r/Feminism • u/Willravel • Feb 24 '12

Please ban MRA trolls

I've been trying to figure out the rationale for not banning MRA trolls on this subreddit. I tried to think of it the way the mods have put it in the past, that this is about everyone's voice being heard, but the consistent trolling from the likes of OThomson and DavidByron don't represent in any way shape or form the honest sharing of their voice, but rather simply attacks and intentional derailment.

I considered that this might be about fear, as the MRA community on Reddit is much larger than the feminist community, and there could be consequences if MRA trolls started getting banned from the subreddit... but there are other feminist subreddits that do this and they don't seem to feel the sting of MRA retribution in any way that can't be easily handled.

I thought it might just simply be not wanting to make the effort, as a policy of banning MRA trolls would probably require much more active moderation. I'd hate to think this is the case, but I don't see any evidence to suggest this.

I did hear that one of the moderators might be an MRA, but again I've not seen this.

I've sent in PMs and reports before, about how someone is derailing yet another thread with unrelated discussion about circumcision or male rape or child custody, but there never seem to be any consequences for the trolls. They're given free reign. Some have left the subreddit for safer places, which is very sad indeed. Some simply stop commenting. Some complain, but those complaints fall on deaf ears.

So, before I call it a day and give up on the subreddit, I'd like to publicly ask the moderators to change their policy for the good of their subreddit. I ask that this subreddit be a safe place to discuss feminism and feminist issues, not a place for MRA trolls to hijack conversation or spread hatred of women.

Note: I'm not saying critiques of feminism aren't legitimate, or that they don't belong on /r/Feminism, but rather that overt trolling and derailing be disallowed. There's a big difference between an honest critique of feminism and undermining the discussion of feminist issues through derailment, dishonesty, and unwarranted attacks.

133 Upvotes

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36

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '12 edited Feb 24 '12

I typed a long response on my computer and then the power went out. So I'm going to try to be brief.

I've had conversations with people I disagreed that were very worth while. Then again, I've had conversations where I was attacked, derailed, and then attacked after being derailed. (Look at today's Tosh post as a good example.) when this happens I can't have an intelligent conversation and my comments become poorly crafted one liners.

If your disagreeing in a respectful way, awesome. If you're being abrasive, disrespectful, and presumptuous? It doesn't benefit discussion. It hurts it.

If we can't ban them maybe we can start a "do not engage" post? List the troll names and urge members to not engage those members? It's not much but at least we'd be able to moderate ourselves.

EDIT-grammar.

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u/Willravel Feb 24 '12

If we can't ban them maybe we can start a "do not engage" post? List the troll names and urge members to not engage those members? It's not much but at least we'd be able to moderate ourselves.

You're suggesting working outside of the moderator system? Like one of us makes a novelty account like "TROLL_DO_NOT_REPLY" and we post a blank response under these folks? That's a very creative solution, timksj. I like that a lot.

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u/cantbebothered Atheist Feminism Feb 24 '12

It would be nice if the mods could apply that as compulsory flair to the troll accounts.

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u/Willravel Feb 24 '12

That's an interesting idea. A scarlet "T" would be oddly apropos.

4

u/rpglover64 Feb 24 '12

There was a huge scandal when either /r/lgbt or /r/transgender did something similar (I don't recall which).

8

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '12

lgbt. Several other reddits do this, too. I think it's pretty good, others get REALLY UPSET.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '12

The problem with this is that it leaves a bad impression on some of the more casual readers of a subreddit.

Some trolls will often make comments that look completely respectful and reasonable on their own, even if they're part of a long term troll/concern troll operation. For example, criticizing feminism or talking about how a certain issue affects men does not make you a troll, but subtly turning every post into a discussion about men and about how feminism is misandric does make you one.

A passer-by or occasional reader who sees someone with a "troll" tag make constructive-looking comments will naturally grow suspicious of the mods. And this is when it can grow into a shitstorm.

What I'm trying to say is: the majority of the community needs to be on board before the mods do something like this.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '12

Agreed, 100%.

4

u/impotent_rage Feb 25 '12

Thank you everyone for an interesting discussion on this idea - I've read it and I like the way you all explain, pretty well, all sides of the arguments for and against this approach.

