Open Letter

It's true, "don't feed the trolls" is a good rule to live by on online forums like this.

But is someone a "troll" if they offer a different point of view, and want to debate that point of view? In the task force thread case it's difficult to make the distinction. The anonymous poster is certainly not above posting personal attacks (ad hominem tactics) or statements obviously just intended to get a rise out of us. At the same time the poster tries to make legitimate points and obviously cares enough about the subject to keep arguing it.

And if we don't engage, we tend to be accused of being only interested in preaching to the choir. Which may be a legitimate point as well. Isn't is shutting down legitimate discourse, and education of others who may not have the courage to post at all but are reading along, if we refuse to discuss these issues with someone passionate about discussing them just because they don't agree with our point of view? Isn't labelling someone a "troll" just an easy way of discrediting them and ignoring anything they may have to say?

The reason I've engaged and commented on the topic so far is because I believe the purpose of Vive is to educate and debate on these issues, and to me a lot of comments are a GOOD thing as frustrating as it can be to go in circles a bit. A little controversy certainly doesn't hurt as far as getting attention drawn to Vive, and the discussions can also help highlight what information we need to provide people (I posted a lot of new FAQ info as a result) while also forcing us to clarify our positions.

So while I see your point, I'm not sure I entirely agree.



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Now call it extreme if you like, but I propose we hit it hard, and we hit it fast, with a major, and I mean major, leaflet campaign.--Rimmer, Red Dwarf

I try not to be caught by the ones who use this dual method of posting. If they try to ensnare me by illiciting an emotional response, I leave them alone, even if they try to make an informed rest of their post. If they want a debate, I'm more than happy to post facts and opinion showing and supporting my position.

If the Anon wants to cite Carolyn Parrish without knowing what she actually said, or comment on an unfortunate juniour hockey event without checking out what happened the following year, well, the rest of their 'facts' will be equally negative and therefore the bias will continue to spiral down to the point where all that will be left is name calling. They've already decided there is no room for my thoughts and opinion, and therefore there is no need for a debate that will not progress anyone's understanding of the issues.

The seperatist threads taught me that some people will resort to any tactic, including creating fantasy falsehoods, in order to make their opponent appear to have less integrity and try to weaken their position in the eyes of others.

I agree with Susan, defending one's position is essential. However, I won't engage in mud slinging.

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"If you must kill a man, it costs you nothing to be polite about it." Winston Churchill

Yes, that's an important point Dr C--responding to those kinds of posts has to mean not responding in KIND with personal attacks back etc., and instead, sticking to the real issues only.

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Now call it extreme if you like, but I propose we hit it hard, and we hit it fast, with a major, and I mean major, leaflet campaign.--Rimmer, Red Dwarf

This kind of thing would all be solved if contributors of articles were required to get a username and confirm their identity with a valid email address (I believe that the site moderated by the Council of Canadians during the last election used this to good effect). If Vive doesn't want to require this in order to make comments, then at least when people want to submit articles and write essays to initiate a discussion forum I think we have the right to know the indentity of the writer.

I agree. I find it very difficult to follow a discussion when half the contributors are anonymous. Surely it's not asking too much to require any anonymous contributor to include a "tag" at the beginning or end of his/her posts. At least then I would be able to link anonymous posts from the same individual together. Of course this could be open to abuse, i.e. using somebody else's tag, so we have to rely on Canadian's common sense to make it work.
I look forward to visiting this site, but there is no doubt that some articles spiral downwards and eventually reach a point where contributors resort to name calling to score points off each other. This serves no useful pupose and it would be a good idea to terminate the article at this point.
Frank.

Must say that I also agree, the discussions lately have been increasingly dwindling into rants and attacks that are not even worth reading or responding to. Seems to be mostly one "troll" but we dont know that. The complex voting / hiding system would be beter replaced by having all those who wish to post or comment log in. They can still use a "nom-de-plume" and if it is too much trouble to log in then we may be better off without them, at least as others have said here we would be able to better follow and respond to comments from one particular user.

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When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to remember that the initial objective was to drain the swamp

As an interesting observation, I notice after 24 hours, no Anon posts. Perhaps because this article is not in the "Eye on Uncle Sam" section? Or, have we revealed their true nature - trolls


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"If you must kill a man, it costs you nothing to be polite about it." Winston Churchill

Disallowing anonymous posts has been suggested many times and we WILL NOT DO IT. The voting/hiding system is still a work in progress, and will improve over time; a democratic voting system is far superiour to the exclusionary tactics you are suggesting.

Every logged in user has always had the option to hide all anonymous posts; it's in your user preferences. If it matters that much to you, go and do that.

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Every time you complain about the moderators, god kills a kitten.

The exclude anon post functionality has never worked for me.

This could be due to my using the Mozilla browser.

I've also noticed the 'report abuse' function doesn't seem to work in Mozilla, although it does in Firefox.

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"When we are in the middle of the paradigm, it is hard to imagine any other paradigm" (Adam Smith).

see, now that's a bug that I wish someone had reported sooner. Adding to the todo list.

The report abuse function works well for at least some people.

Neither of the things you mention should be affected at all by using mozilla or firefox, as they are entirely server-side.

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Every time you complain about the moderators, god kills a kitten.

It didn't seem like that big a deal.

When I've tried to use the 'report abuse' function in Mozilla, I get to the 'are you sure you want to report this...' screen however, nothing happens when I click the submit button.

When I use Firefox, everything works fine.

On this topic, is there a document that describes what Vive considers 'abuse' for reporting purposes? I thought there was a Terms of Service somewhere however, can't locate it.



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"When we are in the middle of the paradigm, it is hard to imagine any other paradigm" (Adam Smith).

It has been previously mentioned in about six places, but I just collated it all into a single FAQ entry (now referenced from 6 other places):<br />
<br />
What is considered Unacceptable content?<br />
<a href="http://www.vivelecanada.ca/multifaq/index.php?topic=4&qt_id=105&getlevel=004">http://www.vivelecanada.ca/multifaq/index.php?topic=4&qt_id=105&getlevel=004</a><br />
<p>---<br>Every time you complain about the moderators, god kills a kitten.

And now that there is a new, clearly defined set of parameters, it's time to put on the green moderators uniform again. I've been a little lax lately.

Don't make Hulk angry.


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"If you must kill a man, it costs you nothing to be polite about it." Winston Churchill

I think that after what the Anons are doing today in the "Trinational task force" thread, we'll all think thrice about falling for their beads and shiny objects.

Even when we try to be nice, or have a civil discussion, it is turned against us by the people who only see hate in what we're saying to them.

I, for one, am done trying to see their point of view, and trying to get them to see mine. They don't want to see it, they only want to spew their hate for some imagined wrong we've done them. I suppose they'll read this comment, and manage to misquote it as well.


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"If you must kill a man, it costs you nothing to be polite about it." Winston Churchill