How about that (linkage)
by at 1:48 PM
I saw on BoingBoing that Rusty has finally decided to do something about the troll problem.
A bit too little, too late, I'm afraid.
Also, the "last straw" event for him must have been so incredibly nerve-wracking. I wonder how he'd have dealt with people making death threats and posting personal information and sending Mormons to his house.
Comments
I think this is exciting. I'm trying to decide whether to sit back and watch the site implode, or actively help it along.
What I don't get is why people, time and time again, think that they can fix the problems with a convoluted human-computer-human interface by making it more convoluted.
First off, I mangled his phone number to make it not look like a phone number. (Until someone had made the connection, people were asking, "What, was that his salary last year?")
Secondly, he had posted it publically in the past, with a "I'd be happy to hear from my users" sort of thing.
Finally, the whole point was that it was the sort of personal information which was "common knowledge" and "public information" (hell, it shows up on your credit card bill when you buy a subscription!) which shouldn't have been — exactly the sort of shit that the trolls were spreading around, while also being "harmless" (since he always says how he doesn't ever answer his phone anyway), and actually his phone number was way less harmful than what the harrassers were spreading about me — the phone line wasn't even registered in his name, much less something which could impact his future job prospects.
This was in direct response to a private email he sent me where he basically said, "Why are you worrying about this? It was common knowledge already." Which it would't have been if it weren't for a few idiots who kept on harrassing me with it. So, of course, he totally didn't understand the connection, even after I tried explaining it to him using simple words.
Yeah, I mean, I'm halfway tempted to dredge up some of my 15-odd old accounts for this purpose. But, I left that place and haven't ever been tempted to log back in (and have only occasionally viewed any stories, like when they were linked on BoingBoing). Personally, I gave up on it about a year ago, and only even stayed through June of last year because I had a subscription. I was planning on just leaving silently when my subscription ran out, but then things came to a head and I felt that people should know why I was gone. In retrospect I should have just disappeared, except I was afraid that the harrassment would continue from APA et al trying to "get my attention" by spreading more shit which would undoubtedly end up in Google or whatever even if I'd never seen any of it.
Yeah, I dunno. I think the main problem is that communities just don't scale. I've seen it happen time and time again. Right now it's happening to the Songfight messageboard (though, amazingly, the bigger Songfight has gotten the better its music has become).
People join and sponsor people... who sponsor people... sho sponsor people... dum de dum de dum... until one asshole slips through...
He gets kicked.... but wait! So his "sire" gets kicked, silencing all his "siblings" and posisbly their "progeny", and *their* "progeny", and so on... and if his sire's kicked, so goes his sire's sire, and *his* sire, and on and on...
Wheeee! The "BAN THIS USER" button becomes an instant sitewide nuke!
Used to be a lurker occasionally posting, and now I don't even do that. (It's not worth throwing anything into the cesspool anymore.) I was rather amused by the recent HOWTO on performing an early-term abortion, though.
Of course, whether or not that's still an improvement from its current condition is up to debate.
Too bad. I have a few fond memories of the place. Ah well, I silently said 'bugger it' a while back. Looks like it'll stay that way.
Let's see how exclusive Rusty is the next time he has to beg for money to maintain the site.
So, does anybody have a link to the "last straw" pic?
I can't imagine any picture setting off Rusty so badly, though, considering the kind of stuff he's dealt with over the years.
Anyway, yeah, the only times I've gone to K5 was when it was linked from boingboing or whatever, and even those "best of" articles were still just more of the same pseudointellectual crap, and usually meta as well.
http://www.malefactor.org/rustina.jpg
Jesus, rusty blew his top over THAT?!
Rusty was more than happy to let the trolls run off the decent people, I'd bet very few of the people who gave in the infamous fund-raiser are still there. His vaunted "site update" lasted all of 4 months. The CMF website has disappeared as far as I can tell. He essentially admitted that any increase in site responsiveness was due to most of the high-volume dairies moving to HuSi, and seemed happy about their departure. And now he's shocked that people are taking potshots at him? True, his wife is hardly "fair game" but nothing else seemed to get his attention. Where's his "thick skin" he seemed all too fast to tell everyone else to have?
Geh. It's just a website. I'm surprised at myself how worked up I'm getting over it. His hypocracy just floors me.
It's complicated. HTH, HAND.
So much for collaborative media huh.
6 active accounts were anonymized in Rusty's spree, so that gives you some kind of idea how many 'dangerous' troll accounts Rusty could ID. There are hundreds of active non-troll users, and AFAIK handfuls are returning to the site every day, incorrectly assuming that the "troll problem" has been dealt with.