Ask Slashdot: How Do You Deal With Aggressive Forum Users? 477
Slashdot reader dryriver writes:
I've noticed a disturbing trend while trying to resolve a rather tricky tech issue by asking questions on a number of internet forums. The number of people who don't help at all with problems but rather butt into threads with unhelpful comments like "Why would you want to do that in the first place?" or "why don't you look at X poorly written documentation page " was staggering. One forum user with 1,500+ posts even posted "you are such a n00b if you can't figure this out" in my question thread, even though my tech question wasn't one that is obvious or easy to resolve...
I seem to remember a time when people helped each other far more readily on the internet. Now there seems to be a new breed of forum user who a) hangs out at a forum socially all day b) does not bother to help at all and c) gets a kick out of telling you things like "what a stupid question" or "nobody will help you with that here" or similar... Where have the good old days gone when people much more readily gave other people step-by-step tips, tricks, instructions and advice?
The original submission claims the ratio of unhelpful comments to helpful ones was 5 to 1. Has anyone else experienced this? And if so, what's the best response? Leave your best answers in the comments. How do you deal with aggressive forum users?
I seem to remember a time when people helped each other far more readily on the internet. Now there seems to be a new breed of forum user who a) hangs out at a forum socially all day b) does not bother to help at all and c) gets a kick out of telling you things like "what a stupid question" or "nobody will help you with that here" or similar... Where have the good old days gone when people much more readily gave other people step-by-step tips, tricks, instructions and advice?
The original submission claims the ratio of unhelpful comments to helpful ones was 5 to 1. Has anyone else experienced this? And if so, what's the best response? Leave your best answers in the comments. How do you deal with aggressive forum users?
Not being a jerk, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're asking HERE?
Second that (Score:5, Insightful)
You're asking HERE?
I'll second that.
It might be because nice people tend to lose patience and go away, so that the forums have nothing but griefers left.
Lots of forums are completely toxic in this regard, and Slashdot has fallen prey to this as well. Post a non-insulting position about something that doesn't jibe with the group-think and you'll get nothing but insults. No thought put into it, almost a boiler-plate "you're really stupid" or "you're a racist".
Try to contribute to Slashdot by submitting articles, and the toxic users will mod them as spam and get your account locked.
They seem to think that any tactic in support of their end goals is OK, and they don't see the value of well-formed alternate opinions, and reasoned discourse. All they see is that opposition seems to be less over time [alexa.com].
They view it as "winning" when reasonable people lose patience with the griefers and leave.
What's left is the toxic residue.
Re:Second that (Score:5, Insightful)
I just ignore them. And it's true, people have gotten ruder over the years. I suspect they don't know the answer at all and just want to belittle someone.
However others I think are just clueless underneath it, and can't understand why someone would even want an answer to that question. The question is outside of their frame of reference. For instance, ask how to resolve a tricky issue with existing code in C++, and someone will inevitably say "that's bad style, never do that" as if people have the luxury to rewrite all code. Or some people just misinterpret the question completely; they skim past it and assume you were asking a different but simpler question (very common on stackoverflow, which has become nearly useless because of of the bad responses, incorrect responses, or the unhelpful answers with "I don't know how to do that in C but it's trivial to do in C# so you should use that instead" style).
But overall, just ignore them.
Re:Second that (Score:4, Interesting)
I just wish they wouldn't pollute search results with a bazillion messages suggesting that people google it, such that any attempt to google it will fail.
Re: (Score:3)
It would take some good AI for Google to differentiate between a thread that discusses exactly the problem I'm having and provides a good answer, and one that discusses exactly the problem I'm having but contains nothing but self-important windbags suggesting googling for it.
Re:Second that (Score:5, Insightful)
I see problems coming from both ends. The people asking are just as bad, really.
Some leave out important details like which programming language(s) or OS.
Some post at an expert forum, and get upset if they get expert answers when what they wanted was unskilled user level answers and not how to run a core backtrace to narrow down a root cause.
Some ask others to do a several hour jobs for them for free. (I'd mention a common factor for these type of questions if it weren't racist to do so.)
Then there are the hit-and-run posters, asking a question, and never coming back to look at the answers or thank anyone who answered.
But yeah, people who answer can be frustrating too. The most irritating to me are what I call Microsoft answers, which are cut and paste answers from articles, and while 100% correct are 100% unhelpful because they either apply to something different, or just define the problem without giving an answer.
Almost as irritating are what I call tech support answers, where the person asking have given low level details and wants to understand, and some nincompoop says that he should reinstall or unplug and plug back in..
Then there's the "works for me" crowd.
And those who want to argue about why you do something. If someone starts with "in a mc68k environment with 256 kB RAM", chances are that he won't have a choice, so arguing that he should use a raspberry pi or cluster of octacore xeons instead is just derailing.
And those who demand full logs and configuration files for questions where that informaton obviously won't provide any useful information. Questions about how to obtain an old version don't need full logs and config files. Really. Nor questions that contain enough details that the answer is obvious, or where a repeatable minimal test case has been provided.
It goes both ways.
Re: (Score:3)
A lot of questions are general, and should not have to specify programming language or OS, and yet most stackoverflow commenters assume web style programming, javascript, on a peecee.
I don't know my password on stackoverflow by heart, so It's hard to keep up to date on it, keep points increasing, etc. So I visit there when Google shows it as a response to my questions. That's when I noticed the irrelevant answers and I can't post a correct answer as my points are too low. Also when I can ask or answer qu
Re: (Score:3)
Naw, I don't use my google login for anything except google. Don't want a single login for my personal accounts. For security, privacy, etc.
Re:Second that (Score:5, Interesting)
We're all just simply discovering human nature for what it is.
Once upon a time you HAD to work in a community to survive. Like being accepted in a village in medieval times. Excuse the over simplification but you could probably ask your neighbour for help if you didn't have any bread or they would share their apples if you shared your cheese and that built communities.
These days you can make it as an individual because your rights and default entitlements by paying taxes have most replaced the need for a community. You can go to a food bank, you can claim welfare, ask for loans etc. These things do not depend on a community or a small group of people per se they are just services.
