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View Full Version : Is it just a matter of time before "trolls" infect this ubuntu forum



Lynceus
May 21st, 2012, 03:26 PM
I really love this forum.
The quick help you get from others, even if it's a question that "everybody" should know, you don't get a retard feeling after it has been answered (at least i don't).
When a discussion is going on 95% of the people stay polite, and try to prove their point with arguments. They don't rant about how stupid everybody is, and that they should get a life.

I wonder, has the forum ever been infected with trolls?
And is it just a matter of time... How would we protect our forum?

I'm not looking forward to the day a Thread "Report Trolls here" comes up

roelforg
May 21st, 2012, 03:29 PM
There are more than enough mods here to prevent that.

zombifier25
May 21st, 2012, 03:32 PM
Oh noes, 4chan will doom us all!
... seriously, we need not worry. Mods are crawling this forum and normal users are reporting posts as we speak. In fact, minus the Unity haters (which happens all the time, for example, the release of KDE4) this is one of the best forums I have ever seen.

Lynceus
May 21st, 2012, 03:41 PM
Yeah it is a good forum. And i think i just saw a "Mod in action" a few minutes ago.
I tried to report a spam Thread located in the beginner talk about 10 minutes ago, at the time it had just been posted. 5 minutes later i checked again and it was already gone (wauw)

Joeb454
May 21st, 2012, 04:16 PM
We're usually pretty on the ball ;)

Trolls are often an issue, but they're usually not around for long either.

nothingspecial
May 21st, 2012, 04:21 PM
Mods are crawling this forum


We are everywhere :twisted:

You can even talk to some us if you like by clicking that big pink link in my sig :)

Dragonbite
May 21st, 2012, 05:11 PM
I really love this forum.
The quick help you get from others, even if it's a question that "everybody" should know, you don't get a retard feeling after it has been answered (at least i don't).
When a discussion is going on 95% of the people stay polite, and try to prove their point with arguments. They don't rant about how stupid everybody is, and that they should get a life.

I wonder, has the forum ever been infected with trolls?
And is it just a matter of time... How would we protect our forum?

I'm not looking forward to the day a Thread "Report Trolls here" comes up

Trolls are inevitable. If you don't have some trolls lingering around it means you haven't reached "the big time", and Ubuntu has reached that a while ago!

Mods are pretty good, but don't rely on them. It is up to individuals to not feed the trolls, report posts (instead of waiting for Mods to find them) and fight FUD with Facts (and a cool head).

While the Mods are good, they sometimes aren't the first ones to come across something and the longer trolls sit waiting, the greater the chance a victim will come by and get all emotional and hot-and-bothered about it (thus feeding the troll).

|{urse
May 21st, 2012, 05:14 PM
Bring on the trolls! Delicious! They taste best after marinated in their own tears. :lolflag:

Dr. C
May 21st, 2012, 05:16 PM
We have a solid team of staff and mods that do a very good job of dealing with trolls. Of course it is also very important for all users to assist them in this task.

Lynceus
May 21st, 2012, 05:19 PM
You're right about "feeding the Troll" Dragonbite

Your comment reminded me about a funny CollegeHumor video about "Not feeding the troll"

Link=> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMEe7JqBgvg

Perfect Storm
May 21st, 2012, 05:23 PM
Trolls are dealt with swiftly. When we see them we'll take actions. It's simple not tolerated. If you see a post that you think the staff should take a closer look at, just hit the report button. If it's a troll we'll take actions. Don't start to argue with a troll, they are best to be ignored. They live on folks reactions, take that away and the troll will starve.

carl4926
May 21st, 2012, 05:27 PM
They may come
And get a swift boot up the backend!

Simian Man
May 21st, 2012, 05:27 PM
Yes mods here will delete posts if they have even an ounce of sarcasm or negativity. It's actually pretty frustrating as I've had posts deleted with good, helpful content and one little joke. This forum is closer to becoming horrible due to censorship rather than lawlessness.

carl4926
May 21st, 2012, 05:32 PM
Yes mods here will delete posts if they have even an ounce of sarcasm or negativity. It's actually pretty frustrating as I've had posts deleted with good, helpful content and one little joke. This forum is closer to becoming horrible due to censorship rather than lawlessness.

Mistakes are easily made.
It's a hell of a job keeping track of all the junk that gets posted. Sometimes it's a lost in translation issue too, not all the staff are native English, but should speak it reasonably well, so they may misinterpret some things.

They'll usually be humble enough to admit it if they do make a mistake too.

KiwiNZ
May 21st, 2012, 08:07 PM
Trolls are fuel for dark side furnaces

roelforg
May 21st, 2012, 08:10 PM
Trolls are fuel for dark side furnaces

Then you need more of them!
Then you'd finally succeed in turning the dark side into the...wait for it...light side!

