Welcome once again back to The Hiddens. My name is T. Max Devlin, please call me Max, and I will be your facilitator for this pseudo-insider look at the Community Moderation going on here on Daily Kos. Feel free to contribute any comments, questions, or concerns you may have, whether you are a Trusted User or a standard Kossack.
The numbers in "incident notes" are recs/HRs/replies as displayed on the hidden comments list at the time of writing. If they're followed by a number in parenthesis, that is the total number of replies downthread. If there are multiple sets, the record covers multiple comments, which may or may not be in the same thread. Other special symbols may appear, such as a hash/number sign (#) which indicates the statistics are for a non-hidden comment or other special circumstances.
It's been another ugly night, with over two dozen comments making the hiddens. I thought I could take the evening off last night without getting too behind, by ya'll are still not very good at this "internet discussion" thing, so there's a lot to cover. Some will get grouped up, and I'll limit my analysis. Time is short today due to home scheduling issues.
First we have a special record, because my goal here is not to give publicity to trolls, even though I do want to shine a spotlight on them. It's possible, of course (there's no way to know) that simply by writing The Hiddens, I'm encouraging the bad behavior. If that's the case, I can only presume that by making it more visible, it will be easier to deal with. But because that is a concern of mine, I'm no longer going to be publishing updates on one particular "troll opera", that being Red State Ambassador. I said my piece last night. He's lost his "identified by name in The Hiddens" privileges, irrevocably. It is only coincidence that this policy change coincides with the first incident in The Hiddens reported in The Hiddens.
I mentioned yesterday there were HRs in The Hiddens (I'm not going to bother to try to suggest or maintain HR guidelines in this diary - just bear in mind I will happily use it as a counter-example any time) and this is them:
Incident: 'Trolling The Hiddens'
Incident notes: whiner troll (1/3/3, 1/6/3)
Diary notes: The Hiddens
User notes: hard core troll
HR notes: Not bad, but unnecessary
Disposition: shot across the bow Status: shot in the dark
As I said, I'm not going to try to dictate HR policy in The Hiddens, though I'd appreciate something less than "every Kossack for themself", at least up to "catch as catch can" levels. If you're paying close attention, you know that I have no problem employing 'social moderation' techniques (refer to my own response both the this troll and the one identified as 'my personal nemesis'.) And I believe that launching donuts in combination with social moderation is a kind of bullying behavior that causes worse trouble than it could ever solve. But I'm not going to bend over backwards trying to use the comments section as an object lesson. For now, at least.
A recurring attack familiar to those on the I side of the I/P pie fight showed up in a FP open thread:
Incident: 'LGM (or: in case you haven't noticed, they're... JEWS!)'
Incident notes: I/P (anti-I), loyalty (1/10/4(9))
Diary notes: FP, Open Thread
User notes: TU
HR notes: downthread cream filling and sprinkles
Disposition: TOO Status: done
There are a lot of people who don't realize that questioning the loyalty of American Jews is paranoid CT. One of them uprated this comment.
A newbie gets in trouble and can't let go:
Incident: 'Defending Ed'
Incident notes: PC (1/29/14, 0/11/3, 0/8/3, 0/6/4, 0/6/4, 0/7/2)
Diary notes: feminism, Ed Shultz callout
User notes: newbie
HR notes: you're doing it wrong
Disposition: fem Status: messy
Take a look at those numbers. I'm not even going to try to give thread counts. Not an elegant response, that's for sure, regardless of the details.
The diary this one appeared in seems custom-made to incite emotions, so doesn't that make it a troll?
Incident: 'Attacking Bill'
Incident notes: BC (3/3/#, 1/8/1(13))
Diary notes: reactionary, republished
User notes: newbie
HR notes: note the first comment is unhidden, the followup was a 'double down'
Disposition: Dem Status: ocrat, open
Some creep calling Bill Clinton a creep is really silly. I think the newbie Kossack is needlessly and inadvisedly contentious (given their newbieness) but that doesn't mean everyone needs to be hyper-sensitive. Plus, if you can tell Bill Clinton to STFU, why can't you call him a pervert? Yours Truly comes down on the side of not doing either.
&&&
Still Yet More I/P, but this time a whole soap opera's worth of pie fights:
Incident: 'rebuking the rebuking of the rebuking'
Incident notes: I/P, (anti-I), contentless (0/11/6, 0/19/3, 0/9/3)
Diary notes: donut fest, bear trap
User notes: newbie (see below)
HR notes: Other comments in threads include (17/7, 14/1, 8/3, ad nauseum (no pun intended))
Disposition: casual subject troll Status: pie, open
The several updates to the diary added in response to comments (which also reprinted a hidden comment from 2008) is typical of the bear trap model of avoiding debate, which the diarist is a master at employing. The response in those updates is unrelated to this incident, but accounts for much of the meringue documented in HR notes, above.
Another special note on this incident, related to the user who got hidden. Earlier this month he posted a diary admitting to trolling right wing forums. It included this bit, "The resident wingnuts coordinate to get liberal posts removed to trigger a auto-ban, so I figure I'd take a lesson from their book which is why I came here."