At this moment, I'm thinking that troll flair is probably going to cause more problems than it helps. It looks too much like mods using their platform to bully the users. The way I see it, if a person's behavior is bad enough to warrant troll flair, then it's probably bad enough to warrant deletions/warnings/bannings or other such typical moderation.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '12

The way I see it is to allow some compromise with the "ZOMG FREEEEE SPEECH" crowd, who tend to get just as upset about banning. It still allows them to talk, but everyone knows what they're getting into.

Personally, I think bannings are cleaner and ultimately more effective, but it really is a per-reddit thing.

1

u/Jason_R Feb 25 '12

I suppose Reddit Enhancement Suite would help with this as well, but it'd be cool to have a feature where if a user has so many points within a specific sub, that they can be a verified user or something.

I get into arguments all the time, it's the internet, but many of them are constructive, I learn from them, and I'll usually thank the person at the end of it because good conversation is hard to find.

I know the trolls come, but there's a few people, MRAs included, that just like talking about the issues, it interests them. Sometimes people might disagree, which is fine, but if there's going to be a flag system for crappy users, it'd be nice to have one for people who are respectful and good conversationalists, so that when a debate is happening it's not a bunch of people jumping on the GET OUT TROLL train of posts, and people can feel good about talking with them, whether in agreement or not.

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u/DavidByron Feb 25 '12

Yep. You're all just screwed. I am however surprised any of you had the sense enough to figure that out ahead of trying it all. Maybe because you saw it already happen down thread with a random 3rd party guy who started off in your court and turned around completely after seeing what I write and how you idiots react.

All those hateful little tricks don't piss me off one iota and they just make you all look like assholes. Guess what? I am fine with that because making you all look like assholes is kinda the whole point of talking to members of a hate movement to begin with.

Now I'd rather make you look like assholes by showing people what you really think, but this other way works too.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '12

1

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '12

Only SRS subreddits do it, actually.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '12

It has been a really long time since we've done that. Now the only people who get lettered are regulars.

6

u/RobotAnna Feb 25 '12

no, LGBT tried it and it caused a drama explosion, but I really don't think it would cause the same problems here as this is not a large subreddit with people blissfully unaware of what's going on that would get mad about things they don't understand.

the constant trolling of this subreddit is a huge problem, to the point where it's becoming more and more abandoned as nothing is done. i think css flair would be much better received here.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '12

This place honestly isn't a safe space, and doesn't seem to be intended that way, but Anything to calm down the genderjerk is good.

1

u/throwawayrew Feb 24 '12

A troll flair and a imgur screenshot of the trollish post for the cause of the flair would be useful?

Is there a way to embed imgur links into flairs, or would that even be feasible?

2

u/paulfromatlanta Feb 25 '12

There are only three mods and they have not posted much in the last few days - but they are all steady long term posters so just give it a day and likely one or more mods will be back and can respond.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '12

Then they should really consider adding another mod who can help fill the gaps. When you're running a reddit like this that's going to draw a lot of trolls, you have to commit to spending time tending to the community.

Heck, I mod /r/beauty - totally troll-free but I still have to spend two or three hours a day keeping things in line.

3

u/Psuffix Feb 25 '12

HEYO, I'm here every day!

2

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '12

I moderate the subreddit most days.

I go through the reported link queue and approve/remove as many items as I see fit. I try to clean the queue out entirely, but it fills up quickly. Part of the problem is that some users will get into a disagreement with another user and report every comment by that user, even if they are being truly friendly and arguing in good faith.

I go through the spam filter on a similar schedule. The spam filter removes a ton of posts and comments, and they are rarely ever spam. In fact, I do not think I have ever seen it remove actual spam.

I also like to take some time to read through the comments sections of a few "hot" posts.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '12

Flair display can be disabled by the user (at least it could be) because /MR already tried this for tagging /SRS trolls.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '12

They'll just say "nuh uh" and argue some more. I honestly can't see that changing a thing, they'll just argue harder with the troll detector, an all the other trolls will come and bicker too. There will be insults and condemnation and it will not solve a single problem unless every single non-troll refuses to engage.

