Shoutbox Makes Baby Dolphins Cry

[kriadydragon]

I'm going to end up as one of those old ladies yelling at the kids to get off my lawn or something.

I absolutely despise rules not being followed and people getting away with it. It is ridiculous how angry it makes me, sometimes. Dragonopia has this shoutbox that people treat like a forum and the blasted thing is like a car wreck - I just can't look away no matter how much I want to (I'm going to look into if there's a way to hide it or something before I end up participating. Thus far I've had nothing to do with it other than read it while clicking on dragons).

There's this one person in particular that I'm just waiting to see up and vanish because they were banned, and I'm both surprised and annoyed that they haven't yet. I mean, the rules are pretty dang simple and yet this person is breaking every one of them, and I'm pretty sure they're doing it on purpose. They're the kind of person who'd probably walk into a church, tell dirty jokes then tell everyone to stop being such prudes and get over it. It makes me glad I decided not to try out the shout box. We wouldn't have gotten along and... it would have been ugly.

It makes me appreciate journals even more. Your journal, your rules, you're right to tell someone off if they're giving you grief without the frustration of having their "bestest fwiends!" gang up on you, and your right to ban them if they won't stop (not that has ever happened to me, thank goodness).

But, I gotta ask, and this is probably going to open a can of worms, but does anyone have any interesting tales to tell concerning forums, shout boxes and other similar locales? I already know about the Gateworld kerfuffles, especially fans of character A going into the thread of fans of character B and giving them crap. But anything else?

And, yay, I hid the shoutbox! No more pointless annoyance!

Comments

[tj-teejay.livejournal.com]

Well, we had this guy on our chris-marquette.com forum who kept annoying all of us. Not so much because he blatantly broke the rules, but I think he didn't like one of our admins, so he deliberately kept pushing her buttons with things he knew she wouldn't like. And not only that, he wasn't even a Chris Marquette fan. The majority of his posts were lists with DVDs (including cover images) he'd just bought and was looking forward to watching. Few people ever really interacted with him, cause he just didn't have anything interesting or stimulating to contribute, and never posted anything that was specific to Chris (not that we don't talk about other things on the forum). And yet, strangely so, he kept coming back. And at some point we were all getting really irritated with his antics, so we kindly asked him to stop with his deliberate provocations. Needless to say, he didn't take that well. It's kind of a long story, but in the end we had to ban him.

Almost two years later, he registers on the forum with another user name and keep posting his pointless Blu-ray lists. I sent him an e-mail, saying, Hello?! We know who you are, and why do you keep posting things here that no one's interested in when you're not even a Chris Marquette fan? He wrote back a pissed off e-mail, deleted all his recent posts on the forum and kept insulting me by e-mail. It was really quite ridiculous. Every now and then, he'll write me another pointless e-mail, trying to sound smug. I usually just laugh about them. Oh, and he "threatened" to talk badly about us and our site elsewhere on the internet. Uh huh. Right. Like I care...

We also had a bunch of kids once that we had to ban because they were definitely breaking the rules, posting swear words, insulting Chris and some of our users/admins openly on the forum. When that happens, we usually kindly ask people to stop doing it. If they don't, we give them a warning that they're gonna be banned if they don't stop, and if they still keep doing it, we throw them out. And that usually happens quite quickly. From what you said, it sounds like the person who's running that site isn't all that intersted in keeping his/her site troll free.

So, yeah, where random (or not so random) people interact, especially where they can do it relatively anonymously, you're always going to encounter the occasional idiot. I guess withour site, we've been quite lucky that it's not happened more often in the five years we've been running it now. Then again, it's not that highly frequented...

