I am feeling quite conflicted this cold, overcast morning. About a month ago, after several months of non-stop troll activity on Open Salon, the blogging site I’ve used for nearly five years, I had a hissy fit and announced my departure forever. (Note: the site is no longer tended by its owners. The cover page is a year old and no new members are being admitted. The place reminds me of the 1960s novel The Lord of the Flies.)
I understand that internet trolls are, for the most part, mentally ill misfits who try to work out their frustrations at the expense of those with whom they disagree (read: progressives). I know they come with the territory.
I made it through the first four-plus years without too much flak because I do not resort to ad hominen arguments. I carefully avoid judgmental adjectives and adverbs. I stick to what I think and what I think I know. I offer my opinions and discuss my reasons for having those opinions. Disagreeing with me is perfectly fine. Calling me a smug phony or a race baiter or a liar-by-definition-of-my-former-profession is most certainly not.
I also have a visceral reaction to certain profanity, most often the F-bomb. I think the looks of sheer horror on the faces of the adults in my family whenever that word was employed by anyone around us deeply embedded themselves into my psyche. I was convinced (and still am) that only people with limited vocabularies had to resort to such language.
My indoctrination was so complete that when, in my first year of college, my dorm mates noticed my visible recoil whenever they dropped the F-bomb (frequently!) they thought that was so funny, they started chanting the word over and over and over again, just to get under my skin. (The bitches! LOL)
Anyway, now, a month out from my poetic parody of the song “Take This Job and Shove It,” there are so many things happening that tweak my writing muse and there are so many posts on Open Salon that I still read and have to force myself to withhold comments, I am starting to regret allowing the handful of hateful baiters to push my buttons far enough to drive me away. I am, after all, nothing if not a self-control freak!
Yes, the planet will continue to spin without my comments appearing in the threads of the dwindling number of sane writers on OS and/or Our Salon, a new blog site created for OS-fleeing writers. Of course, nothing stopped some of the trolls from opening accounts there, so there they are again. But I miss the company of my “imaginary internet friends,” as the wife of one of my virtual friends calls us. I miss the exchange of ideas and thoughts, the short anecdotal entries and the longer, deep-dive type scholarly works that many offer.
Another one of the childhood mantras drilled into my head was “do not cut off your nose to spite your face.” Yeah. I don’t have to deal with the nasty-tempered haters anymore, which is really good for my health. But…
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ReplyDeleteThanks for coming over here, Sharon. Let us know when your book is available. That should be a great one.
ReplyDeleteMy vote: a wise woman. As a wise woman, you can comment on posts you read if you want to. You can decide to post something again because that's what you want to do. No one will mind, and if they do...that's on them. I'm not at OS much because I really am trying to get my book done...but I miss it and you and other OS friends who I trust and enjoy as much (sometimes more) than life friends.
ReplyDeleteSharon aka Mimetalker
Hi! This is a beautiful looking blog page!! I have always had several blogs. Some go way back an just float around in space like the Exploding Paintings blog that I resurrect sometimes. Yes, I have an xxx blog but no one really goes there regularly.
ReplyDeleteI so agree that Open is a rotting hell. There seems to me no reason you can't comment there without blogging. Interesting that Kit Duncan does that when the spirit strikes her and even does some blogs once in a blue moon. You should see her in Second Life. She has so much fun there. Why don't you try that place?. It is free and very interesting. Good winter pastime. Whatever you do I will always be interested. Hugs.
Hi Who is this? You forgot to sign. I need to let some time elapse before I start commenting again. The trolls follow me around to see if they can jump on something I say.
DeleteThe scene at OS is a sad one. It was so great once. Salon spends lots of effort posting a dozen new bits every day, but can't spend an hour a week re-doing the front page and kicking out (or at least admonishing) the trolls...and those trolls have the run of the place these days. Well, I'll just have to add your Blogspot to my tabs.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Gina. I appreciate you for making the trip over here. I can set it up so you get an email if and when I post. Should I?
DeleteHey yeah! That would be cool.
DeleteHi
ReplyDeleteAttempt #2 at commenting - the first one vanished.
As regards the trolls on OS:
We are to a certain extent responsible for what they're able to accomplish. There is absolutely no reason any of us can't ignore anyone we want completely. We can delete whomever we want on our own posts, we can fail to answer anyone we want on any other thread.
At a time when OS was open, this could have consequences in that we might appear rather strange or even draconian to newcomers. However, it's closed, there are no newcomers, and no frequent user is unaware of what's going on.
If you ignore someone completely, whose opinion are you worried about? How many people that you respect are you worried about angering by refusing to engage a troll? If you don't respect them, why are you worried at all?
I've tried essentially excommunicating one blogger. I delete anything posted on my blog, I delete personal insults on my blog that are aimed at that blogger, I do not post about that blogger, I rarely mention that blogger in comments (and not in the context of delivering insults), and I never address that blogger. That blogger insults me periodically, but that isn't relevant to me. I don't need to answer because those insults don't affect (in a way negative to me) the opinion of anyone I'd care about. There is no reason for others not to follow suit. It is we who grant other voices power over us. You don't have to leave to stop granting anyone power over you.
