I just got another rude and disrespectful comment on one of our weblogs:
Before the Kathy Sierra incident, I would have just deleted the comment. No discussion. Nothing. I would have just deleted it and let it rot unread in my “Fan Mail” folder. It’s part of the “Don’t Feed the Trolls” philosophy that we have run under since about 1990 when we ran a BBS from a second line in our small apartment. They are our websites. I delete any comment that I don’t particularly like. I have been pretty ruthless about it, actually.
The thing is, I don’t really know if that method of dealing with trolls is the best. I really don’t. Sure, it gets rid of the trolls. They just go troll somewhere else, but it gives the rest of the world the impression that we don’t have trolls. Only I see them. So, when a new blogger starts dealing with the same problems as we have since 1990, she feels alone in the world. She thinks that Laura Moncur is beloved and no one would dare call her names, disagree with her in a disrespectful manner or threaten to kill her because she included a quotation that compared Jesus to Santa Claus in The Quotations Page.
The thing is, I PREFER deleting trolls. I get a certain feeling of revenge at taking away their voice. I don’t want to argue with them because they are obviously too stupid to understand or too blind to see another’s point of view. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t have posted in the manner that they did.
Deleting trolls makes other people forget they exist, though. It doesn’t actually remove them from the system. It just makes them invisible to everyone but me.
Is YOYOW (You Own Your Own Words) better? Is it better to just let the words hang there? Is it better to let others attack them for the hateful language? Is it better to just leave the comments as they come in?
I don’t know. All I know is I don’t want to see hateful and disrespectful comments on anything I own. That’s why I’m tempted to just delete them. It’s like graffiti. Do you leave it on your fence? Some people consider it art. It sure is a lot easier to leave the graffiti on the fence than to paint over it day after day after day when it keeps showing up every morning.
Another issue, however, is my constant deleting of trolls somehow creating an implied contract? If something I would normally consider disrespectful stays on one of my websites, does that imply that I agree with it? I have deleted so many comments in the past, but what if I don’t delete one? Does that mean I’m liable for what someone else posts on my websites? God, I hope not. How many times have disrespectful comments slipped through my fingers because of an email glitch or a weblog glitch or some other mysterious glitch in the system? I KNOW of one that slipped past me, but are there others?
So, I left a rude comment on The Gadgets Page. It sits there accusing me of being a pussy, a dolt, and a faggot. It implies that my entry about video games is reason enough for Islamic extremists to decide to attack me in my backyard. It’s not a death threat. It’s not the worst I’ve received, but it’s still there. Even now, I want to go back and just delete it.
I’m in cognitive dissonance about the whole thing and I don’t know what to do.
I’ll probably delete the comment, my response and even this entry. Silence has been our response for so long that I’m uncomfortable at the sound of my voice…
Update 2:09 pm: Well, that didn’t work… The whole thing devolved into a shouting match. I deleted all the comments (even my response) and closed comments on that entry.
Don’t Feed the Trolls wins, I guess…
Sometimes I create something from scratch and it works out great. Sometimes it’s even better than I expected. Other times, I create something that is barely passable as a cat toy and that’s only if I stuff the thing with catnip to entice them.
