It's no secret that the fediverse has trolls. Trolling is IMO antisocial and disruptive. We have a few on dbzer0, with one casually saying they have 100 alts. I have to say, I'm unsure how to deal with this. I'm unsure how to deal with someone this dead-set on bullying people, even wanting to recall admins. I have been told this troll probably has ASD (as offensive as that is to me) and that I can't impose my beliefs on others. But I have never banned people for disagreeing with me, my problem was that I and others were trolled and harassed. You could tell trolls things like "please leave me alone" or "stop replying to me multiple times" or even "stop following me" and that does not get actioned because it is not against the rules to harrass people this way. Look at the disengage rule, it doesn't apply to these situations. And try hitting the search button for "troll" on the rules.
I've been told yes these trolls are annoying and disliked by many (if not most) people and yes they drive away people like me from participating at all on lemmy or matrix, but that is not enough of a reason to ban. There are also trolls who report everyone they argue with and use their account solely to argue and troll. I don't want dbzer0 to be known as the place that houses trolls that get anyone who argues with said trolls banned. Report abuse was not ok in other forums, but it is rarely actioned here. The trolls I am talking about have their accounts housed on dbzer0 btw, a place that is not supposed to be freeze peach.
I know many of our users like to tell off right-wingers and libs. That can be fine if it doesn't get out of hand ("kys" is explicitly banned). I could say, let's not allow people to troll, but maybe some only want leftists to not to be trolled. For instance, one group of trolls we have is antivegan. Is that considered an example of leftists that shouldn't be trolled (and I do mean trolled, harassed - not just disagreeing)? Right now, there is a lot of room for trolling all sorts of people. One reason for our zionist rule is because we had zionist trolls that weren't breaking our other rules even though our code of conduct does not allow supporting genocide. Our anti-AI rule was because others were harassing some of our stable diffusion mods. People have been sent nasty PMs as well. You can troll on this instance and get away with it as long as it is not explicitly stated as not allowed in our rules. I have been told it has to be explicitly stated, one of our trolls is a rules lawyer who believes they were given permission to troll before their account was made.
So tell me about your experiences with trolls. How do we fight them? How can we change or add to our rules? Which trolls have been bothering you?
This meta post was finally posted in response to my comment here:
It seems the responses to this are divided between ban trolls so they do not scare people off the site or let users get trolled and decide for themselves to stay and block trolls or leave the site. Perhaps we can get block lists going?
We have legitimate trolls that piss people off and ragebait for fun, that is who I am talking about. But I also agree that if someone says something that they know upsets people and does it anyway, even after being told how their behavior affects others, they would be a troll to continue. For instance, I have not named names so they don't get bullied for being called out and it is up to them if they want to come forward. I have lost count of the number of times I left lemmy because I didn't want to deal with the negativity and inaction. I mean this second quote alone is something I've read too many times like copy-pasted lmao
Yeah, no... I'm not into that at all. A place that welcomes all, including the intolerant, gets run by them. Why shouldn't we try to cultivate a space where many people, even the ones society neglects, feel welcome and contribute to positively? I have too many parts of me that get attacked (woman, lgbt+, racial minority, etc.) for no real reason. We shouldn't have sexists, racists, -phobes, and the fash. Period.
Meh, I'm not afraid of the weirdos or their opinions. Bring one, bring all. I'll block who I don't wanna deal with. Blocking is sooo easy to do, I just don't understand why you want total bans when blocking works just fine.
I mean, no offense, but it sounds like you want the fediverse to be your way or the highway. But the whole point of the fediverse is so not one person can have say over everyone else. That's why people can just spin up their own instances. I have several of my own instances, just so I can do and read whatever I want. I think instances having their different rules on who and why they ban is fine.
I totally respect your opinion, I just don't agree with it.
I think db0 said it best in this thread: "However someone having genuine beliefs which upset you is not a troll. Someone having 100 alts is not a troll. Someone refusing to back down until they’re disengaged from, is not a troll. Someone not being polite, is not a troll."
Keep in mind my post is vague because I am searching for feedback.
I have yet to find an instance without rules that does not ban people, I could be wrong since I am not all-knowing. If someone does not like how the instance is run, they can switch instances and their new identity will not be banned unless there is a pretty egregious breaking of our rules afterwards, this has been suggested before. I am quoting our CoC which prohibits what I am talking about, I was thinking of expanding on it on what is acceptable behavior (my thoughts in this post, trying to nail this down instead of vibes based) vs what is acceptable ideology (current approach). It's fine that you like to experience all that there is, but I think you have a misunderstanding here. We are not a free speech instance. If you disagree with me, you disagree with the CoC. And I don't mean this like this is my petty fiefdom I rule over, I mean that is what our CoC says about racism, sexism, -phobes, and fash. If you still disagree, just remember to follow it on your account.
The Anarchist Code of Conduct
I can unpack this. So, while I think there are some stances that is a troll and meant to incite negativity, I also think think the way a person defends these stances can be seen as troll behavior. Some users need to chill. Instead of troll, I should use different words to describe the problematic behavior, so I will work on this. After some discussions, I may search for a different approach while trying to balance the risk of overreach, but I will leave this post up. I want to keep using this meta community before making any governance posts.
There is some missing context here in that this post is talking about multiple users (who either individually and/or collectively):