(This is from a reply to a diary at docudharma called F*** The Meta
IMO, the mechanics of blogs could be improved. Quite easily, I should think.
Basically, you should give diarists the ability to ban people from further commenting in any particular diary, if they don't think the commentator is being serious. (But only after the offending commentator makes at least one post.) Since some diarists will do so dishonestly, or because they're fanatics or overly irrational,
people who are banned should have the ability to respond, with either the verbiage or the link to verbiage clearly shown in the diary
the banned person should have the opportunity to troll-rate the diarist who banned them
Male, approaching fifty, yikes! Father of pre-kindergartener. Spouse for 15 years. Seattle homeowner by way of music windfall in 1995.
Raised hippie-american by single young welfare mom in Eugene, Oregon. Graduated high school: 1980. Moved to Olympia WA and discovered independent music: 1981. Student/Artist: Olympia WA 1981-86. Record business stuff in Seattle: 1991 - 1999. Presently employed by Allages.net
Opinon: Openleft is pretty good.
Thought for today: Give potential trolls fair warning, then troll-rate without mercy.
Earlier today I did something unusual. I banned a new user. And I screwed up. Usually, I ban a user when they're spamming us, and when you do that, you want everything they posted to go away.
But when someone's just been a troll, you want their comments to remain--and you especially don't want to lose the comments of others who've interacted with them, or simply posted on the same comment thread as them. And so there's another way to ban folks like that. It's not something I do often. And because it isn't I absent-mindedly forgot & did it the wrong way. I'm hoping there's a way to restore what's been lost--I know the data's still there, but if the necessary pointers are gone, there's probably not a trick that will restore things.
So the first thing I want to do is to apologize to those who got passionately and thoughtfully involved, and posted comments that may now be lost in the ozone, due to my own momentary carelessness.
The second thing I want to do is talk about why I banned that user, and about the larger questions of banning in general. I usually am quite reluctant to ban people. I like the ideal of free speech, not just as a constitutional principle, but as a civic one. The cure for bad ideas and bad attitudes should be better ones.
But we all know that doesn't always work. And we all know there are good reasons to limit free speech--if nothing else, then because you can't very well hear anyone if everyone talks at once. It's less of a problem in cyberspace, of course, which is one of cyberspaces big advantages. But still, there is a need for structure of some sort in order to preserve enough coherence for any meaningful signal to get through. Which is why we recognize things like being off-topic as usually being unhelpful, even anti-social or downright antagonistic at times.
In this case, I banned a new user because he showed clear signs of being a troll. A new comment on a newish diary repeated his bellyaching that my diary was bellyaching, rather than providing any solutions. He'd already had it explained to him that not every diary could be all things to all people. That there was nothing wrong with a diary being purely critical. There would be others that were not. And he appeared to be utterly clueless about--and utterly uninterested in--any of my past writings about possible solutions. He was factually impaired, as well. Now it's entirely possible that he was just a bit dense and unpleasant. That he wasn't trying to be disruptive, that he just couldn't help himself. It sure didn't look that way to me, but fine. He could always ask to be reinstated. And I told him that Chris or Mike might see fit to let him come back... in a comment that's now lost to view.
But what about the broader issue? My thoughts--and yours, should you chose to share them--on the flip.
The other day I responded to an entry that pertained to the ratings-bump Obama experienced during the Sotomayor nomination. That comment, which violated no rules, was hidden by a pair of users because they took offense with a single word used to describe the current occupant of the Oval Office. The word is "dictator," and it is the unvarnished truth. Unfortunately, the truth is too much for far too many alleged left-wingers to handle.
The abusers of the rating system are TValley and fbihop. Without offering so much as one word of argument, one challenge to my description of Obama, my comment was hidden for no other reason than the two individuals who troll-rated it found the truth unpleasant. Regardless of whether one agrees with such an assessment of the guy or not, the comment violated no terms of service and did not deserve to be hidden. I request that the hide-rating be annulled and my comment restored to visibility within the thread. I also request more strenuous oversight of the rating privileges so that such abuse is weeded out. Otherwise, we risk this site turning into another Daily Kos.
Given the meltdown in the economy, and the looming presidential debates, treat this as a mental health break, my piece on the primary wars has just been published in Prospect Magazine .
I first joined MYDD in 2004, and was an avid geeky follower of Chris Bowers (in fact I thought he ran the site) but as most of you know the site got a very different reputation during the primary war.
Though it's subbed and simplified for a British publication where the Netroots has to be explained as Blogosphere 101, I you might be interested to read it: in short, through an adversity, it's a paeon to the blogosphere and the possibilities of online advocacy and political campaigning
"In a world of 1s and 0s...are you a zero, or The One?" The Matrix (1999)
The recent line of right-wing attacks on Barack Obama have been to emphasize his popularity and turn it against him by painting him as nothing more than a celebrity -- "an empty suit" was the phrase I heard one pundit use. Right-wing trolls and bloggers have commonly taken to referring to Senator Obama online as "The One." This attempt at sarcasm is a reference to the character 'Neo' from the movie, The Matrix. As they do this, I have to wonder if they realize who this makes them in their self-created Matrix scenario: Agents? Sentinels? If, in a world of ones and zeros, Barack Obama is "The One," what is John McCain?
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