patrick.net

mostly_reader says

Patrick, you should make TROLLS pay

And who decides what makes a troll, guessing it's you...

Yeah... this won't work. Really not much else to say.

Ever since I have been on Patnet, I have endeavored to become a paid stooge of the Rothschilds, but they have never once given me a penny or given me their contact information. It just isn't fair.

yeah, and how about if I pay I can remove another guy's posts? It may drive him insane (or more so)

In the event the OP was referring to Marcus and Jazz my defense of Free speech would still stand in my first rely.

Boys and girls, chill. Treat it as a thought experiment.

Here's a simple observation: there are contributors who share thoughts. The fact that those thoughts are offensive to some is ok and doesn't matter. There are also "contributors" - those who have no original thoughts but heavily engage in propaganda. How do you tell the two apart?

Let's say it's possible (not bullet-proof, but reasonably reliable). Without jumping into specifics, let's just say that it is.

Free speech is the right approach for a society. It also presents challenges for a private sandbox such as this. Anyone with decent knowledge of scripting can bring this board to a halt by auto-responding to each post by something like "INSERT-A-NAME-HERE SUCKS!" or creating a topic with such title in response to each newly created topic. It's free speech. It's also destructive within boundaries of a platform if the goal of a platform is to promote communication.

This is one proposal on how to deal with this situation. Free speech is preserved. Propaganda is taxed, no matter from which side it comes.

Again, treat it as a thought experiment.

The Ignore button is like magic.

I don't have to listen to ALL CAPS ALCOHOLICS. And neither do you!

Try it, the sound of Leftist Haters yelling and wailing drunk on bottom shelf liquors after they cash their Soc Sec Disability Checks disappears.

mostly_reader says

Again, treat it as a thought experiment.

I'm all for experiments.... dammit NoCoup beat me. Yeah, ignore button. I don't have any current/active users on ignore, but if I didn't like some of the content trolls are posting, I can make it go away pretty easily via the ignore function.

Tenpoundbass says

In the event the OP was referring to Marcus and Jazz my defense of Free speech would still stand in my first rely.

Marcus - no. I don't see any tells. Jazz is consistently using uppercases in his titles. To me it sounds like a tell, sure.

See, these tells may be quite objective.

If someone would want to make my platform a vehicle for their goals, I'd want to tax them. Capitalism is awesome like that.

> those who invited me to use "Ignore" button.
The problem that I'm humoring (and not necessarily just on this board) is not mine. I don't really need to mute anyone to improve my day. But it does exist, and it can't be fixed at scale by "Ignore" button.

mostly_reader says

Marcus - no. I don't see any tells. Jazz is consistently using uppercases in his titles. To me it sounds like a tell, sure.

The definition of a troll is wide. I actually don't consider either quoted to be a troll, but could see how some might say that. A change of thought should be a possibility, but so many here and elsewhere, will fall on the sword to keep their original point of view even if it is proven wrong factually or logically. That's not being a troll necessarily, but maybe stubborn or uninformed. I think everyone can get that way from time to time.

We've lost our greatest troll here or at least I haven't seen him in a while. He was the type that you could agree with on 99 out of 100 things. That one time you disagreed, he then would basically make shit up to prove you were wrong because you called him out just that one time. It was petty and I have to say Patnet has been better for him not showing up.

Considering how political things have become here over the years, I actually think it's relatively troll free. I just don't know how you can vote/grade someone as a troll. The site would degrade into which user is a troll and which isn't, which we're not supposed to be talking about other users anyway. And I'm not sure 1 person should have that power as eventually people would just leave if they were getting hit with the troll penalty too much, even though I think that is kind of the goal for your experiment.

> WookieMan
This exercise wouldn't use term "troll" as a permanent characteristic of an individual. This is not about classifying members. This thought experiment is about their posts. Posts are easier to classify with objective metrics (and err on defensive side)

I think I know which individual you are talking about. I used to enjoy his or her posts. Definitely not a troll, if it's the same person (being abrasive doesn't make you one).

P.S. I went back to highlight the part in bold because it's important.

> OccasionalCortex
Sure, I'm mostly a reader. Occasionally a commenter. So?

mostly_reader says

I think I know which individual you are talking about. I used to enjoy his or her posts. Definitely not a troll, if it's the same person (being abrasive doesn't make you one).

I don't think so. Wasn't abrasive, just stupid. Was active as recently as June of this year and has fallen off the map, or so I believe. Had some good ideas/thoughts, but you disagree on one thing would jump thread to thread trolling you even though he had nothing to add to the conversation.

If it's the person I think you're thinking of, sure, could be abrasive, but would still say or give credit when someone else was correct. Also has been gone under the original name for a while now. Much more than 5 months.