Here's a basic question, why do I need you? why do you need me? I could die tomorrow and you'd never know, that's how important I am in your life. This basic reality also drives behaviour.
If without me you knew you'd have trouble securing shelter for your goats in winter then it would be a major blow to your survival if I died but today? -today there are far too many people that are just dead weight really but I digress.
What happens online is almost a direct channel of people's thoughts. There is no body language or polite in-person behaviour. Imagine what would happen if people's thoughts were exchanged directly. The content could be far far worse.
That last point ties up nicely with my start. Human nature. While some of us aspire to do better and some in fact do, we humans are still mostly savages.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Second that (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's true, people have gotten ruder over the years.
You have obviously never seen a USENET flamewar from 35 years ago. I have seen no evidence that people are any ruder today.
Re: (Score:3)
No. 20 years ago, only 1 in 5 people were clueless about technical topics, so by and large, active posters in DIY tech forums knew what they were talking about.
And if they had problems and questions, they knew what information to provide in their posts.
Now, less than 1 in 5 participants have a clue.
4 out of 5 have no idea how to post a technical question, and no idea how to give people who might be able to help the context they need to give useful advice.
Bottom line: People on the 'net are universally more
Re:Second that (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Oh sure, I've seen that. The percentage of rude to normal though seemed lower.
Re:Second that (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe people are becoming ruder because our sense of community is being eroded. There is no "us" anymore, no sense of belonging together (or belonging anywhere). This is the sad legacy of globalism.
I visited Croatia the other day. There was a display of photos somewhere, and the corresponding descriptions showed a great deal of nationalistic pride. It felt like a breath of fresh air: people actually proud of what they were, and what they did. For one moment I felt that sense of belonging somewhere - and I'm not even Croatian...
Re:Second that (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe people are becoming ruder because our sense of community is being eroded. There is no "us" anymore, no sense of belonging together (or belonging anywhere). This is the sad legacy of globalism.
I don't think society is getting ruder, in fact its the opposite.
Also I cant see the link to globalism. Sounds like you're trying to frame the argument to blame something completely unrelated.
I visited Croatia the other day. There was a display of photos somewhere, and the corresponding descriptions showed a great deal of nationalistic pride. It felt like a breath of fresh air: people actually proud of what they were, and what they did. For one moment I felt that sense of belonging somewhere - and I'm not even Croatian...
And here it is.
The problem about showing patriotism in many western nations is that certain people have relentlessly attempted to tie patriotism to nationalism. Sounds like they've been successful on you.
Nationalistic pride is a bad thing as that says your nation can do no wrong. It is the belief that you are innately superior because you were born on this side of the border.
Patriotic pride is not such a bad thing. It says you take pride in the accomplishments of your nation and your peers in the advancement of your nation.
A nationalist is incapable of seeing flaw in their nation, a Patriot not only acknowledges that their nation can be flawed, but works to fix them.
The problem here in England... in fact I'd say its the same problem in the US as well as Australia is that racist and xenophobic groups, such as the EDL in England have completely managed to co-opt the idea of patriotism to sell their own brand of hate. They've tied the idea of being a proud Englishman to their hate of foreigners and religions they don't like. I think this is a shame because there is a lot to be proud of in English culture, not the least of which is its openness and acceptance of others. However groups like the EDL or UKIP would have others believe you were one of them for being a proud Englishman or woman which as I said, is a bloody disgrace.
Being proud of where you came from (I'm an Australian who lives in England) is not about beating down others, sadly that is what passes for Nationalistic pride in the west these days.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Second that (Score:5, Interesting)
The exodus of the previous crop of moderators hasn't helped. The ones here these days just let anything go
Methinks the "previous crop of moderators" lost interest after Trump got elected. Mission accomplished, so why hang around?
We all know the Slashdot moderation system is based broadly on karma, but beyond that, it is something of a mystery. Part of me wonders whether some groups have discovered how to "game" the system by modding up their friends, who in turn mod them up, creating a false meritocracy.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Mod +1, Funny
Ignore them (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing requires you to do anything about them; just treat them as meaningless noise, and act the same as you would have acted if their unhelpful post did not exist.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Nothing requires you to do anything about them; just treat them as meaningless noise, and act the same as you would have acted if their unhelpful post did not exist.
That's easy to say. Malicious users can completely overrun a forum and render it useless. In fact this is a favourite tactic with many alt-right groups. There used to be a forum in my country run by a centre left political party (pirate party) that was completely overrun by alt-right and white supremacist trolls to the extent that it had to be shut down. The trolls celebrated the closure of this forum openly as a great success for the alt-right movement. You can try to moderate each post but with the number
Re:Ignore them (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ignore them (Score:5, Interesting)
VBulletin, very popular forum software, has a feature called "Global ignore" that does what you describe. I used to run a large well-moderated professional discussion forum and if we got a jerk in the rolls we would first warn him, then either put him on global ignore or "miserable users", which is hilarious. It would take people sometimes months to realize they were being muted, sometimes they never did figure it out.
Miserable users was pretty funny, if you decided the person had to go but was big enough of an asshole you wanted to still have some fun, you would turn this on. It would:
1. Slow response (time delay) on every page (20 to 60 seconds default).
2. A chance they will get the "server busy" message (50% by default).
3. A chance that no search facilities will be available (75% by default).
4. A chance they will get redirected to another preset page (25% & homepage by default).
5. A chance they will simply get a blank page (25% by default).
6. Post flood limit increased by a defined factor (10 times by default).
7. If they get past all this okay, then they will be served up their proper page.
After that you just waited for them to get frustrated and leave of their own accord. Passive-Aggressive Nirvana!
Re:Ignore them (Score:5, Insightful)
Please be clear. What you were doing was not merely moderation, it was bureaucratic censorship. It can feel very powerful to control communications this way, but it's very dangerous because it encourages such clandestine abuse of clients, colleagues, and customers by example. It's very gratifying to be one of the "in" crowd that can enforce such arbitrary standards, but it leaves the lesson that such secretive, unannounced abuse by moderators is typical and should be accepted.
