Peter Suk
4/22/2005 10:16:00 PM
On Apr 22, 2005, at 4:10 PM, craig duncan wrote:
> Florian Frank wrote:
>> Jon A. Lambert wrote:
>>> Please remove me from your "Ilias is Crazy" email list campaign.
>> This is not a list. It's a private mail you received and forwarded to
>> a
>
> <snip>
>
> I think what might have been objected to (at least i would object to
> it) is any sort of implication that other people's decision about
> whether or not to respond to loons/trolls is not really a decision of
> their own conscience but can be forced upon them by other individuals
> -- including through the mechanism of (presumed) peer pressure.
>
> Can we agree that experience shows that this situation *will* persist
> until virtually all people on this list decide (of their own accord,
> or because they don't mind giving in to peer pressure) that not
> feeding the trolls *is* the wisest course. I would like to suggest,
> though, that no one assume that this decision can (or should) be
> forced on anyone. Only, respectfully, suggested.
There is a seeming dilemma here, but do not give in to fear. It may
seem that, for a language that is growing, newbies will arrive faster
than experienced readers will decide to ignore. So some of the more
experienced readers may fear that the disinformation will persist. But
since people new on a list will either ask a specific question or lurk,
the damage is not as great as it might seem.
The very thing to do is to not fear. Do the opposite of that. It
brought a smile to me to see the tail end of a thread started by an
alleged troll degenerate into a bunch of good-natured nerdy Ruby
language movie-reference jokes. Trolling is just a form of sadism that
feeds on the fear of something we value being unjustly smeared. (And
you can fill in the obvious connections to Star Wars and Harry Potter.
Perhaps I should worry that these things pop into my mind so quickly.)
--Peter
(P.S. And then, after seeing the movie joke thread, I blow it by
getting irate and going nuclear on somebody, in a very un-ruby-lang
sort of way. Mea Culpa. Forgive me. I'm still growing up.)
--
There's neither heaven nor hell, save what we grant ourselves.
There's neither fairness nor justice, save what we grant each other.