Honestly, if I didn't actually have the decades of experience I do with hyper-contentious discussion forums, then trying to work out the pretzel logic and gaming out the mechanics of that kind of approach would make my head explode. As it stands, it still gives me kind of a headache to think that this was the user that just got hidden for comparing Zionists to Nazis.
So despite my distaste for this denizen, I would also like to send a special message to the author of this bear trap diary, and his hundreds of followers. You're in a gang. You taunt other people until they react so your thugs can have an excuse to throw hides on them while others continue the taunting ridicule. I know it is a little embarrassing to realize you've been doing nothing more than that for all these years, all this time you were thinking you've been intellectually defending your rational politics with civil discourse, and 'fighting trolls'. And I know there has been some of that, too, but that isn't what's at issue here. It is time to face facts, and get serious. It's a fun game, but it isn't 'fighting trolls', it's just gaming the system and playing "Survivor: DK". That isn't the way to engage in polemics, and it doesn't confer any moral superiority to your opinions, so it really doesn't matter that you might be right on the issues.
Flame away, if you dare.
Now we return to the subject of Ed Shultz and what he said about Laura Ingraham:
Incident: 'More about what Ed said'
Incident notes: feminist, PC (4/40/11, 4/19/6)
Diary notes: brief, feminist, PC (separate from previous incident)
User notes: 2; 1 newbie, 1 TU
HR notes: instructive but ugly
Disposition: casual subject trolls Status: unkonwn, open
The issue of how politically correct we must be in public speech is an ongoing debate. It is perhaps unfortunate that promiscuity in both sexuality and political thought might be referred to with identical terms, but does that make such usage inherently sexist?
Here's a return of a Kossack who was a denizen last week:
Incident: 'here it comes (or: there it goes)'
Incident notes: CIJK (Criminal InJustice Kos) BK-ish (1/8/4, 1/13/8, 2/7/1)
Diary notes: CIJK, High end regular (weekly) series
User notes: TU
HR notes: spamming is the new trolling, see below
Disposition: BK Status: contentless, open
In an abjectly and objectively failed attempt to prevent this user from distracting the discussion in the diary's comment section, one BKossack posted the singularity of troll stomping fail:
Stop Trolling Now (26+ / 0-)
first and last call here
Needless to say, that was not the last call there. It was the start, since the comment he was responding (not replying) to was an on-topic and adequately reasonable response (10/0) to another comment (37/0), not the diary itself. The subsequent one-sided pie fight illustrated BK performing precisely the same bullying act that I just got done (trying to) criticize
David Mizner [
redacted] for in the incident immediately prior to this one. Unlike that case, this is a scholarly and serious group diary article, rather than a bear trap. But the justification for the donut party is even more threadbare.
The remark that seals the deal for me is this one, posted as a followup to the last comment in this record:
HR abuse (0+ / 0-)
I find nothing whatsoever HR'able about this comment. Just in case [redacted] was a HOS type I looked at his/her most recent diary and a few comments, and find this is not the case. Not liking this person or comment is not an excuse for HR. Perhaps Meteor Blades or other admin should take a look at this.
Scientific Materialism debunked here
by wilderness voice on Thu May 26, 2011 at 12:35:41 PM EDT
What pegged the irony meter was, of course, the user's handle. See you in The Hiddens, wilderness voice.
&&&
And now for something less contentious than whether DFH or BK are more easily trolled. The Middle East:
Incident: 'ethnic borders (or: genocide 67)'
Incident notes: I/P (anti-P) (0/21/6)
Diary notes: beartrap (see previous records)
User notes: Non-TU, self-described JAP
HR notes: thick frosting
Disposition: I/P Status: Jordan? Really?, open
Which is worse, saying there are no 67 borders, or saying that saying that there are no 67 borders is a call for ethnic cleansing?
But there's yet still more in the beartrap/trollfest/donut party. You don't think that just because this stuff is hidden, it all is, do you? Still, these two messages (and reply threads) won't be "embarrassing" DK by being visible to the public:
Incident: 'Ace (or: why not drag BK into this just for kicks)'
Incident notes: I/P, pure and uncut (0/12/2, 3/9/4)
Diary notes: beartrap
User notes: TU, called out in diary
HR notes: logic schism, logic fail, logic puzzle, pie fight
Disposition: I/P, AYCMAR Status: squatters, open
Often the 'topic' of conversation in I/P country flies back and forth between legal and humanitarian grounds, as often as necessary to keep the other side from ever making a point. Shout out to Meteor Blades for making an appearance in the threads, and providing yet more on-the-fly rulings on moderation. Perhaps some enterprising TU could give us a blockquote in comments. Debate will remain on what constitutes a "viable Democrat", I think.
Now, for another "bad word" issue, this one with a bit more succinctness (but still not all that much; check the threads):
Incident: '(HR)is'
Incident notes: C word in a fem diary - D'oh! (0/5/3*)
Diary notes: Ed Shultz returns (the second one), Feminist
User notes: TU (HRd "See you next tuesday" (22/1))
HR notes: but then doubled-down
Disposition: C Status: modernity, open
As indicated, I've replied in the thread, but before I saw the 'next tuesday' reference, and didn't realize the person I was replying to was the one who had said it.