If I found such behavior in use on a forum I frequented, I would feel compelled to leave, even if the remaining content were of notabily better quality with this moderation in place. I would not feel able to trust the administrators of the forum because of such secretive censorship.
Re:Ignore them (Score:5, Interesting)
It was far from typical. On the board we had about 8,000 users, and of them, only about 4 had to be dealt with this way. We ran a forum for professionals and good behavior was the norm, but we did get an occasional idiot from time to time. Otherwise the membership very much appreciated the professional atmosphere and the lack of trolls and morons.
Re:Ignore them (Score:5, Insightful)
Please be clear. What you were doing was not merely moderation, it was bureaucratic censorship.
No, you be clear: it is not censorship, it is you whining. I am a mod on a forum which has occasionally used nefarious means to get people to go away. The community standards on the forum were very clear, and the mods bent over backwards to avoid banning people. People were given short bans, second, third and even fourth chances, and even put on the mod queue to avoid banning them. But some people just needed to go.
If I found such behavior in use on a forum I frequented, I would feel compelled to leave, even if the remaining content were of notabily better quality with this moderation in place.
Everyone likes the good discussion, but few people seem to like the effort involved involved in stopping it turning into a 4chan style shitpile. The mods time is finite.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm all for censorship if it means that people don't need to put up with arsehats.
That sounds fine until people think you are the "arsehat". What I love about Slashdot is the commitment to free speech.
By the way this isn't "censorship" [..] Anti-censorship means the government can't silence you
Yes it is censorship. Censorship isn't limited to just the government. That doesn't mean it is wrong, per se. I think there is a place for moderated discussion, but in general I'm wary, and I find the shadow ban style of censorship particularly odious due to it's lack of transparency.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Well, I'm not generally in favour of messing with people, some seem to require it. Some people if they get banned just go away. Others will keep trying to come back under different identities each one getting banned after a while. With the discouragement, they usually don't realise it's targeted to them. Instead, they just get fed up and and frustrated and start to dislike the forum, then simply leave.
Re: (Score:3)
OK, are you really me?
I'm 71.
The invisible thing used to piss me off!
Not many chat rooms had it, but it would take time for me to figure out that I had been silenced to all but me.
I think it was called, "mute."
Anyway, like you, I have been at this a long time and I gave the following advice to members who were frustrated with trolls:
No one comes here to be ignored. It is the maximum insult.
Re:Ignore them (Score:5, Interesting)
So the population has changed from the technical and well-educated to 'everyone'. Nothing wrong with that either, potentially there are great benefits. However, we need to have a serious set of discussions and reflections about civility of discourse and free speech. For example David Graeber, one of our most interesting Brit economists, here: https://twitter.com/davidgraeb... [twitter.com]
That's an obvious example, but makes the point. Discussion can be robust without being vulgar too, I actually feel sorry for people whose sole means of expression of **** ****$! (OK when hitting thumb with hammer, of course) etc., they probably have quite unhappy and emotionally poor lives.
As to remedies, I think it's clear from the simple example about that some forms of speech are not protected, so I am in favour of channel 'kicks', timeouts, invisibility markers and other suppression tools used judiciously by moderators. I also believe that, as part of school, we should be taught about debate as a core subject, it's the thing that keeps us from braining each other with rocks when we disagree.
Re: (Score:2)
This.
With a 5-1 unhelpful ratio, I'd consider shutting it down and shift to Facebook.
The problem with that is loss of anonymity.
You could also shift to Twitter, but it's messy.
There was one forum site where it was mostly self-modded in that members could click on, "Report," and the comment was auto-deleted by script if 5 people concurred.
That worked pretty well.
When I discovered how that worked, I used it to my advantage. I would Report a post, clear the single cookie that said I had already objected, and R
just ignore the unhelpful ones (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems like a good ratio.
You ignore the unhelpful comments. I mean, they aren't really hurting you, are they? All you really need is the one answer that solves your problem.
Re: (Score:3)
Frequently I get sensational fluff. OOO Wow! - not all that helpful unless it is a "show off" type thread.
Frequently I get a person who won't answer anything ask for more information then let others follow up. - Sometimes this actually qualifies as very helpful, but mostly not so much.
Some sites I frequent are more about hands on things like building model airplanes (RC and CL) so I'll get a a vast number of often CONTRADICTORY means to achieve the same goal. This can be very hard to filter out the sign
Re: (Score:3)
it slows down the finding of information when one has to sort through trash to get an answer
Probably far less time than what the posters of any of the useful answers spent, for free.
If you can't put in as much time reading answers as those who helped you spent, you don't deserve any answers at all.
Ban hammer. (Score:2)
Next question.
Ban or... (Score:2)
Sometimes it will error out, other times it will work, it gives the illusion your site is having lots of problems and depending on how you set it, drive them mad. Most will simply tire of it, especially if you ramp it up slowly. Some will figure out something is fishy though, at which point you have to do something more, but it sure is fun watching them squirm. I reserved this only for those who are there to causing
IT DOESN'T WORK?! (Score:3)
The universe will now implode. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know if it counts as a metatroll but, we might finally find out what infinite recursion looks like on an internet forum.
Simple 2 step process (Score:2)
2. Grow a thicker skin when someone says a mean thing online.
Re: (Score:2)
Shadowban them ;) (Score:4, Insightful)
Then they think they are changing the world and you and your users get to move on.
Wade through... (Score:5, Informative)
Honestly, if there's a stack exchange site (for instance, stackoverflow.com for programming questions) for it, I ask there - the Q&A focused design is far from perfect, but the 'attitude' answers don't last long, and are removed pretty quickly.
It's got other problems of course, but for this particular problem, the Stack Exchange model works pretty well at keeping the stupid and useless answers to a lower level than other sites.
Beyond that, you've got to search out communities that aren't full of jerks and a-holes. Sadly, there's at least one in every crowd, but some communities are better at ejecting bad actors than others.