By the way, there may be another way it comes to a head. I don't know if either of you are aware of something that happened recently (I can get into names on request):
One blogger who very consistently insults another used the opinion of a third blogger to back up the insult, in spite of having been requested previously not to. The third blogger is an attorney and commented that if it happens again, he will initiate a lawsuit. If the site does not offer sufficient protection, the site may very well be named in the suit.
I know the attorney in question; in fact, I've met him. We e-mail very frequently, and another blogger I have known for longer has known the attorney for many years (well before the site existed). The threat is dead serious.
Anyway, glad to see you blogging. And don't let trolls keep you from your friends. There is no reason to. Nothing says you have to react to antics. Nothing says you have to react to people responsible for antics.
It might make sense if the site more or less bifurcated. With enough self-control, it could functionally be done, at least to the extent that we stopped getting too irritated.
Ks
K, you know that I was a long-time proponent of ignoring the Little Rascals. That was before they turned to me for their amusement. I have always been sensitive, which is why I go out of my way to be civil while still being true to myself. Those attacks hurt my feelings more than I would have thought they would. As long as we were just disagreeing, I had no problem. I'm not a street fighter. I use my brain and my (civil) words. When that fails, I'm done in.
DeleteL,
ReplyDeleteA few minutes ago in a communication to Jon, I figured out a better way to reframe this. You know the old bit about not getting stage fright by imagining the audience in their underwear?
Imagine every nast comment ends with a solicitation to subscribe to a listing of Russian brides who want you.
How did you used to treat spam when we were inundated with it?
You didn't answer it. You deleted it. You stepped over it and went on with your conversation.
You've seen some of these people. How much more value to the conversation do they really have than if they were, literally, NastyBots? Insult bots. Would you care about their feelings? Would you feel the need to answer? Would you feel the need to insult them? Of course not. They'd be an annoyance. Respect wouldn't be an issue. Respect wouldn't be a question. They don't have to like us, but the real secret is that as far as we're concerned, they don't have to count at all. The extent to which they count is our choice.
You can be reasonably certain that some of these people will never say anything you find interesting, valuable, worth it, and that if some do, it will be 5% of the time while the other 95% just makes you talk to yourself. 5% isn't worth bothering with. So someone behaves as a human being once in a blue moon. OK, if you want, when they do, express sympathy, support, whatever. Or not. It's not like anyone's advising you to go out of your way to hurt anyone or to hurt them at all. Just say:
To me, you don't count.
Not to them, just to yourself, and act accordingly. They are not intrinsically entitled to your attention, your respect, your voice. They may be intrinsically entitled not to be insulted, so don't insult them.
K
K, you are so stoic, I don't think you can imagine how those attacks make me feel. I know they shouldn't. I know I am none of those things. But when they say those things I feel like I want to rip them to shreds with my bare hands. But no, I must talk myself down so that I don't lower myself to their snake-belly levels. It's exhausting.
DeleteSo sensible, K (haha, I know who you are), and I personally pretty much do that myself. But if AL were putting up posts naming me or referencing me, I don't know if I'd stick around.
ReplyDeleteHmm. Not sure if my comment posted and I'm just in the land of Invisible stuff!! :D Anyways, Open will always be there, the cover will smell but you get use to it after awhile!! :D
ReplyDeleteJason, it did post and I appreciate you for coming over here.
DeleteYou welcome. (Posted another comment before the above but it seems to have gone poof! )
DeleteGina,
ReplyDeleteWhy? Someone we know comments about me frequently, it's never complimentary, and it isn't in reaction to things I post or comment about this individual, but what difference does it make? These comments do not affect what anyone I respect thinks about me. Let's say for argument's sake that AL started writing about you. Does his opinion matter to you? If he were to write nasty things about you, whose opinion of you would that affect? Probably no one's, though it could increase the public animosity you experience from other people for whom you have little respect anyway.
Jerks insult. It's what they do. And the thing about being in a closed environment like OS is that everyone active knows exactly who the jerks are already. Their influence is intrinsically very limited - do we really think people are suddenly going to start thinking this guy has valid things to say? Hell, he seriously pissed off one of the guys in his own circle by attacking L. If we no longer have to worry about the peanut gallery, why are we?
Many many years ago, my grandfather, a man I take after, who was an electrical engineer, rigged up his TV with a manual mute switch. It was attached by wire to the TV set and you had to hold it in for it to keep working. Now it's something expected but we're talking late 1960's here. (It was for personal use, just a mod. Unfortunately, I don't think he ever thought in terms of a patent.) The point is, he was watching TV and he thought of a solution to get rid of the annoying noise.
And now, a word from our sponsor. Mute. And now, a word from our troll. Mute. Friends, do you have trouble pooping?
Mute.
Why not?
K
Because, K, not all of us are as cool and rational as thou, as willing&able to even engage coolly and rationally with Horrible People... Tho I must admit to being a bit amused by A calling me a Nazi because I call for civility.
ReplyDelete