zephyr said:
I doubt restricting the lounge access will have any affect at all on the amount of trollage that crops up from time to time.
This is the only part we agree on, zephyr. It's a start, I guess.
The lounge brings more interest and actual participation than the other social forums. As much as it is ragged on as being "useless and full of idiots", its more useful than other more uptight forums for the simple reason that it is what it is.
Casual, off-topic chat subforums serve a purpose on most boards, but to claim that they are more useful than the on-topic core forums is inaccurate.
The lounge shouldnt be seen as a filter to keep the riff raff out of the other forums.
I lied; we agree on two points. It's a better start.
Its probably a lot easier and less work for you mods to discourage or prevent new members from posting in areas they will probably be assraped in at first. I remember going to the lounge specifically to get the virtual popcorn out and watch the fur fly years ago, and its gotten a lot nicer in the lounge since then.
Yet it is not as "nice" as it was, say, five or six years ago. It has quite a ways to go to being considered an approachable casual chat forum for some one just happening onto the site for the first time and coming from the normal parts of the internet.
Trolls will always be around, just face it. Its a pattern of behaviour that just keeps repeating, and you have no chance of making the trolling go away if the mods don't take a long look at why it really happens. If you get someone who is pretty much guaranteed to be drug affected, pissed off at being "singled out and treated unfairly"- real or imagined, and publically torn a new arsehole over and over- then banned- you'll have yourself a troll.
Here is where our opinions begin to differ in earnest, zephyr.
Let us examine the birth of a troll. By this, I mean the transformation of a bluelighter into a troll, not some dysfunctional personality who trolls the web indiscriminately and exhibits the unsavoury behaviour right from the start.
The history in the Lounge has been as follows, give or take. A bluelighter who posts in the Lounge, be it for a day or for a year, suddenly stumbles on a certain posting manner or posting content which captures the attention, appreciation and even admiration of others. People appreciate positive attention, so our bluelighter continues with the manner or the content. Attention being like a drug, either our bluelighter or their audience soon develop a bit of a tolerance for the level of positive attention thrown their way, so they escalate the intensity of the manner or the frequency of their content which was first responsible for that positive attention. The cycle perpetuates itself.
Somewhere along the way, our now popular bluelighter is approached (first privately, then publicly) and requested to tone down what is by now obnoxious and often insulting behaviour. There are some who respond favourably and some who do not. Those who choose to tone down their "fun times" come to realise that their popularity, appreciation, admiration, whatever you want to call it, now that it has been established, does not die with a decrease in the intensity of their posting manner or content. Those who choose to disregard the requests... a troll is born.
From that point on, the cycle is always the same. The requests from staff increase in frequency; warnings follow; then temporary bans; finally, a permanent ban. The troll then has several options - there are at least two ways out of every "no way out" situation. The troll can return, incognito, as a new identity and take the opportunity to start their Bluelight existence anew, interacting with people in a normal fashion and taking advantage of the resources the site has to offer (the latter they can do without registering, of course - simply browse). Or they could return under a new identity, with a chip on their shoulder, vengeance on the mind and embark on a campain of juvenile stupidity, i.e. trolling. They could also choose to go away entirely.
Those who return to troll, prove only one thing - that they have a malicious mindset. If they can embark on such malicious campaigns in the virtual world, then you can bet that they possess the same malicious traits in real life. The more they perpetuate this behaviour, the more solid a case they make against their person.
An argument which often crops up is that our rules don't specify certain behaviours for which some have been edited, warned or banned. To that, I say let's use our common sense, please. We're not six years old and neither are you (I hope not). Do you cover your mouth when you cough at the dinner table? Why? It's not written anywhere. Do you give up your seat to the elderly or pregnant in a crowded hall or bus or subway? Why? Yes, it is sometimes written above some seats, but not always and it is certainly not law. You know who bases their behaviour strictly on sets of written, explicit rules? Machines! We, as an intelligent species, live our lives according to not only the defined explicit rules, but also the underlying, implicit rule subsets. Some of these subsets we have come to call common courtesy, some political correctness and some, a huge set - common sense.
If a person gives the impression that they are 20-30-40 years old, have been around the block a few times, have life experience and even extensive computer and internet experience, then it is a given that this person should be well familiar with how the world runs and certainly familiar with many, if not most, of the implicit rule subsets, especially the most common and obvious ones, i.e. common sense. If, when that person is approached about toning down certain content or behaviour, they challenge the request by pointing at the explicit rule set here (BLUA) and cry out that there is nothing there which states that they are in the wrong, well... we have a slight problem then. Either that person is full of shit and is in reality six years old and is therefore not fully familiar with implicit rules and/or common sense, or that person is being knowingly and maliciously manipulative. Since the person's history - profile data, real life intro, display of life, computer and internet know-how - indicates that they are not six or twelve, but rather 20-30-40 as they had previously stated, the resulting conclusion is that they have no intention of following common courtesy, common sense implicit rule sets and are only intent on taking advantage of the good will originally offered to them and manipulating us and the system. Once again, if they can be this maliciously manipulative in the virtual world, then you can bet that they possess the same malicious traits in real life. Their manipulations will not be tolerated here, just as they will not be tolerated in the real world.
If they receive no attention- liek NONE (and banning/ warning is ultimate attention to someone who hates you guys) they will eventually wander off and not bother with it.
Exactly the opposite is true. The people who are repeatedly warned and eventually banned are precisely the ones who will not go away or tone down on their own, as they simply crave the attention of their disruptive behaviour too much to give it up. Warnings and especially bans are last resort measures.
Im a little tired of mods who post in the lounge themselves (or lurk, which is kinda ghey in itself) taking a shit on the social forum that is getting more atention than any other. If it were gone, the rest of BL would not be too far behind, so appreciate it while you have it.
A casual, off-topic chat forum is a valuable one on any board, but to imply that BL would cease to exist if the Lounge were to disappear is a grave fallacy. Rather than try to strike fear into people with these sorts of absolutist statements based on your own distorted version of reality, I would suggest that you take a stroll through the world wide web, visit some other focus forums and see how much nonsense is tolerated there. The message is almost without exception universal out there - no flaming, baiting, trolling, or spamming. Even forums which originally allowed the nonsense to get out of hand a bit have since pulled in the reins, since they realised that it is simply unrealistic to be taken seriously by the world when they themselves do not take themselves seriously. Fun and games are all good... to an extent. What dictates that extent? You guessed it - common sense. Even in my position as an admin here, above all I am a Bluelighter. A such, I am a part of this institution. If the institution has lost touch with its common sense in some small corner of its otherwise excellent universe, you better believe it that I cannot help but try and think of a way to recapture that common sense and bring it in line with that of the rest of the world. You are wrong, zephyr, when you imply that no Lounge would mean no more Bluelight. Although my only intent is to make the Lounge more approachable by general web standards, I'll counter your statement by saying that Bluelight would be more in danger of disappearing not if the Lounge departs, but if the common sense does not return.