While I'm sure trolls, who are people who revel in seeing negativity injected into others, have been around forever but the trend has seemed to be rising over the years.
Years back I pondered over the small town versus the suburb/city mentality regarding trolling. In a small town, people were less likely to screw with others intentionally when unprompted. A part of this being largely due to the knowledge that everybody knew everybody and such an act could be reciprocated.
Compare this to the suburbs or city where you knew people, but not everybody. The belief of anonymity was higher, lessening the feeling that a person you acted heinously towards would be able to enact some form of retribution.
Then we come to the internet where the feeling of anonymity is even further enhanced. The trolls bred without end since they felt there was no chance at retribution. Social media, message boards and free games were bombarded with those having nothing better to do but spew hate and negativity. Why? Because they could. Even if they got banned, they would just make a new email, to make a new account and begin again.
Our technology that allowed us to go farther, communicate faster and bring us closer together instead drove many further apart with due to mistrust of trolls, scammers and the like!
It's sad that we live in a world now where were taught to not help because they might hurt you or scam you or worse! I don't know how, but I want to take back the world for the good and trusting!
We have a platform here that incentivizes communication, collaboration and camaraderie!
Steemit users, what are your ideas to move in a better direction!
I trust that ecosystems like Steemit, in which monetary value is associated with each users' account, holds the key to creating a troll-resistant community. However, I believe that a troll-resistant ecosystem must involve some sacrifice - an investment - on each users' part in order to enter the ecosystem and this must be accompanied by rules that explicitly forbid and punish trolling and abusive behavior.
Like Steemit, users would be able to capitalize on their content and endorsements of other content, therefore making the entrance fee the only fee required of any user. Users who make bad decisions on endorsing could regenerate their funds through microtransactions as well or opt to have their account closed after a certain number of days.
I feel that once one invests one's earnings, however little, in an ecosystem in which they are an active member, one feels a greater connectivity to that ecosystem than if one had not invested to gain entry to that ecosystem. Furthermore, if investors are made aware that unscrupulous acts can and will be punished by the ecosystem, they might be more averse to committing such acts themselves. Users would be less eager to throw away a $10 investment for the temporary pleasure they may derive by trolling another's post every time users feel the urge to do so.
These abuse-intolerant rules would keep out those who feel as though they would not be able to abide by the laws of the ecosystem before they ever enter it. Add this dissuasion to the fact that trolls would be kicked from the network and one could generate quite a troll-resistant system, I believe.
For this to work, there must be efficient moderators of the community who quickly respond to abuse reports by users. Perhaps a moderator community would be better to prevent one person holding too much power within the community, especially considering that banned users would lose money. Alternatively, banning might occur once a user has accumulated enough reports, with each report being validated by a moderator to ensure that wrongfully-accused users do not lose their investments.
As you mention in your post, there is a value to perceived chance of repercussion based on one's actions. Users who are wary of having their accounts closed and have good reason to prevent that from happening are less likely to break explicit community rules. This is opposed to communities where trolls thrive such as YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, new sites, and almost everywhere else on the Internet where a closed account means nothing more than a minor inconvenience of having to once more create an alternative account to continue anonymous trolling.
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TRUE :)
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What happens when the trolls cultivate a slick reputation in order to let them indulge in a little bit of this kind of pathetic behaviour on the side, just small enough to not cause them a big loss in reputation? Does anyone think it is just that someone who posts very little original content can have so much power they can smash down minnows rising up by 6 points in one fell swoop? It's not even about the points, or the rewards. If I don't want to see something, and I see this user who posts a lot of this kind of something near the top, what do you think I am going to feel about the whole community, especially if you drink the kool-aid that the problem is already solved here? uh uh.
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https://steemit.com/steemit/@l0k1/petition-for-the-mute-button-to-actually-hide-posts-from-muted-users
Please join me in this campaign, and promote this to your associates who agree with this. It is sorely needed. The implementation of the mute function is insulting to the very definition of the word. Mute means silent, not quieter. Quieter also can become more noticable.
The most effective remedy for trolls is ignoring them. We have these goddamned programmable computers, why can we not make these trolls disappear entirely from our feeds, and all of the comments that go underneath their posts?
I just need to reinforce, OUR feeds. Not everyones.
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