Office to rent in Lewes

Lewes Forum thread

Go on, tell 'em what you think

Lewes Forum New message

Lewes Trolls

On 27 Sep 2011 at 2:07pm Miss T Roll wrote:

God, Lewes is full of trolls. They come on this website and make inflammatory comments, then just sit back and enjoy the subsequent arguements.

On 27 Sep 2011 at 4:57pm Ed Can Do wrote:

It's nothing to do with Lewes and lots to do with the internet. For years, message boards and fora like this were the sole domain of the geekier eschelon of society and there weren't anything like as many as there are now. Message boards were either small, close-knit communities or massive affairs with thousands of members. Whilst the smaller ones were often bastions of good manners, the bigger ones, requiring so much moderation to keep friendly often developed into the kind of communities where trolling and a troll mentality were the norm. Established members would pick on newbies for fun and new members would troll the board either to make a name for themselves of from frustration at getting banned.

For most people, trolling is never meant as a genuine insult, it's just a way of showing off, whether that be how wordy you are or how good you are at coming up with cutting jibes. Especially on the more troll-centric boards, people knew to never take anything personally and mark it down to experience and even join in laughing at the troll.

These days things have changed. Internet useage is a part of everyday life and message boards and Facebook attract a huge range of people, many of whom are perhaps relatively new to the concept. Because they see an internet form as perhaps no different from having a discussion in the pub, they immediately take any insult very personally when more than likely the person who made it meant no offence whatsoever and was merely playing up for the peanut gallery.

Essentially, most trolls are people who've either visited or been members of 4chan, Something Awful, B3ta, membase or Art of Trolling. All light hearted (Except 4chan) but all leading one to a certain sense of internet humour.

This forum has the added edge of course of being a local one and as such, a lot of people here potentially know each other in real life so it's easier to take a comment made in jest completely the wrong way. Also as you can post anonyumously, there's not really any comeback for making trollish comments so people who are that way inclined really have no deterrent.

Personally I think this forum would be really dull if it was heavily moderated to remove anything deemed slightly offensive, in fact I think the swearing filter is pretty pointless. I do also think though that as the forum grows in popularity some form of name registration would help to cut down the actually nasty stuff that gets posted on here from time to time. A general rule of thumb though is if you don't react to a troll, then they'll stop doing it very quickly.

On 27 Sep 2011 at 5:31pm Ron wrote:

Arguements? What sort of pathetic speller are you?

On 27 Sep 2011 at 8:32pm Southover Queen wrote:

That's all true, ECD, and I'd agree with you about registering: it does cut down the trolling and allows mods to track down particularly troublesome users. It doesn't stop people creating multiple personalities (or "sock puppets"), but it does mean that a moderator can frequently track a nuisance user by his or her IP address.

I am one of the mods for an industry related forum, which currently has nearly 2000 members - not bad for a board which is not yet two years old. We do have two or three regular trolls and we do ban them on a regular basis. Apart from them, we leave most people to sort themselves out and there is almost no moderating - the exception is if people start defaming others by name.

That board is generally a pretty friendly place, but that's because of its purpose and the general make-up of the majority of its users. If we did have an invasion of trolls (unrelated to the site enemies we already deal with) then they would either be banned or severely modded because it really does frighten new members away if their first experience is a confrontation with a troll.

Do Not Feed The Trolls is a well known request, but it only works for established users. If you're new, you don't know you've encountered a troll; it could just as easily be a normal member who really doesn't want you there. I still think that's a pity.