> WookieMan
Probably a different person then.

HEYYOU says

HEYYOU is the only real troll!
All others are loser,failure nothings.

As a long time troll, I take offense at this statement!

WookieMan: I think that you helped me to better illustrate why "ignore" button is not quite all that. You did it by asking that other members stop responding in "MAGA HATS, THE NEW SWASTIKA" thread and thus stop propelling it to the top. Whereas you could've just used "Ignore" button yourself.

You don't need to explain, I can see why, and use it as an example.

With "ignore", you can create user-defined comfort zones (echo chambers in extreme cases). Using "taxation for propaganda", you prevent exploitation of a platform for political/financial gain. The two objectives overlap, but only slightly.

mostly_reader says

WookieMan: I think that you helped me to better illustrate why "ignore" button is not quite all that. You did it by asking that other members stop responding in "MAGA HATS, THE NEW SWASTIKA" thread and thus stop propelling it to the top. Whereas you could've just used "Ignore" button yourself.

You don't need to explain, I can see why, and use it as an example.

With "ignore", you can create user-defined comfort zones (echo chambers in extreme cases). Using "taxation for propaganda", you prevent exploitation of a platform for political/financial gain. The two objectives overlap, but only slightly.

Maybe it has something to do with the former site long time alpha troll who would never ever admit he was a troll. Ever.

Which makes for one of the most epic trolls ever.

Incidently why weren;t you calling for this back then?

> CovfefeButDeadly

I'm not parsing. What "has something to do with..."?
You must be responding to a wrong post.

I tried allowing absolutely everything, but that doesn't work because there are always a few people who really just get off on insulting others to get a reaction, the very definition of trolling. Or they do it just to feel better about themselves, not sure.

So one lesson learned over too long a time period is that you simply cannot allow people to insult each other directly if you want to have any kind of debate at all.

mostly_reader says

Each post that meets certain criteria (some combination of hard rules with ML could help on this) should be considered a political advertisement.

@mostly_reader Can you specify those rules? I'm interested.

I'm actually going to be learning a bit about Tensorflow in the next few weeks to see if that can correctly classify personal attacks in an automated way.

What I'm most afraid of is degenerating into something completely useless, like the mainstream media, where everything "offensive" is banned.

As MisterLearnToCode said:

We can't ban offensive speech because then we'd be at the mercy of the most easily offended; the lowest common denominator, and wouldn't be able to discuss jack shit.

Sure. Basic rule is this: propaganda contains more persuasion than content. This is by design. Here's my preliminary list of tells, a couple of them go back to Goebbels and probably further back in time.

1. Repetition
Statistically, repetition works well on a large number of people. It doesn't have to be even directionally accurate. If you see a member making same statement again and again and again, and if this statement is either subjective or has been previously debunked, you know: it's propaganda.

2. Avoidance of discussion.
Propaganda trolls would avoid in-depth discussions to support their points. To propaganda troll, there is little to gain by being right and nothing to gain by being wrong. There's little to gain by being right because it takes time, and best it gets you in a discussion is a nod from the people who closely follow the discussion; they are few. Larger number of people "scan and soak" statements and slogans than process logic of arguments. Which is why MO of a troll is to make a statement and not engage. It's a better time investment, in terms of persuasion.
If a troll does get into a discussion, they'd consistently resort to logical fallacies because their motivation is different from that of genuine members.

3. Start threads often, OVERUSE UPPERCASE. Double so if the content is a link to another resource.
Because it's free money. Real estate on top page of a board such as yours has value; a troll would use it as a free ad space.

4. Dramatic and batshit crazy statements in titles.
[INSERT-A-NAME] ATE A BABY AND CROWD CHEERED
Because it's free money. Drama sells.
Note: at some point drama crosses the point at which it becomes humor. Humor is not trolling (AF made me think of that)

5. Pollute other threads with "fake responses".
"Fake response" is posted as a response, but logically doesn't belong in a discussion, and it's content pushes troll's agenda.


There's some degree of certainty attached to each of these tells. Let's say, if your NN recognized only one, it's probably nothing. If it's two or three or more in a single post.. Well, you get the idea.

Something along these lines.

Political trolls may be a super useful part of online community. They just need to be recognized for what they are and taxed accordingly. It's not much different than charging for an ad.

Edit: added a note about drama becoming humor at #4

mostly_reader says

Sure. Basic rule is this: propaganda contains more persuasion than content. This is by design. Here's my preliminary list of tells, a couple of them go back to Goebbels and probably further back in time.

Those are all good points @mostly_reader

Hopefully I'll get the neural net thing going well enough to start accurately classifying posts and comments.

It would also be interesting to apply it to whole websites, like CNN and Fox.

OP decides what a troll is if it is debunked on Snopes