Re: (Score:3)
Not always. I see good questions dismissed by those with lots of points with excuses of "it's a duplicate" because they didn't bother to read the question thoroughly, and the wrong answers modded up because the wrong answer givers have lots of points. People with lots of points in one field will then go to a different field where they are ignorant and try to give answers there. It's not a popularity contest, but people try to be popular by butting in and giving the wrong answers anyway.
Re: (Score:3)
I see good questions dismissed by those with lots of points with excuses of "it's a duplicate" because they didn't bother to read the question thoroughly
And the jackasses who close questions as not related to programming when the questions are clearly related to programming, but just happen to involve another subject as well, for instance questions about network programming...
Non-answers (Score:2)
Non-answers are the worst!
I at least try to offer something else as an alternative in a polite manner, after I try to answer the actual question (or state that I don't actually have an answer, but the alternative might hopefully provide something useful).
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Non-answers (Score:5, Insightful)
.... but, what I would do is just ignore, as others have already stated.
If I ran a list/forum, I would specifically state in the Terms that 'newbie' questions should be expected, and any condescending responses would result in immediate suspension. If users don't have anything helpful to respond with, they shouldn't bother responding.
Re:Non-answers (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish I could mod you up. :)
The problem is the people who own the site(s) and not the users. Treat your site like your living room - do not tolerate people who piss on your living room floor. Bounce them out, clean up and apologise to your other guests.
Re: (Score:2)
Even worse is "No-no. You don't really want to do that".
Re: (Score:3)
Even worse is "No-no. You don't really want to do that".
If what follows is an explanation of why, followed by a better approach, I don't see the problem. But without that, I see your point.
Re: (Score:3)
No, what one does is provide the answer as requested, then offer that there is another solution if circumstances permit.
The problem you don't see is that the "better approach" will be an order of magnitude more complex and advanced than the otherwise workable one which the requester has been squaring up for. Like refusing to answer someone's batch file question because you really think they ought to handle it in Python or Rails.
Re: (Score:3)
Usually it's a case of needing to understand the actual use case in order to be able to provide alternate options.
Usually it means "The thing you're trying to do is dumb for a number of reasons, but since you haven't described what the *actual* goal is, but instead only what a possible implementation might look like, it's impossible to tell you why it's dumb and what a better choice is."
I blame (Score:3)
I blame the perl community. If you asked a question in the perl news groups, instead of a short answer you'd get paragraphs explaining how much of an idiot you are for not knowing the answer or not knowing which document (out of tens of thousands) had the answer to your question.
Nothing New (Score:5, Informative)
It's been like that since the Internet went mainstream in the 1990's, and even when the Internet was opened up to Universities before going mainstream. The overall proportion of useless forum idiots has probably stayed relatively constant for the last 20+ years (and probably even before Web forums overtook Usenet).
The problem probably seems worse now because the Internet population is much larger than it was back then, making the absolute numbers larger; but the ratio of idiots to the entire population is probably in the same ballpark as back then.
The answer has always been the same: you must ignore them, and don't feed the trolls. At least on Usenet, we had the twit filter that would allow us to list the people we wanted to automatically ignore.
Re: (Score:3)
But ages before Yelp and Amazon review, there was this "Indian Travel Agents Survery" circulating in soc.culture.indian.*
You could always post, "Would some kind soul point to me some code about circumsphere calculation of
Re:Nothing New (Score:4, Insightful)
StormReaver is right, this is nothing new. I ran into some remarkably foul examples on Usenet in the '80s.
Managing a forum is one of the most challenging jobs I have ever had. One tool that is more powerful than it appears is setting a good example. If the moderators are frequent posters they can set a tone for the place. Then the jerks will be the exceptions. A positive feedback loop begins when good people are willing to stay and they create a space where more good people want to hang out.
Leave the jerks in place and it's a down-spiral to Lord of the Flies.
Easy trick (Score:5, Insightful)
Just avoid the python groups, and you'll avoid the spots where most of these sorts of people hang out.
In a more serious vein, I haven't seen this happening excessively. I've spent a good deal of time on a large number of forums and irc channels, and by and large, this doesn't seem to be happening frequently in the way you describe. I'm not saying that you haven't experienced this, it's just that in the last 20 years, there haven't been a lot of know-nothing folks just spamming "you suck noob" to any given question.
I can guess why; in any technical discussion it quickly becomes apparent who does and does not know what they're talking about. In fact, many quickly devolve into a special-case-knowledge comparison contest. The unhelpful person is ignored or derided by the masses as a whole. They quickly leave. That's why they're just not around.
That being said, what I have seen is people asking other people to do their work for them, including but not limited to: easily googleable questions, questions specified explicitly by documentation, questions that require more information to answer than is given, questions that could easily be answered by trying it out in a test, and so on. 95% of the time, these folks are inexperienced in technical forums as a whole, and don't understand that they're being lazy and trying to shift work they could easily do onto others because of it.
This is irritating, especially in channels of 300+ people with new folks jumping in and asking a single question and popping out, never to contribute, once every 2-3 minutes. Especially when many of them appear to be homework.
The best option for these folks is to ask them to read http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/... [catb.org] , especially the whole of http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/... [catb.org] , before asking another question.
Re: (Score:3)
I'll append ruby on rails groups to the list, but python stays in it.
Ask a simple question, and even the best of them want to question why you're doing something in that way, and refuse to provide anything helpful even if you are trying just to find docs for one of the 2 or 3 poorly written GUI frameworks for it, or attempting to translate a construct from one language to python as a point of reference.
I've been writing code for a good long while, and I've never encountered such a consistently unhelpful bun
Leave the forum (Score:5, Insightful)
Some forums are completely toxic. Fuck reddit.....
On the other hand, read the stickies, use the search, and for fucks sake, RTFM before you ask for help.
You are either
1.) On the wrong forum.
2.) posting off topic.
3.) not trying hard enough to "self help"
4.) Ignoring the 'READ THIS FIRST" thread.