Dragonbite
May 22nd, 2012, 01:43 PM
Trolls are dealt with swiftly. When we see them we'll take actions. It's simple not tolerated. If you see a post that you think the staff should take a closer look at, just hit the report button. If it's a troll we'll take actions. Don't start to argue with a troll, they are best to be ignored. They live on folks reactions, take that away and the troll will starve.

Don't most trolls do drive-by posting? They either start a post for the sake of generating a heated argument (like blatant mis-information FUD such as regurgitated "arguments" from old Linux that is no longer valid and watch people come in to yell at them) or put in one post in an existing thread to cause discourse (less often)?

wojox
May 22nd, 2012, 01:47 PM
The Forum fights fire with FIRE (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=324421) :evil: :P

alexfish
May 22nd, 2012, 01:58 PM
Another Troll on the run:::


http://s1.hubimg.com/u/940368_f520.jpg

matthew
May 22nd, 2012, 02:01 PM
We have paid close attention for a long time. Here's a thread about trolls that I wrote in 2006.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1032102

PcMojo
May 22nd, 2012, 02:28 PM
Although I'm still relatively new to Linux/Ubuntu, I've been around since the early days of Bbs's and when newsgroups were a new thing. I've found this forum to not only be one of the most helpful, but one of the better "policed" forums. By that I mean that there are many other forums where people will purposefully give advice that will trash your pc. I've had one senior member here that gave me a command that trashed my computer, but it was an error of syntax, not intentional. For newer people, if they are patient and wait for a few more senior members to answer/view their threads, they rarely have a problem. Just as someone mentioned how quickly spam was removed, I've seen postings with dangerous commands in a thread that were removed within minutes. Someone mentioned that this forum is more in danger of over moderation than under moderation, and to me that's a good thing; nothing more than an occasional annoyance. Whereas, the other way around, many people can end up with trashed pc's. When you look at some of the stats on the more senior/active members, the thousands of posts, 99% of which are helping others and not asking for help themselves, the time they put in with some of them acting as moderators as well, it's pretty amazing. It gives me the feeling of, well....Ubuntu! :) As far as worrying about future trolls - we can just use the "report abuse" button for now. If it becomes too big of a problem they can add a cool "flaming troll" icon to report trolls (some of these folks are Linux gurus...which means they can do anything! - It's alleged that senior members levitate behind their keyboards!)

forrestcupp
May 22nd, 2012, 03:51 PM
I've been around here for a long time, and I've seen my fair share of trolling. Heck, I'm sure I've even trolled a time or two in the last 7 years. But it comes and goes. Overall, it's a pretty good experience. But no forum is immune to the occasional trolling.

If you don't think this place has ever had trolling problems, you weren't around in the Backyard days. ;)

forrestcupp
May 22nd, 2012, 03:54 PM
We have paid close attention for a long time. Here's a thread about trolls that I wrote in 2006.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1032102

Hey, matthew. Haven't seen you around in a while. Hope you're doing ok.

matthew
May 22nd, 2012, 04:58 PM
Hey, matthew. Haven't seen you around in a while. Hope you're doing ok.

I'm still around, but not nearly as active as I once was. Primarily because real life has become much more busy (in a good way). Nice to see you, too.

Perfect Storm
May 22nd, 2012, 06:27 PM
Yes mods here will delete posts if they have even an ounce of sarcasm or negativity. It's actually pretty frustrating as I've had posts deleted with good, helpful content and one little joke. This forum is closer to becoming horrible due to censorship rather than lawlessness.

Please use the RC if think you're wrongly treated.

MisterGaribaldi
May 23rd, 2012, 04:26 AM
Re: Is it just a matter of time before "trolls" infect this ubuntu forum


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/af/Cave_troll.jpg

"That's speciesist. What has a troll ever done to you?"

zombifier25
May 23rd, 2012, 06:56 AM
As of the moment of this post a huge wave of spambots has invaded the forum, specifically threads with "vs" in the title.

The introduction of this thread is pretty (in)convenient.

MisterGaribaldi
May 23rd, 2012, 08:00 AM
The introduction of this thread is pretty (in)convenient.

I dunno, I think Lynceus had a good idea. At least we got to discuss trolls.

kdane4
May 23rd, 2012, 12:57 PM
where's Resident Troll? I want him back! :)

Eddie Wilson
May 23rd, 2012, 02:14 PM
Bring on the trolls! Delicious! They taste best after marinated in their own tears. :lolflag:

This post made me laugh today. Thanks.

Bandit
May 23rd, 2012, 02:25 PM
there are more than enough mods here to prevent that.

qft :)