"Committed, businesslike trolls" gives a funny visual image. Furry guys in little suits and serious expressions.
Clinton was 10 times worse!
Oh... wait... sorry. Wrong thread.
Once again I point out that the only proper response to trolls is to ban the fuckers.
Anyone have a link to Ben w-lfs-n's Metafilter essay on trolling? It was on MeFi, I think. Might be instructive in evaluating the nature of these trolls.
See, 5 gets it exactly wrong. There's a real difference between trolls and good-faith disagreement. And it's really not usually that hard to spot.
Not to mention that trolling actually inhibits, rather than enabling, productive debate and discussion.
I actually read the comments of dozens of blogs, and comment on a few. It certainly seems strange to me that I see "Specialist" only at TAPPED, and Fred Jones and Captain Toke only at Ezras.
I do think there is some coordination.
"Businesslike" is exactly the right word for Specialist. There's a definite sense of clock-punching there; no true joie de troller.
The only effective tactic in dealing with trolls is to ignore them.
USENET 101
If reading the comments of many blogs seems like crazy time-wasting, well it is, but Atrios or Kos or FDL are not among them. Only at Unfogged do I enjoy the 400+ comment posts. Most blogs run at most a couple dozen comments per post.
There's a real difference between trolls and good-faith disagreement. And it's really not usually that hard to spot.
I think this is true. Compare Tassle Loafered Leech yesterday and abc123 of long ago. I don't think their substantive views were all that different, but TLL actually reformulated and rethought things, even if only a little, and a committed troll never does that, and never concedes a point.
Part of the power (and danger) of blogs is that when a bunch of like-minded people get together and discuss, they tend to become more convinced of more extreme views--liberals get more liberal, conservatives get more conservative, etc. That sucks in some ways, and you get polarization and what-not, but it's also one of the ways that blogs act as a powerful too for motivating people to actually do stuff. I think trolling disturbs the echo chamber effect and makes blogs much less effective that way, so it would make a lot of sense for smart opposition to pay people to troll.
That trick never works. </Rocky>
Seriously, everyone knows not to feed the trolls, but outside of a very tight community, it's impossible to carry it off, and if there's more than oe, they'll just talk to each other. I don't think there's a better solution than moderation.
What would the job req look like? I'd love to read that. "Must be small-minded and vindictive. An ability to cling tenaciously to logical phallacies is required."
For that matter, imagine the c.v.'s: pages and pages of dot-matrix printouts of Usenet flamewars with a paperclipped photo of the applicant using a sharp stick to jab at a caged and sickly animal.
Plus references from former co-workers confirming that yes, you were in fact impossibly and unbearably irritating to share an office with.
I wonder what kind of salary a good troll can pull down?
See, 5 gets it exactly wrong. There's a real difference between trolls and good-faith disagreement. And it's really not usually that hard to spot.
I don't understand how my linking to a Hannah Arendt essay amounts to a confusion between trollishness and good-faith disagreement.
"Please provide no fewer than three references who will slam the phone back into its cradle at the mention of your name."
17: These are conservatives with money we're talking about here, Brock. They're going to pay piecemeal and have a big sign up where the coffee machine used to be in the break room that reads THIS AIN'T NO UNION SHOP.
18: That did puzzle me as well. Although, you know, so did your link a bit.
I wonder what kind of salary a good troll can pull down?
The RNC pays me $8/hour, with a bonus for every person who stops commenting in a huff because they can't stand arguing with me. It's not a lot, but I make my wife work 12 hours a day in a nail salon so I can have beer money, so we make do.
But you're not a very good troll, Idealist.
Seriously, everyone knows not to feed the trolls, but outside of a very tight community, it's impossible to carry it off, and if there's more than oe, they'll just talk to each other. I don't think there's a better solution than moderation.
That's because trolls are providing something we want; the opportunity to show how much more right we are. Yeah, if there are two trolls monopolizing things that's a problem. If there's one troll monopolizing things, you probably need moderation. But, in general, I think trolls go away or moderate their claims when people ignore them.
But you're not a very good troll, Idealist.
Oh well, there goes my self esteem.
Eh, we're small-time. Not worth pulling out the big shot super-annoying trolls for.
Eh, we're small-time. Not worth pulling out the big shot super-annoying trolls for.
So we all suck. Comity! (I guess).
25: Check out the TAPPED comments and tell me if you think DNFTEC is going to work there, assuming the usual level of people who can't avoid engaging.
18: That did puzzle me as well. Although, you know, so did your link a bit.