[nefhiriel.livejournal.com]

I'm annoyed at myself for the number of times I get sucked into reading internet dramas. If I don't stop myself, I sit there and get more and more tense with the need to set these people straight. But mostly I think I'm good at stopping myself from actually trying to do so. I've come to realize that there are some people who just enjoy being the center of their own personal soap opera, and joining in is just throwing gasoline on the fire. And, really, who knows what reasons they might have for craving (even extremely negative) attention? Not that knowing they might have a rough life makes it any easier to watch someone deliberately rule-break, and be an online menace. :P

My worst experience with a troll was on FFN (go figure). For a while there was someone who kept on reviewing people's stories with the cruelest kind of comments (i.e. this is so bad, you should go kill yourself). Now, sometimes the stories he/she reviewed really were pretty bad. But I look at FFN, and think of all the young and insecure writers who might be just getting there feet wet for the first time, and a person who goes around doing that to even really bad stories Makes. Me. Mad. No one is making anyone read bad stories. Of course, more mature people who got his reviews--or saw friends get hurt by them--tried to retaliate and fight back. But in such cases the troll just went after all said person's friends, creating a network of more nastiness. I think this troll was deleted several times, and sprang back up under a different account. Hopefully they're gone now... And, thankfully, I was never a direct target (though, by that point, I think I was old enough to recognize an outright troll over a reader with harsh be potentially helpful criticism).

Yes, cyberbullying is alive and well, and so hard to know how to combat. *sigh*

[tj-teejay.livejournal.com]

The worst boards I've been to has been IMDb. Seriously, those boards are riddled with trolls, and the sheer negativity (and stupidity) you encounter there has yet to be topped. I've had several trolls deleted there, but they always come back (either the same people or different but equally stupid ones). Not only do they bash movies or celebs for no good reason (and usually with very ridiculous or no arguments whatsoever). And when you try to meet them with reason or beat them with their own devices, they just repeat the same asinine BS all over again. I've tried. And eventually taken my leave because it just kept frustrating the hell out of me.

It becomes bad when you're personally invested. When you have a true liking for a celeb or a movie, and people attack it or you for no reason, hiding behind a veil of quasi anonymity. And sometimes you just feel so personally insulted that you can't keep your mouth shut. If you remember the debacle over at collarcorner, you'll know that I always try to stay calm and rational, but it doesn't always help. But I have a friend who goes two calm rounds and then explodes, calling people names and utilizing swear words. And once you start doing that, it never ends well. You get the inevitable shouting match, and in the end it's all caps lock and hurt feelings. It can be messy.

In the end, I think the only true recipe is ignoring the tolls, trying to get them deleted or banned if there's a good reason. Like I said above, sometimes you're personally invested and ignoring it makes your heart hurt. But once things become personal, they can get out of hand real soon. It's such a shame that a few jerks out there can ruin so many good things and spoil something that should be fun and rewarding all the way through. At times like that, one should always try to remember that where there's bad, there's usually also good -- and hold on to that.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Wow :( Your situation makes the DO shoutbox seem downright peaceful. Which, really, it is because it's one of those situations where people aren't going to report anyone else unless they're being really aggressive or spamming. People have warned this person to stop breaking the rules, and the person does back off for the time being only to start up again. And, yes, I have to wonder where the mods are at.

I think what really irritates me about this person is that their attitude is that it's all about them. Because it seems like every time they're told to stop what they're doing they always come back with something along the lines of "I don't care what other people think" or "I'll stop when the mods tell me to." It's like the rules don't exist for this person and when anyone tells them off it's just because they're being uptight. And what also gets to me is that some people are actually supportive of this person.

Call me spiteful but I really wish this person would get banned. Dragonopia is for everyone but it's mostly kids that use it, and this person not only likes to swear but be crude whenever they can. All of which is against the rules.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I'm annoyed at myself for the number of times I get sucked into reading internet dramas. If I don't stop myself, I sit there and get more and more tense with the need to set these people straight.

He, yes, my problem exactly. I don't even know how I find half these dramas but I always seem to.

But mostly I think I'm good at stopping myself from actually trying to do so.

The same here... usually. Sometimes I cave and say something but once I do I'm good. Sometimes I just need to say my piece no matter what the response is, not because I'm trying to tell the idiots off, but to provide a different perspective to others who might be reading.

My worst experience with a troll was on FFN (go figure). For a while there was someone who kept on reviewing people's stories with the cruelest kind of comments (i.e. this is so bad, you should go kill yourself).