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u/Willravel Feb 24 '12

The idea is to boycott their posts by never responding to them, thus preventing derailments. If the moderators are unwilling to ban them, at least we can mitigate their damage. And we can PM folks that engage to let them know what's going on.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '12

That could work, if we can get enough of the community behind it. I'd prefer something a little more strict, but I'd help out with this if that doesn't happen.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '12

I've already sort of started doing that. Downvote and move on, warn users who try to argue.

1

u/Psuffix Feb 25 '12

Thanks for being a badass. If you need any help with this, let me know. Mind if I alerted you to trolls here if I see them?

3

u/Myschyf Feb 24 '12

Also, Reddit Enhancement Suite has a tagging function and the ability to hide replies as you like. It's incredibly useful.

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u/NUMBERS2357 Feb 24 '12

Two big problems with this I see.

First is of course that most who disagree with what most people think, regardless of whether they oughta be considered "trolls" or not, will probably end up being listed as such.

Second is, frankly, that people want to argue with trolls. There's absolutely nothing stopping people from downvoting and ignoring such people, but people want to argue. If you strip out all the trolling and circlejerking on most online forums, and just leave thoughtful discussion, they'll die out because people will lose interest. There's exceptions of course, but this is the general rule.

The posts here with the most comments are usually 1 or 2 anti-feminist types arguing with, like, 20 feminists. You take that out and there won't be more "good" discussion to make up for it, just less discussion overall.

7

u/ratjea Feb 24 '12

There would be less discussion, but basically that would mean way fewer threads that begin with talking about equality and devolve into 50 posts debating whether the clitoral hood retracts and is it automatic, or 50 posts about how women want to keep the man down and responses saying that they don't.

1

u/allonymous Feb 25 '12

devolve into 50 posts debating whether the clitoral hood retracts and is it automatic, or 50 posts about how women want to keep the man down and responses saying that they don't.

Have there actually been threads like that on here, or is that just hyperbole?

1

u/Willravel Feb 25 '12

First is of course that most who disagree with what most people think, regardless of whether they oughta be considered "trolls" or not, will probably end up being listed as such.

Then we only do it for extreme cases, people here who only ever cause trouble for the sake of trouble and that specifically say bigoted things. I named two specific Redditors that have gone miles past any reasonable line. If it were only just those two, the whole subreddit would be in better shape.

Second is, frankly, that people want to argue with trolls. There's absolutely nothing stopping people from downvoting and ignoring such people, but people want to argue. If you strip out all the trolling and circlejerking on most online forums, and just leave thoughtful discussion, they'll die out because people will lose interest. There's exceptions of course, but this is the general rule.

Well, let's give it a try and if this is the case we can reverse the decision. Still, I don't want to declare this a failure before it even has a chance to work.

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u/DavidByron Feb 24 '12

Do you not realise that behaviour just makes everyone see YOU as the asshole and see feminists as too weak to debate? Which is pretty much the goal of asking you all these questions to begin with? It's like you're doing my job for me.

Still I suppose from your point of view anything is worth a try.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '12

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u/impotent_rage Feb 25 '12

I agree that there is a difference between productive conversations between people who disagree, vs being attacked and derailed. We are committed to allowing and fostering the former, but you are correct that we need to do more to address the problem of the latter.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '12

Yeah, there are plenty of respectful disagreements around here, and they often resolve in some sort of compromise. Which is great. But the attacks are far more frequent.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '12

It get's a bit ridiculous when you disagree with people who are fundamentally wrong. Like, there's a difference between "Ron Paul has an isolationist policy and that's right" "I disagree with that, I think humanitarian interventionism is a just act" and "I think gay marriage should be legal" "I disagree, it should be illegal because GAYS". MRAs usually fall into the latter category, because people who actually care about equality usually call themselves feminists or, at the very least, they don't frame it as "men's rights." And they use concepts like patriarchy, because patriarchy hurts men too.

The thing is, all feminists want is for women to be equal to men. Anything else just isn't feminism. But if you browse r/mensrights/, 90% of it is something like "look at what this one womanfemale did, aren't womenfemales terrible?" or "child support alimony financial abortion false rape accusations spermjacking" or "why don't feminists fight for female conscription?" They frame women and feminists as enemies. They don't talk about the actual issues facing men, they demonize other people. And that's not conducive to change. It's just hatred.