I was trying to indicate that Arendt's argument would be relevant: the destruction of public discourse being a necessary, though not sufficient, prerequisite for totalitarian control.
Purely on a personal level, I largely stopped commenting at Crooked Timber because of the 'trolls'.
Although Crooked Timber, while an annoying comment section, seemed to be populated mostly by people who were genuinely arguing. I would have felt really paranoid suggesting they were being paid; TAPPED, on the other hand, has me wondering.
I've believed for a long time that certain people are trolls. Shamelessness and incapacity for embarassment are one sign. They aren't trying to win arguments at all; if they can disrupt and derail they win.
If ignoring works, good. It usually doesn't. "The only way...." doesn't always work. All you can do is delete, banning doesn't work either.
I spent a year trying to convince Kevin Drum to delete his trolls, and he adamantly refuses. At any given time he has 2 or 3 regulars.
My guess is that they're sincere wingers who enjoy the game and aren't paid much. $100 a week for stuff you do after work or during odd hours adds up to some nice change, though.
The Republican machine has tons of money and likes dirty tricks fine. And blogs are no longer a marginal phenomenon. They're a big part of the game now.
Atrios is a zoo of silliness, but there are some sharp people commenting on Drum and Yglesias, and without the trolls I've had some interesting, productive conversations there.
25: Check out the TAPPED comments and tell me if you think DNFTEC is going to work there, assuming the usual level of people who can't avoid engaging.
Be honest, though. Over at TAPPED, a significant minority of the people with whom I agree are irritating and moronic, and effectively function as trolls who repeat the same three things they read at Atrios over and over again. Can't blame all of it on anti-Dem trolls.
Never explain with conspiracy what is adequately explained by stupidity, I suppose. In a way, I'd be tickled if they were paying for something that I strongly suspect they could have for free.
Maybe somebody should host the Troll Olympics somewhere, as a kind of system for finding the finest, most talented, trolls. I can think of the events now:
Thread Derailment
Threatening Legal Consequences
Creepy Insinuations of Personal Knowledge About Target
Non-Sequiteuria
Impressive Sounding Links to Bogus Data
Bizarrely Cultish Loyalty to Obscure Political Movements
Sock-Puppitry
I've been reading the comments at TAPPED for the last couple of days
There's your problem right there.
I think that's already happened, Timothy, but it may have been a usenet phenomenon. (Not that I was on usenet, but I've seen references elsewhere.)
18/30: My bad. I read the point as being that banning trolls amounted to stifling argument. Probably b/c I'm just so used to hearing that particular anti-banning claim that I just expect it to come up.
The ignoring thing only works, as LB says, if you have lazy trolls and a tight-knit group of regular commenters. All it takes to get out of control is one troll who sticks around long enough to bring others in. Eventually someone is going to lose their temper, and then you've got a mess.
Ban, ban, ban, I say. On the other hand, you also have to argue with your regulars when they start coming up with the easy pat arguments, as Ogged points out, in order to avoid the echo-chamber thing, which is so dull it makes one want to give up blogging.
"An ability to cling tenaciously to logical phallacies is required.>
ATM, although what a logical one looks like is unclear.
I think the trick is that you have to do the "I know it when I see it" approach to banning -- ban trolls rather than dissent.
Barring the one-day eruptions of silliness we've had here when someone poked a stick into a wasps nest, we haven't had anyone I've even thought about banning here since I've been one of the bloggers, barring that poor loony who stalks Kotsko and others. But I think TAPPED really needs to clean house.
36: Well, we know who would win event #2.
Also, you forgot Outing and Getting People Fired.
36 forgets Typo Hunt and Condescending References to Tenth Grade Intro to Logic
Construction of Straw People
This could be fun -- sort of like the grade-school bridge building contests, where the teacher puts weights on your toothpick bridge until it collapses, right?
It would be a lot of fun if we each chose a new handle and picked a right-wing blog to troll for a week and talked about how it was going here. But the few right wing blogs that I check mostly don't have comments. I could troll Hewitt; that could be awesome.
46 - Or we could run our own Trolympics. Everyone could pick an event, troll a conservative blog and then a figure-skating-type panel could decide who takes the gold, silver and bronze in "Thread Derailment," &c.
Wanna bet the response destroys Unfogged?
you do realize you are only a step away from suggesting moving alt.religion.kibology to the blogosphere, right?
just saying.
You guys are such pansies. This would be awesome. And I wouldn't do it as Ogged, for crying out loud. I was thinking something like "Major Tom."
If Labs were here, he'd tell me to do it.
