A way to keep out banned members (aka trolls)

twadge_face

I'm in favour of doing something. The extremes of the GHOULS_THIS posts are boring and discourage sensible engagement with an otherwise fairly decent forum.

I think finding the level of posts is the key, though. Would 50 be quite high? I'm a real dip-in, dip-out kinda guy for example. It would exclude all but the most hardcore MSE-ers.

I reckon another approach might be better. What about a delay from signing up to posting on a buried subforum such as the house price and economy board, or a moderator review/permission system?

It's a tricky issue, f'sure.

EDIT: I've softened my stance a bit. Check out mostlycheerful's excellently loquacious post below... ...It IS a tricky issue however!

1984ReturnsForReal_2

mostlycheerful wrote: »

Oh no..........

Ok, I’m waffling, nuff sed.

Do you expect people to read the bit in between?

twadge_face

mostlycheerful wrote:

A marvelously loquacious post

I loved this.

1984ReturnsForReal wrote:

tl; dr

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Too_long;_didn%27t_read

Wikipedia wrote:

People who edit Wikipedia B][I]TF comment: ...or make forum posts[/I][/B probably do so because they enjoy writing. However, that passion for writing often means that what they write is longer than necessary. Sometimes this may be because the writer wants to appear learned. In a related vein, administrator candidates may be judged by how much they have written. Due to these factors, many articles, instructions and especially comments on Wikipedia are longer than necessary. Some of Wikipedia's core policies are considered by some to be too long (e.g. Creative Commons license). This may be considered to put too much burden on the readers to understand. Such a problem can be seen in other applications as well.[3]

According to a famous English playwright, William Shakespeare, "Brevity is the soul of wit."[4] In our modern English, a similar statement would be: "Omit needless words."[5] Editors are encouraged to write concisely, and avoid undue technical jargon. If it becomes necessary to write lengthy text in an article, editors may wish to include a short summary. Additionally, it may be appropriate to use simple vocabulary to aid the readers in comprehension. Many readers may not use English as a primary language, or may have other "unarticulated needs."[6]

In fairness to writers, it is also true that not all loquaciousness is due to pretense of learnedness; often it is just a rough-draft attempt to elucidate the ways that previous arguments or content were (usually unintentionally) specious in their reasoning due to exhibiting a lack of adequate circumspection. The latter is a common cognitive problem for all human minds, which are faced with the task of sensing the many facets of a complex reality and modeling it in a way simple enough for the consciousness to understand and easily manipulate in interrelation with yet other topics. This leads humans toward certain analytical weaknesses that have been explored through observations both ancient (the "blind men and an elephant" problem) and modern (the "map–territory relation" problem; the emic-versus-etic problem). Natural language is inherently well suited to oversimplifying multifaceted topics and poorly suited to circumspect communication without resorting to loquaciousness. The ideal of being able to have adequately circumspect analysis together with ease and brevity of communication—sacrificing neither to the other—is difficult to achieve; it usually requires mental effort, time investment, and multiple drafts (iterations). Thus some instances of loquaciousness are not pure redundancy or nonsense (as they may speciously appear) but rather are simply a rough or intermediate draft that hasn't yet had the benefit of subsequent refinement. Fortunately, information technology (e.g., memory, networking, linking, transclusion) is helping to achieve it by providing a practical ability to allow readers to "drill down" through successive layers of complexity or detail, as selectively as each one may wish.

I read this yesterday. 'Sbrilliant. :eek::cool::T

Good call mostlycheerful. You're right. It's just a laff. I just wonder if GHOULS has run its course? Bit of a one gag (range of?) character (s?).

joolsybools

It should be at least 250 posts before people can post in DT and Debate HPE.

twadge_face

joolsybools wrote: »

It should be at least 250 posts before people can post in DT and Debate HPE.

This is where I'm forced to disagree. It'd change the culture of the forum massively.

Oh here I am disagreeing with my previous agreement.

mostlycheerful

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

Do you expect people to read the bit in between?

Yes, the people with an attention span wider than a nanometre and who have finished ogling page 3 of their Super Sizzling Soaraway Scum, like me, and now want some more superficial inanity to fill up their pea size brains with and to pad out the air and dust and void.