Yeah, that's something I never liked about FFN was all the anonymous trolling, because the only way to respond was via your own stories. Which, yes, is a great way to out someone being a jerk, but it still sucked having to bring that nastiness to the forefront like that and ruin everyone's enjoyment of the story.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

There are times I'm still a little sore about the whole Collarcorner debacle. What a flippin' mess. I think what really upset me, other than the person being so single minded and rude, was that they managed to get others to boycott the community. I found the person to be rather hypocritical as well, as I recall reading something else they posted about having the right to declare the things you don't want in a story, oh, unless what you don't want is a specific female character because it's anti-woman if you do *headdesk*.

I'm glad I'm somewhat paranoid in my social interactions because it ensures that I think before I act. I have some knee-jerk reaction issues, sometimes, that probably would have gotten me into big trouble if I wasn't also knee-jerk careful. The times I do speak out I thought it over first, and as I said to nefhiriel it was mostly a matter of speaking my piece, not attempting to win an argument. Sometimes I've just got to say something, and when I do, I'm good, no matter what the response is.

But most of the time, I keep my mouth shut, reminding myself that the only direction saying anything will go is toward the worst.

[sholio]

I used to moderate a fairly active message board at Sequential Tart, a women-focused comics news site. This was in the early 00's (from about 2001-2004 or so). It was a fairly polite message board overall, but we did have to deal with trolls, and flame wars, and even at one point one of the members being stalked by her ex, who had made a bunch of sock puppet accounts on the message board in order to harass her. That wasn't fun.

We didn't have very many guidelines, but we were very strict about everyone being polite and respecting each other's opinions even while disagreeing -- we rarely had to ban people, aside from obvious trolls, but there were a few members that we had to send regular warnings to, because it seemed that they just couldn't have a conversation without insulting people. Also, we had to ban discussion of a few topics because people simply could not discuss them without getting into fights -- one of which, as it happened, was fanfic, because the membership was split between people who were vehemently pro-fanfic and vehemently anti-fanfic, and they just. Could. Not. Get. Along. *g* (In fact, the mod team was split 50/50; I was the pro-fanfic mod, and my co-mod was on the anti side.)

I think it was a good experience for me. I learned a lot about conflict resolution, and had a lot of practice at composing and sending polite emails informing people that they'd broken the rules. And I had a co-mod to discuss things with, who could look over my moderator emails (and vice versa) before we sent anything, which served as a good reality check in case I was reacting in anger rather than being rational and polite.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

and even at one point one of the members being stalked by her ex, who had made a bunch of sock puppet accounts on the message board in order to harass her. That wasn't fun.

Oh, wow, that's creepy :( How do you resolve a situation like that? (I've heard the horror stories of people setting up multiple accounts to harass others but never if/how they're resolved).

I think it was a good experience for me. I learned a lot about conflict resolution, and had a lot of practice at composing and sending polite emails informing people that they'd broken the rules.

Yeah. As much as I hated the whole collarcorner situation (which I still feel a tad bitter about from time to time), it was still a good learning experience, not just on being a mod but also on keeping my temper in check when forming my responses.

[sholio]

How do you resolve a situation like that?

Well, I'm still a little reluctant to talk about it in too much detail in an unlocked post, but fortunately it never really went anywhere bad, although it could have. We were very careful to document everything that we did, because we were conscious that, depending on how things developed, it was possible we might need to account for our actions to the police. Mostly, we recorded and saved IP addresses in an attempt to prove that the suspected sock puppets were all the same person -- it really comes down to one person's word against another, when you have one user claiming "this username is a sockpuppet of this other person" and the other person disagreeing -- and we requested that all of them refrain from interacting with each other on the message board. Basically we allowed those sockpuppets whose sockpuppetry we couldn't prove to remain on the board as long as they didn't openly violate our rules, but due to having received private complaints from the harassee, required them not to interact in message threads with her. We had a good track record at that point of using the banhammer very quickly on trolls, which helped in trying to tamp down bad behavior in people who were being more subtle about rule violations.