2005 01:27 PM
It's interesting that Teresa Nielsen Hayden is promoting herself as some sort of authority on managing "trolls". Read through her comments in this exchange:
http://www.bundy223.net/~andyb/blog/archives/000305.html
Sometimes the "troll" is in the mirror.
Posted by Tom McMahon at August 29, 2005 02:19 PM
Tom, that makes my head swim. If we could connect an electric generator to the keyboard of those people typing all those comments and harness that energy, then we'd have the generating capacity of a major dam. It sound like my kids arguing. It's interesting how people can twist situations to suit themselves--me excepted, of course.
Posted by Woody at August 29, 2005 03:03 PM
You do get a sense of where the lefty talking points are headed from reading troll comments. But when you get a really bad infection, it's obvious that they are just more interested in wasting your time, perhaps trying to keep you from more productive blogging.
I'm not at all shy about using the ban feature.
Posted by Mike on Hilton Head Island at August 30, 2005 10:13 PM