5.) Fucking retarded.
Sometimes, the problem is you. Tough love. Not trying to be an asshole, but ther sheer number of people who can't seem to follow simple directions is staggering.
Re:Leave the forum (Score:5, Insightful)
"If you meet an asshole in the morning, you met an asshole. If you meet assholes all day, maybe you're the asshole".
Reminds me of the #linux IRC channels (Score:3)
As far back as the early 2000's or late 90's, I remember running into this same attitude all the time in the IRC channels for Linux.
They used to be one of the best places to get assistance, but also the best place to get verbal abuse from half the users in the channel in the process.
So yeah .... sure is irritating, but nothing new by a long shot.
This just in (Score:2)
People are dicks. More at 11.
Checked to see if it was (Score:2)
April 1st...
It's *always* been that way. Always. Some places are probably worse than others which might have to do with what you're asking and where...
Stop asking stupid questions (Score:2)
The problem with forums these days is they're full of repeat questions and answers. People that have been around for a while get annoyed, just search for your question in Google and you get hundreds of the same answers over a variety of forums. This clogs any search function including Google with pages of duplicate information while the real gems or more deep information such as why an issue appears gets buried while answers get briefer and more shallow every time someone asks the question.
If you don't want
Is the forum really worth being at? (Score:3)
I would see if there was another forum that was better. If the users in a forum are too elitist and unfriendly to newbies then there are probably other people who also view the forum in the same way, who have left to form (or liven up) another forum.
I am active on several forums where yes, such users as you describe do exist, but there are also almost always friendly users who see it as their task to help newbies out. You could perhaps wait a little while for that person or people to post.
That said, on many forums that are related to a hobby, you are expected to do your research before posting. Some have Wikis or other informative posts with info on how to do certain things.
Too many times I see newbies create a new thread the first thing they do, in which they ask for someone to do all the work for him - and that never flies.
Instead, show that you do have some knowledge and that you are looking for a missing piece in a puzzle, people's opinions and advice.
Your post should also be simple to read, specific and to the point. People should ideally find out already from the subject headline what you are trying to find out. A thread with the subject "Somebody please HELP ME" and a post that is one long run-in sentence does not work. (I see those threads all the time, unfortunately)
Just Google It! (Score:4, Insightful)
A buddy of mine and I were considering writing a script that would search Google for forum posts that had the first reply being "Just Google it", and reply with a "FUCK OFF" type message.
I'm sure you've all seen that though. You search Google for an issue you have, see a forum topic that perfect describes the issue, and literally only 1 reply, telling you to Google it.
This is why I love sites like StackOverflow or GitHub. That type of anti-community behavior is highly looked down upon on those sites. Is the qustion a dupe? COOL! Just fucking link to the initial question then! Can it be found on Google? Sweet, then fucking link to the results!
Re: (Score:3)
Can it be found on Google? Sweet, then fucking link to the results!
You want to know what really rustles my jimmies? It's when someone asks a question, gets some suggestions that don't work, then posts "I fixed it on my own, thanks!" Without a single mention of WHAT THE FUCK FIXED YOUR PROBLEM. Ten years later, guess what the only Google hit for the problem is?
As per IRL. (Score:2)
If I want to rise to it, I may respond in kind - dependant on the netiquette of the site I'm on, stickies in the forum, if I'm a regular, my mood, if I'm bored and fancy some lulz, or any other number of complex reasons. There's no "single" good reason to respond. It depends on a complex matrix of factors.
Alternatively, if I can't be assed to respond, I'll ignore the comment and move on with my day.
Angry people (Score:2)
I've noticed as well the number of posts from those whose prose makes me reach for the Nomex undies, not just in technical areas. The urge to respond either with salient points or in kind is one that should be resisted. It doesn't help you, and only lets those posting them "count coup" on you and encourages them.
For some, the keyboard interface to a computer is all the excuse they need to set aside any form of self regulation, empathy, or modicum of civilized behavior. They are indeed damaged human beings,
Edit, Delete, Tmp-ban, Remove (Score:5, Informative)
One forum I have helped moderate had a number of moderator tools:
1) You could edit any post. Often some flamebait line comes as a single line at the end of an otherwise reasonable post. You can just edit out the flame and send them a message explaining that they should be more respectful of other forum members.
2) You could delete a message. Some messages were just pure troll or flame, again you can just delete them and explain to them why it was removed. Then they can argue with privately instead of in the forum where it annoys everyone.
3) Temp ban. We also had the option to ban a user for a few days. That was great because someone who just was really hot and kept posting sometimes would be perfectly fine with a few days to cool off. Lots of people know when they are unreasonable and are fine after some correction, then they are productive forum members.
4) Remove. Sometimes people are just so grating, that really there is no option for the well-being of others other than to remove them. Sure they can register under other usernames and come back, but often these people have such distinctive writing styles that a moderator can recognize them right away and just ban new users with a similar stye or message.
In general I would say, as a moderator you should give more leeway to people who have been on a forum for a while, but brook no nonsense with new members or repeat violators. Moderation is inherently a grey area anyway, so every action is a judgement call... it's best if you can have a few moderators so they can discuss options amongst them and come to a reasonable solution.
I get this all the time! (Score:2)
This happens on every forum. Something like this...
Me: Hi, my game crashes with error code 0xF00.
Mr Stickler: We need a full dxdiag report or we can't help. Read the rules.
Me: Here you go. (posts 5 pages of garbage)
Mr OneUp: I see you are running a R2999 graphics, you should buy a GT5000 like me.
Me: Card is fine. Next?
Mr Doofus: You need to reinstall windows. I do it every night.
Me: Not gonna happen.
And then the thread dies.
Re:I get this all the time! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the thread dies after Mr. SameProblem posts "I found the solution" without naming it. God how often i got to read that and wanted to punch some face.
Can't think out of the box (Score:3)
"Why would you want to do that in the first place?"
I find a number of people can't think "outside of the box". They have their preconceived notions of how things work, and things cannot evolve within their realm of observation. Advancements can only be made by people they don't interact with. Advancements that defy this rule are flukes.
