this ignores the fact that trolls and bullies systematically pick on people who are vulnerable and target their specific vulnerabilities. Telling people to just ignore it is equivalent to telling them that their injuries don't matter and you're not interested enough to help, and can't think of a single suggestion to do anything the problem they're experiencing. That is an implicit endorsement of the idea that aggressively trolling other people is basically acceptable.
No, it's equivalent to giving them a toolset to make many attempts at injuring them unsuccessful.
I'll be the first to admit that "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" is a porous filter. But removing it because it's not perfect only makes people more vulnerable. Rather than finding a way to address things that make it through that first-pass filter, now the new solution has to fix everything at once. (As we've seen, you've already established that partial fixes are unacceptable.) Good luck finding a solution.
> Telling people to just ignore [...] is an implicit endorsement of the idea that aggressively trolling other people is basically acceptable.
Telling someone that life involves exposure to things they might not like and they're going to have to find ways to deal with it, is in no way an endorsement of those things. All it is, is not coddling.
If aggressive trolling is occurring, the trolls should be punished appropriately, but in the meantime, the intended targets should do what they can to prevent escalation.
Once you suggest a mitigation strategy that doesn't have laughably bad cost/benefit in comparison to teaching coping mechanisms, I'm all ears.
Until then: stop telling me to "do something." I can't figure out how to fix the world for you, rise to the occasion yourself. If you do find it, it'll be easy to convince me to join.
And, perhaps, depending on the forum and the degree of confidence that you have the whole story, one should take action against the bullies.
We can keep using "troll" for people who are saying things to get people riled up [http://www.flamewarriorsguide.com/warriorshtm/troller.htm].
But we need to call people who pick on others "bullies".
As for scum who post threats, email pictures of dead people to their family members [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Catsouras_photographs_co...], etc, we may need a third word. I can't think of a good one -- is there something like "pervert" but without the sexual overtones? Maybe "thug", although that also might not be the best choice? "Stalker" is used ironically too often. "Scum" sounds too over-the-top.
When the target is an online community, I use the term "attacker" in the infosec sense.
When someone sends threats, I think the best term is "harassment."
That doesn't seem very relevant though; modern day Dutch language speakers have absolutely no such association with that word — the word it came from is not in modern use and is unknown to most. Only a dedicated linguist would recognize the Dutch etymology of 'bully'.
I'm always on the lookout for better words to get key concepts across so I'll add 'troll' to my list of terms that need a better descriptor.
[1]: http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/SoftSecurity [2]: http://develop.consumerium.org/wiki/Lowest_Troll
"today, the word troll are both verb and noun, and are applied loosely to any outsider. If you don't like someone's manners, he is a troll. If you don't like a gadfly, he is a troll. If you don't like a philosopher, he is a troll. If you don't like a inquirer, he is a troll. If you don't like a humorist, he is a troll. If you don't like a teacher, he is a troll. If you don't like witches, they are, well, witches and must be witch-hunted. Thusly, from weirdo to witches, from teachers to philosophers, from gadfly to firebrand, from loner to gay, they are all trolls online at your call. Quick spun the guild of killfilers and troll-criers. Anyone who has contrariwise things to say or the manner of saying it is a troll." - "troll ignorance", Xah Lee
http://xahlee.info/UnixResource_dir/writ/troll_ignorance.htm...
Also, to your point our platform eliminates these malicious "trolls" you speak of. By authenticating each user, their real name will be attached to comments which means they are less likely to "troll" if it is attached to their reputation.
This also touches on one of my favorite essays on social software: A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy ( http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html )
In many cases, the community can do an acceptable job of moderating when given the tools to do so. There is often a core group within the community that tries to keep things sane. Back in the days of usenet, we had people who would moderate because they cared about usenet as a whole and their news groups in particular. Shared kill files, honoring their cancel posts... and for the most part, it worked.
Now days there are three different structures of social software that are dominating - and dealing poorly with trolling. There is the "the community does it all" but lacking the necessary tools to moderate. Reddit and Stack Exchange are the two that most obviously fill this domain - community moderators that scale very poorly. On the other hand you've got the "use a third party like discus" to host the comments. And frankly, that which has some significant lack of moderation tools for the people using it. On the third hand you've got the self hosted forums run by a company - news sites often have this. All moderation is done by the staff and that fails horribly in terms of making sure the comments are something that one wants to read.
While the don't feed a troll worked back in the usenet days where the entire community could ostracize the people (or actively remove their attention seeking ways by canceling messages or just not accepting those posts), those moderation tools haven't made it back into today's social software along with the ability to have a site that is able to be moderated by the community and has a strong enough core group to do the moderation without rapid burn out.
Don't feed a troll was an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. It meant much more than just ignoring them, and the tools to ignore them were more available.
Leftists call racists "racists" because under their own set of values that's a horrible thing to say. Imagine if a tech guy was outed as a racist. That'd be the end of his career. Look at what happened to Brendan Eich when it was discovered he doesn't support gay rights.
What they don't understand is that there are more economy sectors other than tech and places other than San Francisco where your life won't be ruined if someone discovers you're a racist. So, real ID is pretty much irrelevant for a big part of the population. That's why it doesn't work.
[1] https://qz.com/741933/internet-trolls-are-even-more-hostile-...
Which is fucking bullshit when you think about it.
they don't explicitly say "we're shutting down because of trolls", but i think the message is pretty clear.
It used to be the case that "flame" was a word people knew, and that flamewars were treated as flamewars. Team "not getting involved" would peel off from the conversation and warn people with positions at stake not to get involved - there was no productive disagreement to be had in a flamewar. The people who couldn't stay away _knew_ they were in a flamewar. Everyone else knew to just let it run it's course. Nobody's opinion who mattered would be dumb enough to be swayed, so we just ignored the flamewar until it burned out.
Unrelated: In same time period, a lot of websites have popped up with content and editorial direction that profit off of the fact people get trapped in perpetual flamewars; maintaining/replenishing their audience by pouring fuel onto the fire. I'm sure this is a coincidence.