40: pwned.
I guess a logical one, in the engineering sense, would be one that doesn't really exist except as a placeholder; viz, running two network segments off the same physical NIC with a logical subinterface. There's probably a way to turn that into a really complicated and unfunny castration and/or strap-on gag, but that's a lot of work to cover for a simple typo.
Actually, slol, the right-wing group blog Scrutator revealed itself as a having been a spoof a little while ago. The joke was kinda lost on me, since I never visited the place, and I doubt it had much of an impact on the lunatics taken in, so I'm not sure that the effort was worth it, but they did keep it up for an impressively long time, so there's....that.
53 -- but the Republicans have operatives here -- they would probly rat you out.
Dude, I totally think you should go for it. How bad can it be? Labs only got essentially outed by a guy whose main enthusiasm is anime.
running two network segments off the same physical NIC with a logical subinterface
You just made this up the way writers used to make up technobabble for Star Trek, right?
55: That was a typo? I thought it was an oblique reference to the ToS.
We could all follow ogged as he counter-trolled, as part of a covert Counter-Trollpakk. [And yes, that's spelt right; it's Norwegian. My Viking blood wants to disemvowel something, preferably with a large battle pen.]
59: No, seriously.
60: Damn it, I knew I should have kept my mouth shut and let people think it was as intended.
You just made this up the way writers used to make up technobabble for Star Trek, right?
Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!
Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!
Are you mad? You'll destroy us all!
The indjuns willna take it, cap'n.
Fine! Ask Becks if you don't believe me, but one day ye, too, shall need to run parallel networks and you won't believe it when someone suggests a logical subinterface and you'll be too cheap to buy a second NIC and then you shall rue the day so hard.
you shall rue the day so hard
You don't really want a hard roux, though.
The injuns may not like it, but they'll have to get used to it. That's manifest destiny for you.
Okay, I must now confess that I have no idea what we're talking about.
re: 70
The trolls have done their work....
In this case, I think I trolled myself.
70: surely that isn't traditionally a hinderence at unfogged?
That's it. I am demanding design docs for an improved Unfogged platform from all future trolls.
In this case, slol, I think explaining would be more cruel than not explaining.
I dwell, then, in blissful ignorance. You should visit sometimes, the weather's pretty good.
I endorse 32, 34, and 39. 33: LB, have you checked out Thomas's work at CT? He's relentlessly intellectually dishonest. He's certainly not arguing in good faith, though he's skilled enough at what he does that I think he does it for fun.
Anyway, the question of sincerity is besides the point for me. When a commenter keeps bringing up irrelevant and stupid points, the same ones over and over, it seriously disrupts the discourse. (This is true even if it wasn't a deliberate strategy. I raised my blood pressure the other night by reading that thread, which is why I'm a bit het up about it. FWIW, my guess is that Bird is doing it on purpose and the other two aren't.)
And you guys are so completely making it up. Nothing can convince me otherwise.
You folks (the corporate *you*, all you latte drinking volvo driving lefties) are confusing two different activities:
1. Discussion, or argument. This is something only over-educated liberal elites do; and
2. Testifying to one's faith. This is what normal people use words for. Of course it is repetitious. Any deviation would be heresy. It's not just coincidence that deviation and deviance spring from the same root.
80:Schneider says it all. We need to study techniques of deprogramming rather than facts for use in dialectic. Hmm...now that I mention dialectic I am sure some smart Marxists or post-moderns have considered this question. Probably need to wait for ass-starvation, incite the Revoltion and sharpen the guillotine.
Guillotine. Guuuuiiiillloootttiinnne.
Did I actually write "ass-starvation" Place is a bad influence.
I am, in fact, drinking a latte right now. So fuck y'all.
And I'm totally up for trolling the right wing. Bwahahaha. I've been entirely too reasonable and not nearly bitchy enough lately. But my adventure in automobile retrieval has sharpened my edge, and I'm looking for blood.
Trolling the right wing is a mistake.
I'm serious in suggesting that the right's approach to political discourse is like testifying to one's faith. It's not a matter of thought, or analysis, or reasoning, or any of the other post-enlightenment attributes of discourse.
It's a matter of suffering any opprobrium, any torture, for the sake of one's principles. Martyrdom is good, whether it involves lions or being laughed to scorn by the unbelievers. It's identity politics.
Until those on the right change who they are, there's no possibility of changing their beliefs. On the other hand, to the extent that Dr. B can literally be the Lion of Judah liberalism, it's all to the good. Bon apetit.
