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A possible solution to the trolling problem on this news group
Hi! (and sorry for the long post)
I've been giving quite a bit of thought to what has been going on in urc. I have noticed that over the last few years many regular posters have largely dropped out (whatever happened to Waffly Cat amongst others for example) and the group has largely been taken over by motoring/anti-cycling trolls and responses to them, and the amount of discussion about cycling now forms quite a small part of what goes on here. Furthermore discussion from the trolls is astonishingly full of really vile personal abuse of other posters. Additionally a cycling newsgroup is somewhere posters should be allowed (despite what the non- cycling trolls say) to let off steam about the phenomenon (motorists and other motorised road traffic) that most affects the pleasurabilty/ safety of their chosen activity. They should also be able to discuss measures that they think would improve their lives. Yet every time they do, they get met by a torrent of abuse/its or some counter argument about why they should just either stop cycling or just put up with the situation. Imagine if people did the same to people who have been burgled/mugged. No wonder people have dropped out. Some posters advocate the use of kill-files. The main drawback of this is that it doesn't really solve the problem in general. Although you may not see the posts you don't want to see, it doesn't stop the group being overwhelmed with irrelevant/nasty postings so other people can be put off the group. Additionally not everyone uses a news reader with a kill-file facility, or they don't have the technical expertise, or willingness to keep updating it to keep up with new trolls/nym- shifts etc. Additionally it is very hard for non-troll (i.e. pro- cycling) users of this newsgroup not to get drawn into troll-wresting/ winding up even though on the whole we know it is pointless and probably only makes the problem worse. I myself have been guilty of this recently. So what can be done? A) One response would be to moderate urc. Although this would probably sort the problem for the majority there are disadvantages to this: 1) not every one wants urc to be moderated 2) some people actually enjoy engaging with the trolls (actually it can be quite fun winding them up, but it does damage the news group) 3) in addition to the people who don’t like moderation on principle, there are possibly so many motoring trolls (and I’m sure the ones there are could call on others from certain transport related groups, and/or adopt multiple identities) that I’m not sure it would be easy to get a moderation call through B) An alternative response is to just start up an alternative moderated news-group. This however runs the risk of splitting the cycling community into those on one group and those on another So is there some way of leaving urc unmoderated while still somehow enabling people who want to to essentially see a moderated version? I think it would be not too hard to write a program that would run on an appropriate server that did the following: 1) read in all messages posted to urc 2) run these through a filter which passed some, kill-filed others, and passed some through to human moderator (note this does not affect anyone's view of urc itself) 3) sent the messages passed either by the filter or the human moderator through to another new news group 4) Anything posted directly to this new group would also go through the same filtering/moderation process 5) Anything that gets through this moderation/filtering process would also be sent automatically to urc, unless it originated there (since it would already be there!) In other words the new news group would provide a filtered version of urc. Those who don’t want any moderation, or don’t like the way the moderator(s) do their job could just stay on urc as now - they would see everything posted to urc just as now, and urc would function just as now. Other people can switch back and forth between the groups as they see fit. Even posts to the new group would be seen on urc. However those who preferred to see a more cycling related newsgroup would just read the alternative group, knowing that actually anyone on urc would still see their posts. Possibly a scheme of multiple moderators could lessen the burden on the moderator, although an automated "robo-moderator" would help. Multiple moderators would also lessen concerns about who was in charge, although as stated above anyone unhappy with this can just switch back to urc and not miss anything (just gain lots of trolling!) My hope would be that this could satisfy everyone (except people whose only real aim in life is to disrupt urc as a cycling newsgroup). Before investing any time in trying to set something like this up I would be interested in other people’s views. Rudi PS On a technical note I believe there are Python libraries that make dealing with NNTP protocols easy, and there are automated moderator systems like this one http://www.algebra.com/~ichudov/stump/ which should make all this possible reasonably easily. If there is interest I will have a go, or if I find time is short I may set it up as a possible inal year project for our undergradiates. It would make a very good project! But that way it would take rather longer to get going (about a year) My hope would be that this could satisfy everyone (except people whose only real aim in life is to disrupt urc as a cycling newsgroup). Before investing any time in trying to set something like this up I would be interested in other people’s views. Rudi PS On a technical note I believe there are Python libraries that make dealing with NNTP protocols easy, and there are automated moderator systems like this one http://www.algebra.com/~ichudov/stump/ which should make all this possible reasonably easily. If there is interest I will have a go, or if I find time is short I may set it up as a possible inal year project for our undergradiates. It would make a very good project! But that way it would take rather longer to get going (about a year) |
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