As we start to see more users join, it's inevitable to see trolls (especially low-effort trolls) making more of an appearance and trying to be controversial and noticed.
Best just to scroll past them. They want to spark unwinnable arguments and rack up negative rep. If something seems absurdly ridiculous or inciteful, just move on. It's not even worth down voting.
Way back in the way back we used to call comments like that “flame baiting”. It’s trying to start a fight, nothing more. Forums and BBs I moderated used to technically ban it, but generally the rule has always just been “don’t feed the trolls”. Meaning: don’t comment, don’t downvote, don’t bother reporting. They just want attention, the only thing that hurts them is realizing that this board will ignore them just as completely as their parents already do in real life.
Yes. Back then there wasn't any upvoting or downvoting, so the only way you interacted with a troll is either engage them or ignore them...preferably the latter.
Harassment, hate speech, or any other form of harmful behavior will not be tolerated.
Now, I can't read ernest's mind to determine what he meant by this line exactly, but this kind of mean spirited, bad-faith jab falls under "harmful behaviour" in my book.
i think it's dangerous to be too broad with this definition
harmful in my mind is saying explicitly racist, homophobic, promoting violent, etc type of stuff
i think freedom of expression is something we should not give up easily. in actually harmful speech, i think the pros outweigh the cons. but him saying the word "triggered" is not harmful
but him saying the word "triggered" is not harmful
It implies that being against hate speech and harassment is a wrong opinion and while completely isolated and out of context it might not seem harmful, it's part of a cultural shift towards normalizing those things, and implies that anyone who cares is wrong. Seeing that go unchallenged just emboldens buttholes like that.
If you want to be neck deep in that bullshit, you're more than welcome to join exploding-heads.com. Can we have ONE space online that isn't infiltrated by assholes?
You don't have to be a dick to others on the Internet. You can make that choice. Just because you CAN post hateful shit anonymously and not have to face real life consequences doesn't mean you HAVE to.