Job Discussion Forums

[texastmblwd69]

[Atlas]

You know what's funny?

Beans on toast!




I like how Slashdot regulates its forums. I've mentioned it before. They have a number that goes with the poster's name, and the number is a rating of the user's "karma", which can be bad or good, so you can get an idea of their credibility. I always find it funny when a new user comes on already firing from both barrels, as if he or she has been here before....

Does Dave's invite an inordinate number of trolls, or is it normal for a website? Seems like there is always a couple knocking around. These are people who seem to value winning over truth; either that's the real personality, or maybe it's just a lark. In the real world, there are some people who are simply sociopaths and they are beyond change.

Only a fool or a troll believes they never have to adjust their understanding of the world or admit some limit to their copious worldview!


Free speech: I agree that the internet has great potential for the free dissemination of information (which automatically creates a lot of crap information you have to sift through if you would be free), but the internet is not in fact free. For instance, google has succumbed to the China pressure to block certain websites from their searchlists. For another thing, many people (not nec. myself) would take issue that information should not be free, for example, owners of intellectual property like software developers, music labels and artists too.

Here's my thing: you know how you want to find a fact so you Google some question and just believe the first thing you see? We are becoming more accustomed to trusting and learning what we need to know on the fly. But it's more shallow. I seriously question breadth of historical understanding when consumers are being groomed to care about such trivial things!

[texastmblwd69]

[merlin]

Atlas - nice post. I'll address you since you seem to be the most sincere:

If slashdot org has a list, why not the eslcafe?

People can be free to speak - but I think we should also be free to ignore them. That's what I'm talking about. A list of people who seem to stir up the pot. People with bad internet karma, as you put it.

Such a list in my opinion should be moderator - controlled. As a moderator-controlled list Merlin would have no control over it whatsoever. Unless someone is saying I should be moderator?

We could also have a seperate list for people who see the sky as purple. or green or red or whatever.

peaches: Are you sure you were't looking in the mirror when you typed your post?
Whatever, dude. Have fun.

[Peaches En Regalia]

At 8:44am on Friday November 12, 2004, Peaches En Regalia wrote some elementary (and, outside of fascist circles, wholly uncontroversial) remarks on freedom of expression. On Saturday, Nov 13, 2004 at 6:01 am (i.e., close on 24 hours later), the child Merlin 'retorted' (if it can be called that) with "Are you sure you were't looking in the mirror when you typed your post?"

Peaches En Regalia thinks that this comment is so witty and piercing. Seriously though, leaving aside the hideous misspelling of 'weren't', is that really the best rebuttal this joker - this pseudo-intellectual and self-ordained moderator - could come up with? Does this evince a serious understanding of the issue at hand on the part of Merlin? I think not.

[Stephen Jones]

The slashdot system merely allows people to give high marks to posts that reflect their own prejudices and downgrade ones they don't like.

Slashdot is notorious for its stridency and and most computer programmers I know consider /. the home of partisan (normally anti MS) rants.

[Peaches En Regalia]

[Seth]

ludwig, how many is this now, 12?

[Atlas]

In one day:

[merlin]

Stephen -
That's interesting. Thanks for the alternative view. I was thinking of some kind of moderator-controlled list while what you describe at slash.org is a kind of community moderation.

As I understand it the whole community "rates" a post according to their own biases and as a whole the values (or lack of them) of that community on various issues come through in the form of "ratings". So while there may be a few MS lovers lurking around in the shadows the community as a whole has decided that Bill Gates and all his spawn are the works of the devil.

Actually this is the system I prefer. I've tried (am still trying) to implement this in an EFL context but most people just don't grasp the concept.

Of course, one problem of this solution is multiple usernames to one person, which would of course give some people more than one "vote". Maybe I'll head on over there and see how they deal with the problem.

[mcNug]

I thought a troll was someone who was posting specifically for the purpose of upsetting someone and getting a reaction. I think it's rather obvious who a troll would be and who was merely opinionated.

I don't see how freedom of speech came into the argument all of a sudden. I think someone posting their opinion is fine, no matter how controversial it may be, as that's what forums are for.

It's when someone makes a post with the sole intent on causing harm that we have a glimpse at the troll kingdom.

I think the whole troll thing is becoming like the Salem witch hunt!

By the way, I do like the Karma idea.

[merlin]

[Atlas]

Nobody has the cahones to name names? Ok I will:

TROLLS IN MY BOOK:

RHONDA PLACE
OMG, like who really takes care of poor orphans? You just know she's got a huge profit motive. What a shark!

EXTOERE
I mean like, everything he says is exactly what a 12 year old girl would think was funny. He has no life experience!

ROGER
Seriously? He knows about as much about China as Marx did. I could learn more from a fortune cookie.

KEV7161
If you ask me he is about as real as Shrek's understudy!

ANTHYP
The most egregious kind of troll, the optimistic kind. He twists reality so many ways he's almost Charlie Manson.

TALKDOC
I remember him from a William Shatner forum when his handle was "Phaser Envy". Kept going on about how the Klingon philosophy would supplant Marxism. Incapable of backing up his wild claims with a single fact.

GREAT WALL OF WHINER
What a commie narc!

TEAM PAPUA
Those aren't even his photographs. He stole them from his ayi.

GUEST OF JAPAN
Try, everything he knows about Japan he learned from Zen for Dummies and old Space Giants reruns.

GORDON
Exxon Spin Doctor

CAPERGIRL
Good riddance to young hot women on this site!

DENISE
I CAN"T SPELL DIONYSISSUS! And, she's AMERICAN!

McNug
Watch your back around this guy....

MERLIN
That movie sucked!

jpvanderwerf2001
The giveaway is his impossible to PM name!

LYNN
I happen to know she was banned from the WWF for extreme violent tendencies

SENOR BOOGIE WOOGIE
Remember that "Math or Maths" thing he started? What a calculating Machiavellian!

SINOBEAR
I have it on good authority he HATES BEARS!

PM me if I've left you out!
There are a lot of other trolls like this but I'm talking too much, sorry for omitting them. People like this make the Internet FBI necessary, and if the real people agitated them enough to leave, then the nice normal people could flame each other in peace!

[Sinobear]

Thanks for adding me, Atlas! I was happy to be included in British Bulldog's list of "Those who are more intelligent than me" signature, too!

I don't really hate bears...I just had a delicious panda steak with sauteed gall bladder and stewed paws. Mmmm-mmm good!

Cheers!

[merlin]

Thanks for pointing out the demerits of such a list being in the hands of well-intentioned but emotionally unstable members, Atlas.

Get with the program. Angst is so .... 90's.
What are you going to actually DO with your tortured soul, Atlas? That's the question of the 21st century.

And I recommend the blog in your signature almost as much as I recommend mine.