For them, the question is not, "Where can I be?", but "How can I stay where I am?"
For this person, the natural response to the question "How can I do X?" is not one of science, of exploration, of expanding knowledge and understanding.
It's "Why would you want to do X in the first place?"
Nevermind that the tool you create today may have a greater use tomorrow. If this person had their way, we'd still be wiping our asses with our bare hands.
Rules for dealing with internet trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
Rule #1: You cannot win.
Rule #2: The only way to not lose is to not play.
Rule #3: There is no Rule #3.
Ignore them. Any other action is encouraging them.
Some people ask intrinsically annoying questions. (Score:3)
Some people ask intrinsically annoying questions.
Case 1: The case of the missing context
1. They have a problem they want to solve
2. They arrive at a solution they want to implement
3. They fail at the implementation -- perhaps because it's an inappropriate one for the original problem
4. They go on a forum
5. They request help on how to implement their solution, giving no context, and leaving the original problem out entirely
This. Is. Major. F'ing. Annoying.
If they simply told us what problem they were trying to solve, rather than asking how to implement their particularly bad approach to solving the problem, they'd likely get a large number of helpful answers.
Case 2: The mysterious homework I don't want to do myself
1. They get a homework assignment
2. They have some constraints
3. They arrive at a particularly bad implementation based on those constraints
4. They fail at the implementation
5. They go on a forum
6. They actually communicate the problem they are trying to solve (miracle of miracles!), but they won't talk about other solutions to the problem, because other solutions won't fit the artificial constraints placed on the problem as part of it being a homework assignment
This. Is. Major. F'ing. Annoying.
We suspect it's a homework problem; the professor at IIT gives the same problem to their class each year, and it's that time of year again. They won't confirm this, because we know they are supposed to do their own F'ing homework, and won't help them cheat, if we know for sure they are asking a homework question.
Case 3: The googles, they do nothingk!
1. The solution is well known
2. You are too lazy to look it up using google
3. Instead you go on a forum and ask the question
4. Even though if you asked google the same question, the first hit you'd get is something from two years ago, in that very forum
5. Anyone who was around two years ago realizes you are using the forum as your own personal search engine
6. They give you shit for it -- shit you actually deserve, for being a lazy ass
---
Look:
* Do a little research before you ask; someone else has probably had the same problem before, and the answer is already out there
* If not, communicate the problem you are trying to solve
* Your solution is obviously not working, or you wouldn't be asking: it's not interesting, because it doesn't work: don't ask us to fix it
* Don't be so married to your solution that you are unwilling to communicate the problem, and consider alternate solutions
If it's homework:
* Some people (10%) will actually help you with these -- they are being assholes by robbing you of a learning opportunity
* They figure it's a win-win
* You get the homework solution so you get a passing grade
* You don't actually learn anything in the process
* You are not competition for jobs which would require an actual ability to solve this kind of problem
* Most people (90%), will give you shit for being a lazy ass and not doing your own homework
---
The negative reactions you are getting: maybe it's not them; maybe it's you.
Watch the scene with Charlie Sheen giving advice to Jennifer Grey in the police station in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" again. Seriously: it's probably you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Piss off you fucking cunts!!!!
Very well then, good day, sir.
Re: (Score:2)
Remain calm and collected, use yer skillz to trace their accounts and reveal their identities, then go to their moms' houses, DRAG THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS OUT OF THEIR BASEMENTS AND BASH THOSE LOSERZ IN THEIR BITCH ASS FACES!!!!
We all should have seen this coming, with silly questions like this being posted on slashdot. Slow nerd news day, I guess.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Four years ago I got to see a fanatic religious right demonstration against refugees transforming into a horde of teenagers with broken bottles running after random black people and burning their shops. Once you get to see things like that, it really fixes your prespective. Imho, the more people are busy writing angry comments on the internet, the less people are violent in real life, which improves societyt
(btw, for those that want to know, I live in Israel, it was a demonstration led by Michael Ben Ari, a
Moderation (Score:2)
Yes, either you will have to moderate, or get the readers to moderate for you, like on slashdot or stackoverflow.
Re:Stackoverflow? (Score:4)
I can't stand asking or answering on SO, but damn if it's not always the place that has an answer when you need it. They are doing something right.
The part they got right is, no discussion (Score:4, Insightful)
The main reason I think StackOverflow doesn't have similar issues, is there really is not discussion - there is a question, and a variety of answers. Both of those are very large.
Then there can be discussion, but it's all in small text below, and after a few messages is hidden under an expand link. So noise from arguments there affects things very little compared to people voting on the solutions they found worked teh best... and since those up votes usually came from people trying something and found that it worked, they are mostly accurate (after some time the highest ones may be wrong, but then you just go to the next one...).
The other thing I think they got right is all of the most active contributors can edit things heavily. They can fix wrong answers (or questions), they can edit out spurious noise in an answer. It's a scalable way to keep questions and answers meaningful and concise.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:You dopey cunt (Score:5, Interesting)
In spite of the horribly rude tone, there's a hint of truth to that. A big reason why people get snarky is because so many people don't even bother to try to figure things out before they ask for help. A sizable percentage of people seem to be completely helpless when anything goes wrong. They don't know how to do a Google search, they don't know how to read for comprehension, and they don't know how to figure out what things to look for when skimming/searching documentation for solutions to their problems. This lack of critical thinking skills is quite alarming.
As a result, even those of us who still try to help tend to point people to the right piece of documentation first, waiting to re-explain things until after they come back and say that they still don't understand something. And after a few rounds, even I have to say, "Read the doc and figure it out." After all, my job is not to write your code for you. I'll try to help, and I'll try to steer you in the right direction, but there are limits.
Cynically, I place the blame for these problems squarely at the feet of Apple for trying to dumb down programming, technical documentation, computer use, etc. to the point where people don't have to think to code, rather than saying, "You must be this tall to ride the ride." The result is a bunch of people who don't bother to think and who expect others to do the thinking for them. They've bred a whole class of "duh-velopers" who literally can't do much more than piece together code snippets and tweak them slightly. Heaven help them if a snippet contains something like "insert your customization here", because they go slack-jawed. And this results in everybody who actually understands what's going on having to waste a lot of time explaining things that should have been obvious.
