ciphergoth | On anonymous comments

On anonymous comments

(Unrelated note: LJ is under a denial-of-service attack last I heard. Things may be slower than usual. I hope more net vandals start turning up mysteriously dead in unpleasant ways.)

Inspired by events in

faerierhona's journal.

Question: when people get abusive comments in their journal, how come they don't just delete them?

So far I haven't had abusive comments here, but I've seen it happen in other journals. I can see some reasons why those people don't want to delete those comments - I'm guessing that part of it is a "standing up to it" thing - but that I can stand up to it isn't in doubt, it's whether it will benefit me or anyone I care about to do so instead of silently deleting it.

If I think someone's just trolling my journal or trying to get a rise - anonymously or otherwise - I'll not bother to reply, I'll just delete the comments. I'm only interested in justifying myself to strangers in so far as either I genuinely hope either to bring or gain enlightenment or it will entertain me to do so.

As a matter of general policy, I leave anonymous posting on in my journal, and I have IP logging off. But this is so that people who don't yet have LJs can comment, and so my friends can tell me interesting things under cover of anonymity if they need to - I've seen and made interesting use of this possibility so I'm open to it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Is this like a tell me what you really think of me sort of thing, or a tell me how much you fancy me thing, or what? Bit confused......

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Oops, I hadn't seen that interpretation! No, it's a declaration of policy true for all LJ entries. I've reworded a little to address the question, but maybe I'll reword completely.

xxx

I've now completely reordered and reworded it to shift the emphasis. Re-reading, what I wrote before did sound very much like the sort of thing you're suggesting!

For what it's worth, I saw the original (or more probably the first edit) on my friends page, and interpreted it exactly as it was meant... but I already have an interest in privacy and anonymity in online communications, so perhaps I start off with the right context.

I screen anonymous comments, and I have deleted a couple of really abusive ones. I sometimes think it would be better to let them show up, because then people would have some idea why I was in such a foul mood. I leave IP logging on but have never been arsed enough to use it, so i don't know how useful it would be...

when people get abusive comments in their journal, how come they don't just delete them?

Two reasons.
1. Can't be arsed. It doesn't bother me having them there, and I'm monumentally lazy.
2. Sometimes they're really quite funny, especially when other people reply to them.

*nods*

also it can just be a good reminder of how Thrudish people can be. Keeping them around can be a useful benchmark, if you ever say anything as dumb as them then you know to delete your post before nipping outside and whacking yourself for it.

For me it depends what the nature of the comment is. I would delete something that had something grossly offensive, say homophobia, in it. If it was just rude or impertinent I usually wouldn't bother. I've got a thick skin to the antics and insults of trolls and I've had a bit of experience of pond slime me sending me bile out of the blue (due to my website). Fuck 'em.

Soph

I generally don't delete anything from my journal. If I did have abusive comments of some sort, I think deleting them would just be like sticking your fingers in your ears and going "LALALAICANTHEARYOULALA". If they're abusive but on a serious subject, I'd probably reply to them, and if they're just trolling, I'd ignore them.
Only time I'd delete a comment would be if it revealed stuff about myself or someone that was supposed to be personal/secret/etc., ie "you shagged $person when you were going out with $otherperson" and so on.

The image of "LALALAICANTHEARYOULALA" is certainly evocative, but also misleading. Everyone sometimes decides they're not interested in hearing what someone else has to say for whatever reason; the reason children sometimes express it that way is often because they don't have a better option. Adults will more usually express it by getting up and wandering off, because they usually have that option.

I think deleting the comments is one of those better options. I can't see who except the troll gains from leaving them in place - I don't gain anything, and neither do the other readers of my journal, while the troll gains the attention they crave.

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at with that image: that it would be an admission that the troll had hit a nerve? One reason I'm discussing this when it hasn't happened to me is precisely that I'm not in a position of justifying something I've done, so people can't impute such hidden motives.