Well, of course it's identity politics. Which is why they'd be so easy to troll. All you'd have to do would be present, like, logic and evidence and shit.
There are right-wing threads where bright, well-meaning people try very hard to think matters through; and take thoughtful challenges with good grace [with the occasional outburts of idiocy, of course]. Examples: Bainbridge, Cowen, Djerejian, Drezner, Kerr, Mankiw, Volokh.
The problem is that their starting premises are so different that it's easy to take their informal phrasing for ranting. E.g., some of the above really believe that American society would be better off without an estate tax or a minimum wage; and have thought-out reasons for both views.
For whatever it's worth, their commenters find it just as hard to credit good faith in Paul Krugman, Crooked Timber, Brad DeLong, etc. For the same reasons, I suspect.
with the occasional outburts of idiocy, of course
Which absolutely never happen around here.
some of the above really believe that American society would be better off without an estate tax or a minimum wage; and have thought-out reasons for both views.
We sure are playing fast and loose with the phrase "thought out" these days.
"I got mine" is a thought. Not a nice one, but a thought.
Except that Bainbridge, Drezner, Djerejian, and arguably Kerry have all turned on Bush. Drezner before the '04 election; I'm not sure about the others. Cowen's orthogonal to the wingnuts--there is at least as much in what he says that they won't like as that they will. Mankiw doesn't seem crazy (nor does Samwick), and I think there are a lot of places that Dems might well either agree with him or concede merit to his argument.
Volokh is bright and thoughtful, but basically of the same metal as a Randoid: entirely unconnected to this world. Which is why he is, IIRC, pro-torture. He's a nutter, and so are his commenters.
The honest truth is that we're better at this stuff than they are. It may be simply a matter of having been the dominant ideology for sixty years. But they don't have the tools to handle the job. And most of the people you've cited have, in at least some areas, acknowledged that.
arguably Kerry
What's arguable about it? He ran against him in the general election didn't he? Are you suggesting he was a double agent?
78: Anyway, the question of sincerity is besides the point for me.
87: For whatever it's worth, their commenters find it just as hard to credit good faith in Paul Krugman, Crooked Timber, Brad DeLong, etc.
I'm with MW. The question of good faith is unimportant. I don't really care so much about motives, or character, or past misdeeds, or all the other forms of ad hominem argument. I'm sure that lots of people are absolutely sincere in their evil faith - but it's still evil.
I wish I knew how to change faith; how to affect those who have perfect faith, and are thus perfectly unconcerned with actual, like, logic and evidence and all that. It's a cultural thing, I'm sure. Maybe it's time for the long-headed people to roll on in and exterminate the round headed people.
Once again, at work all day and browsing the used bookstore all night, so I missed all the fun. Anyhow, didjya ever notice that a lot of right-wing trolls go by one, uncapitalized, diminutive "regular American" name? I'm thinking of "steve" on CT, "bud" (and later "bud jr.") on a local site called MNSpeak, and a guy I used to bait on the local indymedia site who went by "bill." Now, I'm not arguing that this means they were all paid operatives of the Scaife foundation, but it just seems interesting that a naming convention like that would arise organically in the trollosphere (or more accurately, trollocube ). If I was not so worn out from staying up late last night mocking business school graduates, I would think of a clever cultural studies explanation.
A couple of ways in which this proposed Trollympics would be like the official Olympics:
-The color commentary would be overtly nationalistic.
-Every US medal would be touted as proof of the superiority of American capitalism.
-Home Depot would find sinecures for as many of the US competitors as it could.
No, good faith matters. Not because I give a shit about motive, but because a good faith argument is one that can actually be engaged and pursued.
... a good faith argument is one that can actually be engaged and pursued
True. However, that assumes the existence of an argument. I'm disputing that assumption. A good faith testimony of belief may look like an argument, it may have statements that look like premises and conclusions, and yet not be an argument.
Perhaps what I'm calling a good faith testimonial is what you'd call a bad faith argument. However, I don't think its really a matter of good or bad faith. I think it's a matter of which universe of discourse one lives in. For those who live in the faith based universe rather than the post-enlightenment evidence based universe, there's just no shared language or frame of reference within which to argue. There's truth, and belief, but those don't arise from reason or discourse. They arise from opening one's heart to Jesus, and there's no arguing with that.
In other words, I don't think it's bad faith argument, it's a failure to communicate as the warden said in Cool Hand Luke
58 What the hell? Someone outed labs? That's heinous. And it shows that I need to get Unfogged in the email digest form when I'm away fighting the man. And Ogged, welcome back to blogging.
