Trolls Are People Too
Mon Jun 18, 2007 at 09:07:59 PM PDT
The following comments, taken from several distinct diaries, were directed at posters who, while not necessarily trolls, posted unquestionably trollish diaries or comments:
Screw you and your "we believe in" shit. Patronizing dolt.
Relax -- save your fire for the idiot diarist
I am done with you. you are a total lunatic. ... fuck you for continuing your demand that everyone disavow it [another poster's comment].
you fucking idiot ... Stop inflicting your bizzare insanity on the rest of us.
If you went to college you really should ask them for your money back.
I'll pare it down for you then. You're a cretin. I believe that word sums it up nicely. ... If you act like a cretin, you get called a cretin. Get used to it.
I don't know -- I kind of like nincompoop, or heel, or knave, but nincompoop is best. It does have poop in it after all.
No- you have no integrity. You have bullshit.
I use these particular comments, with names excised, because they are unlikely to be recognized by commenters (and if you do recognize them, please don't call out the authors, as that's not the point of this diary). I wanted to include them because some of my previous diaries on this general subject have been weakened by the fact that no one really knew what the heck I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is pretty clearly delineated by these comments -- though I can't reiterate enough that they are JUST EXAMPLES of what to me is a common problem.
Have you ever said something to someone in real life that sounded like one of these comments? I haven't, though I can acknowledge that there might be times and circumstances when I would. If you have said these things, did you feel remorse for them after you cooled down? If not, would you agree that the person you said them to had done something really, really horrible -- like threatening you or someone you loved or doing serious harm to someone you cared about?
Under ordinary circumstances, I think most people would agree that good, decent people don't say hateful things like this in real, face-to-face life. Sometimes they do when they are really, really angry, but they usually feel remorse for their behavior afterwards and apologize. This is also true when they weren't the ones who "started" it -- when the person they're talking to said some mean and hateful things to them first or generally acted like a jackass.
Why don't we say mean, hateful things to people who are mean and hateful to us? Because we're not bullies like they are -- we're good people who have the decency to treat others as human beings even when their actions clearly show they don't deserve it. While we can't always turn the other cheek at their behavior, we CAN try not to dehumanize them, gang up on them, or hurt them.
I think almost everyone here would agree with what I've just said. (If you don't, please do stop me.) And yet we on Daily Kos put up with the sort of bullying, dehumanizing language quoted above literally on a daily basis. Our excuse is that it is levied at "trolls" -- people who come to Daily Kos to intentionally disrupt the site, or people who refuse to follow the rules even after being informed of them.
Look -- I know trolls have got to be banned. It's simply got to be done, because if it's not done the entire site gets rapidly consumed by confusion and can't function as a coherent community. Believe me, I've been around here long enough to see what can happen when trolls are not efficiently and ruthlessly weeded out. Heck, I remember back in the MT days when a clever troll posed as Wes Clark Jr. and then "verified" himself by posing as Kos. The site was effectively non-functional for two days.
So we need to ban trolls, quickly and efficiently, to help keep the site running smoothly. But does their behavior truly warrant the kind of comments that I've quoted above? What have trolls actually done to us? They've wasted our time, tried unsuccessfully to undermine an organization we believe in, in some cases said vile and offensive things to us. But is this anywhere near the threshold where we'd consider it okay to say the things quoted above in real life? Have trolls threatened us or our loved ones with bodily harm? Have they hurt us or someone we loved? (I recognize that occasionally trolls do make such threats, but those are rare instances and are not covered here.)
Perhaps many of you think our behavior toward trolls at dKos is an unimportant issue that distracts from the critical crises in America today -- the war, health care, global warming, poverty, the criminality of the Bush administration. And I'll admit that, at first blush, it seems that way. But I bring it up because I think that the way we treat those we loathe is a central part of our character as individuals and, more importantly, as a movement. Karl Rove threatens to "ruin" opponents, and makes good on his threats; we progressives, I would hope, have a bit more understanding that our adversaries, no matter how foul, are in the end human too.
Removing trolls from the site, whether by troll-rating them, e-mailing admins about them, or notifying other users of their trollishness, is a critically important activity that allows Daily Kos to function properly. It's a duty, a responsibility TU's have for the site we care so much about. But it's not supposed to be fun, any more than hitting somebody would be fun, or calling the police on a criminal would be fun. If we're deriving pleasure from namecalling and roughing up trolls, there's a very disturbing kind of gang thinking at work.
I ask you, please, if you recognize your tone or sentiments in the above comments, please think twice about how you react the next time you're called on to help ban or chastise a troll. As counterintuitive as it may seem at times, trolls are people, too -- and it helps no one if we treat them as anything less than human decency, all the while we're working to get them banned. Can't you see that if we dehumanize and degrade our opponents, we're no better than they are?
