Oh, Dear Lord!!
What have you all turned IGS into? The threads are full of bickering, trolling and unrelated to the topic discussions. I make a call to all the people, who write comments in discussion threads to look at what you are writing. These forums were made for people of hostile, fighting factions could discuss problems here without jumping at each throat like you do in space. But you, you jump at throats at people who you don’t even fight with, and over what? Over some insignificant issues or words.
There is a rule of thumb in discussions: once you start discussing a person, who posted the topic (if they didn’t post about themselves), or any other participant of the discussion (who weren’t talking about themselves) as a way of replying to them, then you have lost the argument. And as I see in threeds, I can start pointing fingers, “You lost it”, “You lost it”, “You lost it”… Everyone lost. Then why do you continue?
I understand, that I cannot ask trolls (as people who join the discussions not to discuss a problem, but rather get reactions out of participants) to stop trolling (baiting people for the reaction), because it’s the same as telling a slaver hound to stop howling at the moons. I will address people who talk with them. There is a good saying, “It takes two to tango”. If you are replying to trolls, or as they say, if you “feed” them (give them the reaction, they so much wanted), you equally participate in clogging of threads.
How do you determine, where should you reply, and where you shouldn’t? It is very simple, you should reply only if the comment contains a constructive content, and you shouldn’t reply if it is only baiting, if it is just personal attacks or a content without meaning. Because, as I said, if they start personal attacks, they have already lost and there is no reason to continue discussion with them.
Lets take one example to visualize it (from the discussion EVE-0nline; Heavenly Plots - #3 by Halcyon_Ember):
This is a message that has no other content than 100% baiting (or trolling). You see such sort of reply, and you should already take a mental note, “A-ha, this person comes not for discussion, this person comes for something else.” And when you see that, you do not reply to that.
In the linked discussion above you can see what happens when you do reply to that. The person, whom this attack was targeted to, has returned to the discussion and started proving than it was false, when it clearly wasn’t required. Moreover, she did it in extremely angry manner. In other words, she gave a reaction to the baiter - exactly what the trolls need. What happens next is easy to predict, the conversation gets derailed, and more trolls pounce on Diana, because she turns out to be an easy target, who gives them reaction.
Don’t give them reactions. Don’t reply on comments without content.
This is a place where you come to discuss things, and not to insult each other. You read topics here, you write topics, you write comments, then help keep this place clean and pleasant. Be polite even with enemies and whom you kill out there, in the space, and you will see, that they too can be polite to you.
And if you feel an irresistible urge to insult, defame or slander anyone, in the name of all the Saints, please use the Local chat for that instead!
, I approve of this message. And people, I really think if you used the report function as much as responding to posts which are report-able, and not responded to them, then this would be a cleaner place.
