If I’m correct it’s against the site rules to call someone a troll.
I have found there are some users who just comment on posts to troll. They respond in various threads in an attempt to aggravate and derail conversations. This happens to me and I feel drawn in.
I think it would be useful to identify someone as a troll. The way things are we need to engage with users assuming they are good intentioned. I feel just being able to label a user a troll would limit this behavior. Just being able to say it would end a lot of the derailing IMO
unfortunately I think that it became a cultural thing in this forum. not trolling per se, just something people tolerate: people like to derail almost any post and don’t stay on topic. I agree with you its frustrating and annoying.
Haven’t you ever heard the saying, “Don’t feed a troll”? If you’re so easily drawn into what you believe is trolling, isn’t that something you should deal with first?
If you think someone is trolling, flag offending posts or PM mods to explain your reasons for thinking so. We’ll evaluate the situation and decide what if any action should be taken.
I don’t think so. It sounds like a recipe for derailing. What if someone decides you’re a troll? The approach I outlined above (and which has been in practice here for a long time) is better, IMO.
I meant just being able to say it. I think it would end instead of create new ones. If someone thought that about me, I’d welcome them saying it and not respond.
I have done this… But lately I feel some people disagree with you in one thread then comment on everything in other threads. It’s obvious to me but it’s not easy to see for the moderatators.
I’m just giving my opinion, you don’t need to accept it
It sounds to me like you just don’t want to read comments that you disagree with, or that disagree with your POV.
There are tons of threads here where people talk past each other, go off on what appear to be tangents, etc. This is especially true in the Politics threads.
I think what you refer to as “trolling” is often just people disagreeing about something and making points that the other person doesn’t find persuasive.
Under what you’ve proposed, everyone would be calling for everyone they don’t like or don’t agree with to be labeled a troll. And for what? There are only two outcomes: it won’t have the intended effect (because who cares about being labeled a “troll”?) or this place will become an echo chamber.
You might not, but others might. I don’t see how this kind of special exception to our established rules could help
If you did it wouldn’t go anywhere, it’s just commentary on the issue. Maybe you could consider just ignoring things that you don’t feel are worth responding to. I do it a lot!
Well, you can make a case to us, if you feel it’s easy to see, and we’ll consider it. We won’t necessarily agree with you, but we think about this stuff a lot and go to some lengths to keep trolls off the board when we think it’s warranted. It’s a nearly constant battle, in fact.
I know, cheers! I strive to respond to issues raised here.
I’m saying if people have a disagreement, one user sometimes follows them to other threads and constantly trolls them. Even outside the IP thread in unrelated issues. They push the boundaries of trolling without being able to be flagged.
I think just saying I’m not going to respond troll would be enough for me.
But I’m going to follow the rules. For the record I’ve never put anyone on mute before.
I have never tried to troll you, you might have a different opinion. I have also felt that others were trolling me (not you, that I recall, you’ve always seemed genuine to me), so I understand that it is frustrating when mods rule against us
Shout out to @Mick. Sometimes I’m annoyed but man I wouldn’t want your job
I think you making this change is better than Forumosa making your change. But thank you for not muting me. I’m sorry if I have appeared trollish
Thank @TT, I have been wondering about if it were possible or desirable for posts in politics to first require verification of a real person. That way people would be less cavalier about trolling and would make it more difficult for the smurfs on the forum. Not sure how much support that might have.
I think it should only be available to TL2 members and above. There is no reason for anyone to join a forum about Taiwan and immediately head to US politics.
Why even have a US politics forum here? There are tons of places to discuss US politics online. Does a community for expats in Taiwan really to be one?
From what I see, the people who post incessantly about politics and flood discussions with the same tired rants and talking points (on both sides of the political spectrum) mostly seem to be people who (I think) live in the US.
It used to be all International politics until it became apparent that International politics was so utterly dominated by people talking about the US.
There is nothing wrong with US politics, but there do seem to be a few who have little to no connection to Taiwan. Every country’s politics is mentioned to an extent.
No, it just made sense to split them as some people may be interested in one and not the other, and they can control the content they receive more finely.
Why not try to improve the monetization strategy? Based on what I see in terms of ad volume and placements, there’s a lot of room for Forumosa to increase its yield.
If you increased the yield, maybe reducing the pageviews from politics wouldn’t hurt so much.