Fuck 'em: there are a billion web pages out there, and we can't read all of them, so we rely on dozens of filtering mechanisms to find the content we're interested in. My limited control over comments here is simply another such mechanism. If they want to slag me off, they can get their own web pages; I can't think of a reason to give them space or publicity.

I'm being hypothetical here, as I've never had such a troll on my livejournal. But I'd have imagined that deleting something they have posted would just lead to the m posting more stuff. I'd have thought ignoring it completely would be more effective (as long as everyone on your friends list doesn't ignore the usual don't-feed-the-troll guidelines, and jumps on the troll. I guess deleting the comment would stop this from happening.
If I were trolling, I'd think that any action (commenting, deleting) would be a sign I was getting at someone, and prompt me to post more.
As I said, all hypothetical, though.

People can and do feed the trolls. And they gain some satisfaction simply from seeing their comments there. Silent deletion is likely to be most effective.

If they keep posting, I can start screening anonymous comments and barring non-anonymous abusive users.

Remember Bob Kiley and NYC subway graffiti.

[Graffiti was a huge problem. Bob refused to allow trains out of depots with graffiti on. The cleanup workload was horrendous for a few weeks, then all the graffiti dropped away. No incentive to do it if it gets wiped almost immediately.]

Oh yes, and one reason for me to make a declaration like this in advance of any abusive comment arriving is so that it's clear that any deletions are a result of this policy. A comment doesn't have to get to me at all to be deleted; it just has to be a waste of bandwidth.

If IP logging is off is there really no way to trace an anonymous comment?

None that I know of. AFAIK LJ doesn't even keep any kind of record that would be useful in tracing it.

Hmm, I left the nasty comments somebody made about me, I wanted people to see how unjustified they were, and low the person in question had stooped to attack me. To me it seemed thelj equivalent of making the audience laugh at a heckler. I have banned the user from commenting on my journal though, I'm not a sucker for punishment!

Luckily I've never received upsetting anonymous comments - I think I'd be far more upset by somebody who wouldn't put their name to a thought.

I have only deleted comments once in my journal when someone posted an extremely offensive (irrelevant) trolling comment in reply to someone elses comment. I knew that the person who was being insulted could be extremely hurt by this comment so nuked it. Had they reappeared I would have contacted their ISP and grr'd a lot (not that has ever done anything in my experience of trolls and their behaviour).

Otherwise I leave comments as they are, and if they insult me I don't care (can't be worse than highschool). If someone else was extremely hurt by comments (troll type) towards them in my journal I would probably delete said offensive comment.

Interesting post.

Natalya

I'm a bit surprised you haven't had any rude comments. Nor have I, which also surprises me.

I don't care to dignify trolls even with the degree of attention it takes to delete their posts. I would probably be prepared to do it if one of my friends had been upset by it and wanted me to, though.

I've not had abusive comments yet myself, but I have a few friends who have, and have deleted them accordingly. To be honest though, I'd leave them. As much to remind me that there are a lot of people out there who are so totally narrow minded I'm amazed they can fit their thoughts through the gap. I guess it amuses me that someone can be so limited that the only way they can deal with a post is through verbal abuse.
My sense of humour is perhaps a little bleaker than most.

(complete stranger; sorry.)

I always saw leaving things as they were (with the exception of cleaning up duplicate posts, or retracting your own material) as the necessary tradeoff for an open posting environment, particularly if accountability is either minimized or eliminated. I would expect people to respect a publicised editorial policy if there were some way of making that clear alongside the accountability advisories you get in the comments field. (Something like: "Note: weds reserves the right to delete your post if you are being a wanker.") Presumably you could stick something like that in your profile, but there's no guarantee that anyone would read it. The best we've got is screening, which seems bass-ackwards to me.

If you restrict to users, at least there's the recourse of calling the wanker on possible account abuse and getting him smacked about the face by staff, and/or keeping the luser out of your space through more draconian methods.

This is part of why I kept everything after a certain point locked down: this is the best way I have of making it clear that I won't brook stupid shit. :/

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On anonymous comments

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