I’d like to take a moment to let you all know that we are extremely protective of our community at CHS and will go to great lengths to protect it. Our terms of service clearly spell out that anybody disrupting the flow of communication on the site is violating the agreement and will not be allowed to participate in the site.
On this list of disruptions that are disruptive to the community of CHS is falsely describing your relationship to the area. If you live in another city, welcome to Capitol Hill Seattle. If you come here to play a game, goodbye.
One step might be to remove user accounts that violate this agreement. Another might be to ban specific IP addresses. Another might be to take legal action to stop the abuse. As CHS grows, the opportunities and impact of abusing its community grow. But our resources deepen, too. It is built to foster and sustain community. Please respect — and enjoy — CHS.
Justin (jseattle)
(206) 659-1919
I think the best protection against drawing trolls to the site is to completely ignore them when the do appear and to delete offensive/spam comments (and any replies they might generate).
If I pass a drunk on the street who screams obscenities at me – I just walk away and don’t encourage the situation to escalate. The same behavior makes sense here – if someone shouts obscenities (whether they be racist, homophobic or just plain stupid – wait that is redundant) in the comments don’t engage. Reason and logic in the situation are not your friends since they are not part of the trolls lexicon.
If I pass a drunk on the street who screams obscenities at me – I just walk away and don’t encourage the situation to escalate. The same behavior makes sense here – if someone shouts obscenities (whether they be racist, homophobic or just plain stupid – wait that is redundant) in the comments don’t engage. Reason and logic in the situation are not your friends since they are not part of the trolls lexicon.
agreed and well put, Cindy (gave you a thumbs-up, BTW)
also, we should assist by reporting comments as abuse when cases of abuse do arise (just click the “REPORT ABUSE” icon directly below the thumbs-up icon); I have been very active in doing this in other comment threads and I would encourage others to use this function when faced with a personal attack in lieu of replying in kind – that’s what it’s there for
there’s room for passionate and vibrant debate and disagreement – no room at all for personal attacks or abuse
We also need to allow everyone to have their own point of view whether we like it or not.
I hope you don’t ban people because you oppose their view as one commenter suggested getting rid of someone yesterday.
another excellent point and another thumbs up, —
Is there as second list of disruptions that are not disruptive?
I totally agree with the sentiment of this post and really appreciate your commitment to protecting CHS from trolls. That line did make me chuckle, though. Keep up the good work.
Good reminder.
Sloppy :) But I’m leaving it. I like it kinda.
I know we’re supposed to ignore the trolls, report abuse, blah blah blah. But seriously, I have dramatically cut back my CHS browsing time as a direct result of a few prolific commenters. Although I don’t comment on posts all that often, I *really* don’t want to comment now knowing that anything I say will be mocked. I love me some CHS, but I don’t like to feel bullied.
on the west seattle blog, tracy often moderates comments, inserting into threads and reminding people of the terms of service and general civility. i don’t think this is justin’s style here, but it sure would be helpful, especially when there are blatent terms of service violations. a simple “hey folks, i am moderating, keep it civil or you will be removed” is very very helpful.
Definitely not my style but something I do when necessary and our tools and systems haven’t done the job.
I do everything I can to step back and be part of the community.
The last few weeks have surely been trying for the CHS team, and I just want to pop in to say thanks for handling this so smoothly. I’m looking forward to getting back to discussions with people genuinely interested in local issues.
Thanks!
If I wanted to be mocked, I’d comment on Slog a lot more. I haven’t run into it much here, but I don’t contribute a lot, either.