IMO, you can't fix one problem without fixing both. People are jerks because the newbies have driven all the nice people away by incessantly asking questions whose answers should be obvious to anybody who actually read and comprehended the docs, and most of the people who didn't comprehend the docs are still not going to understand it no matter how many times you explain it. Fix the clueless question problem, and people who are able to actually figure out what they're doing will stick around and will continue to be helpful. Short of that, nothing will help in the long run.
To some degree, that is probably best solved by reputation-bssed segregation. Anybody should be able to answer any questions, but until you get rep, your questions should be initially seen only by other newbies (and if no newbie can answer them, they would then bubble up to folks with more rep). Rep should be awarded for asking good questions or giving good answers. Clueless people who are incapable of asking good questions and giving good answers should thus remain stuck in the newbie question cesspool while the adults discuss real issues.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. I have had to give people a price-quote on a FOSS support mailing list several times so far to make it clear to them that I would not be doing their job for them for free. Some people do not grasp that there is free help and then there is actual work. Of course, many of the trolls are too stupid or too bad human beings to care to find out whether somebody is lazy or actually has a real problem. These you can only ignore, they will never bring positive contributions to the table.
Re:FIRST POST! (Score:5, Interesting)
Aggressive forum users are a sign of the failure of the moderators. You'll see that on commenting systems where there is peer moderation (like on slashdot) or very relaxed, almost non existent moderation such as youtube aggressive forum users are never really a problem. On youtube where moderation is non existent, users know not to make aggressive, provoking posts because they know that the reply they get back will be 2x as aggressive and nothing will be held back, plus the aggressive forum will be rediculed by the rest of the forum commenters discouraging them from a repeat offence.
On a forum where there is active moderation but the moderator takes a favorable/ignorant stance on aggressive users, this leads to a really bad culture on the board because nothing is really done about the said aggressive forum user and it just kills serious threads and drives legitimate commenters off. Once the aggressive user knows he can get away with belittling and being rude to others he continues it in other threads because he knows the moderators will do little if anything about it.
Unfortunately there is nothing you can really do about aggressive users like that because it is moderators failing to do their job/doing a half assed effort at it and if you complain they will take action on you instead of on the perpetrator. In some ways I think some moderators even LIKE having aggressive users around because they lighten the load on the moderators by killing off discussions and driving off people so there is less for them to moderate/reply to in threads.
Examples of failing forums:
IMDB forums. I am not surprised the IMDB forums are shutting down. IMDB is owned by Amazon and their forums are a disgrace, filled with trolls and the moderators do a extremely poor job about it.
The Steam "Help and Tips", and "Suggestion/Ideas" forums. Just like the OP describes, when people ask for genuine help they get shitposts. When they make a suggestion they get replies to the line of "Why would you want to do that in the first place" or the vanilla response that the suggested idea will only help griefers/phishers/spammers, ignoringthe fact that they are acting like griefers themselves with their responses. It's like the MPAA trying to curb copyright infringement by using the keywords like "funding terrorism". They can't just reply to someone civily, they have to be insultive and negative to the person they are replying to. It is this sort of negativity that ruins discussions by serial discussion killers such as Start_running http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198043285599, Satoru http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970218004 and Zetikla http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198001062896
In the Doom board someone asked for a Linux port and the windows trolls swooped in:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/379720/discussions/0/357286119106149442/ . The moderators did nothing about it.
I know that this post now is going to attract all sorts of trolls but the posts I'm talking about people write genuine lengthy on topic posts that have nothing to do with other users and they get attacked/griefed for it. That is what I am talking about that drives forum contributers off and stonewalls discussions.It is a big problem on discussion boards where the moderators are poor at doing their job. If they can;t moderate then they should let the users as a whole do it for them like on slashdot.
Re:FIRST POST! (Score:5, Insightful)
Aggressive forum users are a sign of the failure of the moderators.
The specific behaviour the OP describes is more a sign of the type of forum they're participating in, it's, unfortunately, fairly common behaviour among geek/techie personalities. Go to a forum dealing with, say, gardening or pets or childcare and you'll very rarely see this sort of thing, the standard response there is sympathy and advice. So the best advice perhaps is to hold your nose and ignore the crap, or try posting to several different technical forums in the hope that you'll get good advice from at least one of them.
Moderation, I agree, is one way of dealing with this, e.g. Stackexchange does a pretty good job of keeping things on-topic, but sometimes you just have to mentally lint-filter the crap in the hope of finding the nuggets of good advice.
Re:FIRST POST! (Score:5, Interesting)
Go to a forum dealing with, say, gardening or pets or childcare and you'll very rarely see this sort of thing, the standard response there is sympathy and advice.
I disagree.
I frequent a large parenting forum.
The bitterness and disdain for others I see there is unseen in the "techie" world. Newbie questions get not only mocked, but attacked on personal level and with psychological finesse that only comes with practice. The responders know that new parents are uncertain in their parenting skills and they attack this condition with precision. "What kind of parent could ask a question like this?" "MY child does ALWAYS obey the rules we have set. What mistakes must you have done for your kids to not obey yours?" etc etc.
The people on the parenting forum seem like Putin's trolls in training for me. They practice psychological forum-warfare, trying to identify the weak spots in other participants. People who come for advice in parenting MUST have the weak spots (otherwise they would not seek help in the first place) and thus provide a good training ground.
Thus this behaviour is universal to the 'net, not limited to "techie forums".
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Or, perhaps, the Forums that you visit are the regular places where people who use phrases like 'Putin's trolls in training' visit. In other words, the places you hang out are where people like you hang out, and you're a cynical long-time netizen.
Re: (Score:3)
So basically it's the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory once again.