Blah, blah, bleurgh. Nah, just skip to the end, or to the next post, as you did. I put all the rest in just as camouflage. And it was the dried crusty dribble all stuck round my mouth and down my front so as I was picking and wiping it off I chucked most of it in the bin but there was so much of it still left over that I thought it was a shame to waste it and I'm big on recycling so I thought I might as well share the loveliness with y'all. Probably a few hungry carrion vultures around who'll eat anything they can get, even the crunchy pickings from round my gob. So y'all have yerselves a nice day now.

fantasia322

Sounds like a good idea, but would'nt a better idea be just to ignore the trolls. If you don't feed 'em they starve, well thats my theory.
Or are the trolls long term trolls who just won't go away?

twadge_face

mostlycheerful wrote: »

Yes, the people with an attention span wider than a nanometre and who have finished ogling page 3 of their Super Sizzling Soaraway Scum, like me, and now want some more superficial inanity to fill up their pea size brains with and to pad out the air and dust and void.

Blah, blah, bleurgh. Nah, just skip to the end, or to the next post, as you did. I put all the rest in just as camouflage. And it was the dried crusty dribble all stuck round my mouth and down my front so as I was picking and wiping it off I chucked most of it in the bin but there was so much of it still left over that I thought it was a shame to waste it and I'm big on recycling so I thought I might as well share the loveliness with y'all. Probably a few hungry carrion vultures around who'll eat anything they can get, even the crunchy pickings from round my gob. So y'all have yerselves a nice day now.

Also from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Too_long;_didn%27t_read

Wikipedia wrote:

As a label, it [tl;dr] is also effective as a tactic which thwarts the kinds of discussion which are essential in collaborative editing. TL;DR is a shorthand observation very much like the complaint that Mozart's music has too many notes.[2] The label is used to end discussion rather than engaging it.

mostlycheerful

!!!!!!_face wrote: »

I loved this.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Too_long;_didn%27t_read



I read this yesterday. 'Sbrilliant. :eek::cool::T

Good call mostlycheerful. You're right. It's just a laff. I just wonder if GHOULS has run its course? Bit of a one gag (range of?) character (s?).

Cool, yeah, I like a bit of GHOULIES nonsense, I think probably quite a few people do, bit like salt and pepper, not too much but a bit brings out the flavour in other stuff, innit.

'According to a famous English playwright, William Shakespeare, "Brevity is the soul of wit."'

Oh yeah? This from the bloke who wrote about 30 plays and hundreds of sonnets and all sorts and was evidently pretty much a compulsive writer all his life to have churned out that much guff. Brevity, indeed. Yeah, right. If he'd been brief we'd've never even heard of him.

Yes, when I'm interested in something or enjoying it then I want more. I want loads, as much as there is, the whole mountain, right now, all at once, not just one little scoop of dirt.

I quite often research a subject or a story lots and lots and read tons of stuff about it, all of it, the big stuff, the little stuff, other people's comments about it. Then I quite often click through to all the secondary subjects around it, especially with science and history and biography and such like.

Yes, I've got quite a wide attention span for a lot of stuff and I can demolish large amounts of reading at one sitting. So I always prefer lots of choice and plenty and if I want to I'll plough through the whole lot and still want more. If I'm not in the mood or it doesn't hold my attention, well, sure, then I stop and do something else or read something else. But it's always good to have loads of everything available right in front of you. Yes, I always want more rather than less.

The BBC and yahoo news reports, for instance, are often just short summaries and don't give you the meat let alone the veg and gravy and pudding and soup so I often find myself looking elsewhere when I've gulped down their little tidbits. People who only want little bits and pieces can skim or ignore the long stuff, those of us who want the full monty though, come on, gimme gimme gimme. Don't make me have to go elsewhere for all the rest.

Don't just tease now, hand it over, the whole story and all the background and all the sources and everything available. And a list of all the ones like this one. Everything, right now. I'll choose how much I want right now, don't make that choice for me and restrict my access, bu88er that. That's no use, that's just irritating. What, just half a page when I want 10 pages or a 100? Or even three whole books worth. Flipping 'eck, get it together, matey! Don't be a tight @rse. Don't ration me, for flip sake. Oh yeah, keep GHOULIES on the firm, GOOLIES is fun, a delightful bit of silliness and comedy.

twadge_face

fantasia322 wrote: »

Sounds like a good idea, but would'nt a better idea be just to ignore the trolls. If you don't feed 'em they starve, well thats my theory.
Or are the trolls long term trolls who just won't go away?

You're probably completely right. It's finding the balance where you neither stifle discussion with too much legislation, versus stifling discussion through too much trollishness.