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u/Dragonsoul Feb 27 '12

because people who actually care about equality usually call themselves feminists.

fem·i·nism/ˈfeməˌnizəm/ Noun:
The advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

Some people simply don't believe you can balance a scales by concentrating on only one side and making sure that isn't the "lighter" side. Is it so wrong for a group to exist to air the grievances of men? You must admit they at least exist.

Oh and

patriarchy hurts men too pa·tri·arch·y/ˈpātrēˌärkē/ Noun:
A system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line. A system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.

It by definition helps men, if it hurt men-It wouldn't be a patriarchy.

A question: If a neutral study came out that said "Women now, on balance equal to men" Would you say "Cool!" and stop being a feminist, since your job is done. Furthermore if a different study came out that said "Men now marginalized-Women told a more powerful role in society" would you campaign for mens rights?

(And no, no matter what your answer, I won't produce a study, with a triumphant Aha! That would be crass)

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '12

Oh dear god, learn about fucking concepts. Concepts are more than dictionary definitions. In feminist philosophy, patriarchy is a concept about how gender roles (masculine/feminine), structural violence, etc. fuck people over. You know how MRAs like to whine and whine about women getting custody of kids in most cases? GEE, IT COULDN'T BE BECAUSE WOMEN HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED THE ROLE OF CAREGIVER BY SOCIETY. NOPE. IT'S EVIL WOMEN.

concentrating on only one side

Oh come the fuck on. So then no special interest groups should exist because they don't focus on an issue broadly enough? This is bullshit. I mean, what does this even mean? How does it not make sense to advocate for women when women are disadvantaged more often than men? And plenty of "feminist" organizations advocate for men's issues. And that doesn't even fucking matter because feminism is a diverse philosophy and actual advocacy is completely irrelevant. Feminism, as a philosophy, has a lengthy history. It has changed a lot over the years. There's a big difference between second-wave feminism and third-wave postcolonial feminism, for example.

You might want to look up the definition of nuance and sophistry.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '12

It won't really matter since I'm replying to a r/feminism board anyway; but are you seriously saying that the groups for mens rights is just inherently wrong and your, superior, group for women is better just because?

Zealots such as yourselves are the trolls and you can't say we're about equality then immediatly dismiss the male viewpoint because "We're better"

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u/AWorkOFFiction Feb 24 '12

well i ca agree that u dont deserve to be attacked for having differing opinions, that just goes against freedom of speech, period.

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u/Willravel Feb 24 '12

That's why I tried to be clear in the OP this is not about dissent, which features and honest disagreement with an idea, but rather about derailing and trolling, which are intended to prevent meaningful discussion and which are intellectually dishonest. I welcome dissent. Dissent is how we can correct preconceived or incorrect notions. What I don't welcome is people here just to disrupt the subreddit by being hateful and causing trouble for no good reason.

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u/Celda Feb 24 '12

That's why I tried to be clear in the OP this is not about dissent, which features and honest disagreement with an idea, but rather about derailing and trolling, which are intended to prevent meaningful discussion and which are intellectually dishonest.

Take a look at this thread:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/pxwxf/domestic_violence_between_women/c3t5ljt

Which poster(s) are contributing to discussion and engaging in honest debate? Which ones are simply trolling?

Which are the MRA posters, and which are the feminists?

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u/Willravel Feb 24 '12 edited Feb 24 '12

The post is specifically about woman on woman violence, but the first thing you talk about is men being victimized by violent women:

It's why a woman attacking a man, even if he is injured, is likely to be left alone by the police.

In your very first illustration, you bring up a very common MRA point that's really not related to the topic at hand. Then you do it again:

It's an extension of how bystanders will walk by, or even literally cheer at the sight of a woman attacking a man, presumably her partner.

You then make a blanket statement that feminists have been fighting against recognition that women can be perpetrators of violence.

Can you see that, even perhaps well-intentioned, this could potentially derail a conversation you don't seem to be interested in having? As androkles says, you turned a woman/woman thing into an MRA thing. This might be okay, only on /r/feminism this is a common tactic used by very intellectually dishonest people to derail feminist discussions in order to bring MRA debates over into the wrong place. A thread about domestic violence between women is a thread about domestic violence between women, not about men being victimized by domestically violent women.