Here's another of those 'meta meta' incidents, (but then, aren't they all?):
Incident: 'Suckers'
Incident notes: soap opera and pie fights (0/5/3*)
Diary notes: Meta (see below)
User notes: TU
HR notes: glazed (also 15/4, 11/1, etc.)
Disposition: CT Status: DFH, open
In the most obviously successful purposefully divisive CT-paranoia spawning diaries, we have this:
Here’s my point. People are suckers and shills can be very smart. They will list fake affiliations. They will link to bogus websites in which they are listed in ‘official’ positions. They might even come out as the most anti-shill folks on the site.
Now that's a bit CT-inspiring; a deep paranoia is induced by that kind of thing. Still, the diarist is right in the end:
So…next time you are reading DKos, and you hear someone suggest that someone else is a secret shill, just know that the person making the claim is just like the ‘expert’ at the local antiquities shop. That is, they are either lying or deluded.
I rec'd that diary. Not coincidentally, willibro scored a (2/6) on a reply in the tip jar thread.
Several other Kossacks can't help but tease the feminists:
Incident: 'The Peanut Gallery and Ed'
Incident notes: PC Feminism, civility ALL (6/46/14, 0/21/9)
Diary notes: Ed again - Breaking
User notes: 2, both newbies
HR notes: must I? One was the C word and one was just... sad.
Disposition: 14 Status: Old Friend, open
The disposition is the estimated age of the newbies, and the status is an enigmatic reference to the diary author.
Back to the new center ring of the big pie fight, which seems to have moved from I/P to 'shills':
Incident: 'Return of NLF #2'
Incident notes: CT and pie fights (1/22/6)
Diary notes: Meta, semi-anti-shill, semi-pro-paranoia
User notes: TU, troll hunter (old guard)
HR notes: cost his buddy some mojo, too, for the uprate
Disposition: JA Status: pie=>face, open (mouth)
When you get a pie in the face with an open mouth, you are bound to swallow some whipped cream.
I think I might need to come up with a special abbreviated/overview "pie fight" format to more easily report on these 'center ring' diaries. Last week it was 'GBCW-ish', earlier today it was the 'beartrap' diary, now it is this 'Shills' thing. I never realized before what a stunted view of DK the non-TUs must have, with all these dead threads continuing to spawn dozens of little scuffles and sprinkles of frosting all over the place. You only get the highlights just looking at the hiddens. But then again, they aren't really highlights, they're lowlights. Some spot where somebody got caught out in the open without anyone from their team around to uprate. Once the contest is too far to one side, they hold their ammo (to avoid the risk of losing mojo by coming out short on the rec/HR contest) and some poor schmuck ends up here.
Until I think of something, though, I'll just keep doing them record by record as I have been. Maybe there will be a cut off, and once a certain number of hiddens or incidents happen, I will publish the actual diary name, maybe even a link. I'd say 'let me know what you think about that in comments', but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work anyway. You people are a loyal audience, but a very quiet one.
Something mundane:
Incident: 'sheds (or: building spam)'
Incident notes: commercial spam tip jar (0/20/1(24))
Diary notes: commercial spam (reposted by "Trolls" group)
User notes: newbie spam troll
HR notes: why do they bother?
Disposition: spam Status: Admin, open
Account should be deleted, unless the spam-trolling diary is, at least.
And then right back to the pie fight:
Incident: 'Another abusive, retaliatory, stalking HR'
Incident notes: pie fight, stalking accusation (0/7/3)
Diary notes: 'Shills'
User notes: TU, anti-DFH
HR notes: LotF
Disposition: tsk Status: meh, open
Nice use of "why are you hitting yourself?" technique. And by "nice" I mean "reprehensible".
It is really a shame when otherwise rational people are gripped by Obamaphobia:
Incident: 'Only Teachers Know'
Incident notes: identified diarist as troll (0/7/3)
Diary notes: repost of pointless contentious whining (tip jar 521/2)
User notes: HRd tip jar
HR notes: HR abuse, but they'll never believe that
Disposition: YBT Status: eviscerates?, open
The disposition (YBT) stands for You've Been Trolled. All 521 of the Kossacks who sided with a random biology teacher in a long ranting hate-fest against the Secretary of Education on vague, vaporous grounds have been trolled. Suddenly the people trying to make progress are at fault not just for lack of progress but for the very need for their to be progress. And boy is it easy to throw someone under the bus just by saying they're "Obama's" something-or-other. Divisive diary with zero content, but what's more fun than bashing the establishment?
&&&
Now for the other side of the trivial pie fight:
Incident: 'Dip it (or: Dip it good)'
Incident notes: personal insult, trivial (1/5/0)
Diary notes: Presidential picture diary
User notes: TU
HR notes: All the President's supporters are reality based,
Disposition: oops Status: reality, open
The thread indicates the TU who was hidden is a familiar character.