Re:FIRST POST! (Score:5, Interesting)
The specific behaviour the OP describes is more a sign of the type of forum they're participating in, it's, unfortunately, fairly common behaviour among geek/techie personalities. Go to a forum dealing with, say, gardening or pets or childcare and you'll very rarely see this sort of thing, the standard response there is sympathy and advice.
Yes and no. I have sympathy with both sides and I'm about to write an ill structured post, blathering my thoughts all over the place. With that out of the way...
Thing is, on those gardening forums, you're generally asking for free help from people who are world experts, very busy (the forum covers work too) and can command $2000 a day consulting fees. Tahe for example, Theo De Raadt. He is one hellofa smart guy and leads an absolutely world class operating system (one which incidentally seems to be plagued with freeloaders---how many megacorps rely on openssh and contribute basically nothing) on remarkably small funds. The forums/mailing lists aren't a social gathering, they're very much work, but work that happens to be visible and in theory accessible to all.
In a very real sense, butting into those forums, interrupting busy professionals doing work and asking for unpaid help when you can't be bothered to do the research is the height of rudeness. Someone telling you to "fuck off" is less rude. I have actually had the pleasure of conversing with Mr De Raadt on the mailing list. I was doing a "you probably shouldn't be doing this" kind of thing, but I probably spent 4 extra hours researching after deciding to write a post, reading the man pages, browsing the source and forum posts, to make sure I wasn't taking the piss. I actually learned a bunch more doing that and so was able to go in at a deeper level.
Theo himself weighed in on the thread after a few posts. He was polite, and helpful and it was an overall excellent experience. But I didn't ask a very busy, very overworked person to stop work and help me for free so I don't have to think myself.
On the other hand...
I don't tend to respond like that (yet?). I can command reasonable consulting fees in my area and I get massively n00bish questions from people trying to use my C++ library which makes it clear they're only passingly familiar with a C++ compiler and can't even answer basic questions like "what compiler are you using". But I'm not famous and my code isn't anything like as popular as OpenBSD, so while those are a relatively high proportion of questions, they are reasonably rare.
I am getting slightly annoyed by them though. I imagine if it was daily (or more) then my patience would have worn very thin by now.
But it goes all the way down. N00b questions on a n00b forum are fine. Actually n00b questions on any forum are fine, provided the n00b in question (and we are all n00bs) are not entitled. But after a couple of years of answering question from people who want a quick fix or their homework solved, I think people get really, really jaded and worn. At that point they tend to see bad behaviour even when there is none. For example, misunderstanding a question, then attacking based on that BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE ANOTHER FUCKING HOMEWORK QUESTION JUST FUCK OFF!!11!1one etc.
But they, don't want to leave the forum because there are also the good tech bits.
Oh and of course some people are simply raging assholes who believe that unpleasantness is a substitute for quality (or hides a lack of it), or just like to shit on others to make themselves feel good. The trouble is the aggressiveness from the competent, but deeply jaded people allows the assholeishness from the incompetent to flourish.
But bear in mind that it is assholey to ask a world expert for help when 10 minutes of googling would have solved the problem. Also bear in mind that we all have days where somehow we miss blindingly obvious answers.
Basically there are assholes on both sides, and there's a lot of jadedness.
I have no idea what the solution is.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
When someone asks a hopelessly naive question in a pubic forum, the easiest thing for everyone is to ignore. The second easiest is to point to a FAQ. In a community of reasonable people, you'd kind of expect that the real experts learn to recognize real problems - like Theo de Raadt not bothering to chime in to your problem until it grew into a conversation - and that less expert people get to feel good answering relatively simple problems. One imagine that they get tired of answering the same questions
Re:FIRST POST! (Score:5, Interesting)
While it is a fairly common problem on tech forums, it might have something to do with the large number of people that we get to deal with who have no interest in learning, want us to solve all of their problems, and (very important) consider us to be sub-humans incapable of human interaction or emotion for the rest of their time. Technical people get to deal with lots of non-technical people who have technical problems, and who have zero appreciation for our efforts or our very existence other than as a way to solve their probems. This is definitely different from gardening or pets: the people asking questions there are already part of the community themselves, and don't look down on the people they expect to solve their problems.
There are other problems too: far too many students asking for help with homework (and always the same homework too! "Implement a linked list", how original). Too many people apparently completely unaware of how to use the search function of the forum. Too many people who just cannot bother to read. Too many people who get the help they want, but completely forget to post a "thank you" (or accept your answer, in the case of Stackoverflow).
Having said all that, yes, tech forums tend to be toxic. Entirely too many postings start or end with a sneer ("Are you a moron?", or "You must be Trump", for example). It doesn't add anything, it only increases hostility, so why add it?
As for Stackoverflow(/Stackexchange), it's no exception, really. I tried to help people in the C++ forum for a while - until I had a few of my answers modded to -5 (really bad) and then saw the same answer posted verbatim by another poster with a score a hundred times mine, who promptly received +30 or more for it. Suffice it to say, I stopped posting there.
Re: (Score:2)
We definitely need more fiber around here. I guess thank you.
Re: (Score:2)
According to this: https://www.df7cb.de/projects/... [df7cb.de], it's Sept 8559, 1993 right now.
Re: (Score:3)
They have low self esteem and are most likely losers in real life outside their keyboard
I dub thee (Score:+1, Insightful) [pcmag.com]
Internet trolls and video game griefers are just as broken in real life as you've always suspected, according to a new psychology paper by Canadian researchers. It turns out that the same folks who love to disrupt online conversations for the"lulz" are likely to also exhibit some pretty nasty personality traits in general.
Re: (Score:3)
It's pretty easy to get it.
I won't provide links, but I'll point you in the right direction:
People who can't openly express their anger and frustration, do so, anonymously, at unrelated targets for whatever the reasons are that they can't push back effectively.
Trolls seek the power to strike back at the Empire and they get their energy from the outrage directed toward them.
Ignoring them is the digital equivalent of the problems they already have.
Re: (Score:3)
Clarification: You have to make yourself vulnerable to ask a question and that is what these pathetic trolls prey on.