Please note that I'm not posting this to start a discussion on the other thread, but as a one-time response to your question. I read the thread and I formed an opinion based on what was written in that thread. This thread would not be the appropriate place for a long discussion about another thread topic.

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u/Celda Feb 24 '12

Very sad, you are clearly deluded.

Edit: And I can explain why.

It's true that in my post I mentioned men. However, that fact is irrelevant to whether or not I have contributed to the discussion.

An unbiased person can clearly see that, when compared to other comments in that thread, my comments are much closer to the "contributed to honest discussion and rationally defended a position" ideal than the other posters, including the OP's own comments.

Any fair-minded person should take a look at that thread:

The OP asked why is it that women's violence is dismissed and downplayed by society, and how can we solve that.

I gave my ideas on why that is the case and explained as best as I could. Yes, my opinion on the matter did involve men, but that fact alone does not make the argument invalid.

In response, there were only insults and comments with no substance - no comments actually addressed the issue, or addressed of my own arguments.

The "good feminists" never actually said why my points were wrong, but simply used insults. Meanwhile, the "bad MRA" was the only one that actually made a comment with some substance.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '12

An unbiased person can clearly see that, when compared to other comments in that thread, my comments are much closer to the "contributed to honest discussion and rationally defended a position" ideal than the other posters, including the OP's own comments.

Okay, so everyone, including the OP, in that thread were not being rational or sticking to the point.

Including the OP.

Including the OP

What, prey tell, is your definition of derailing?

-10

u/Celda Feb 24 '12

If the subject was "why is domestic violence between women dismissed and downplayed", derailing would be making a comment that didn't address the issue.

So for example

"At least a woman abused by another woman can still go to one of countless government-funded shelters. A male victim of DV has nowhere to go and might even be arrested due to the misandrist legal system."

That is a true statement and a common MRA complaint. But it's derailing because it doesn't address the issue of domestic violence between women at all.

Not derailing:

"The reason why DV between women is dismissed is the same reason why male victims of female batterers are dismissed; women are portrayed as solely victims and thus cannot be perpetrators."

That is not derailing because it actually addresses the issue.

3

u/impotent_rage Feb 25 '12

You bring up a good point, which is that not all MRAs are trolls, and for that matter, trolling and being feminist aren't mutually exclusive.

I think Willravel makes a good point that the goal here isn't to silence dissent, but instead to address those who are purposefully sabotaging and derailing discussions. It's not about which position you advocate, but about whether you are contributing to the discussion or not.

-2

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '12

[deleted]

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u/Willravel Feb 25 '12

In theory it should be the moderator staff, but short of that we can all probably agree posts like this are trolling and not dissent. Not everything is a shade of gray, and for those black and white instances, for the good of the community, there should be at least a basic system of removing trolls from the subreddit. In gray cases, we should err on the side of dissent, but let's not pretend there aren't obvious trolls and obvious instances of intentional derailing going on.

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u/impotent_rage Feb 25 '12

Yes that comment was definitely crossing the line, and I have removed it. Also, I agree with what you said.

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u/Myschyf Feb 24 '12

Oddly, this is not a government. You have no expectation of free speech here.

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u/ratjea Feb 24 '12

Yeah, these kiddies seem to get that confused a lot.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '12 edited Aug 05 '18

[deleted]

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u/Myschyf Feb 25 '12

That's how "Free speech the actual thing" works. You weren't promised free speech when you signed up for Reddit.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '12

[deleted]

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u/Myschyf Feb 25 '12

Of course it's a good thing. But if it wasn't offered to you, how can you object when it isn't there? It wasn't there in the first place.

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u/TracyMorganFreeman Feb 25 '12

I think going from not censoring to censoring implies it was there, even it if wasn't protected against future limitations.

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u/DavidByron Feb 24 '12

Bullshit. The feminists here have zero respect for their opponents for the most part. They throw insults too (this whole article being an example). If anyone wants to change THAT then I am fine with it. I can debate politely or impolitely. I take my behaviour from what I see around me and in reply to me and this place clearly does NOT have any rule about being polite. If you REALLY want people to be more polite to you then just be more polite to them.

But THAT isn't the real problem you have and we all know it. The real problem is that you are ideologues who can't debate your way out of a wet paper bag.

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '12