This has been a week of tedious management of comments on the blog. Much has related to my suggestions on sustainable cost accounting, but it has not been restricted to that.
It has also been suggested that I can be too tough on commentators.
When I began blogging it never occurred to me that comments were part of the deal. But, as their volume grew I got used to the fact that they are a part of my life. I rarely go for more than a few hours now, and frequently more often, seven days a week, without moderating comments here. To date there have been around 140,000 third party comments, or well over 10,000 a year in recent periods.
Most comments on the blog are welcome. I have enjoyed providing a space for discussion, much of which has been valuable in its own right. But the downside is trolling.
I confess I do not understand the mindset of the troll. It must be so miserable to be so intent on being negative. That said, there must be a lot of miserable people because they appear here often. What is more, they must train to be so negative because most trolling now follows a remarkably persistent pattern.
The first comment that they post is seemingly innocuous. It can even include a little hint of flattery. The second hints at disagreement. The third will often turn towards hostility. The fourth will be aggressive or abusive. If and when they are rumbled, the invective really flies. That very really ever appears here.
There is another pattern. These people quite often have multiple identities. Checking URLs can suggest that. They forget to change their writing styles when changing their identities.
These people are also very good at forgetting their email addresses. What was in the first couple of posts a gmail account becomes in the third an outlook address. They also change their email names. It's weird how often JoSmith@wherever becomes JoesSmith@wherever after a comment or two. They know it is easy to block by email address, so they change them. I have a silly memory for such things, and use it to delete those playing such games.
Why do that? Because I am interested in creating a space for discussion. I am not interested in creating a space for abuse. In other words, I am interested in upholding free speech, and opposing those who seek to oppress it with their abuse.
Why say this now? Because right now I know I am going to be exceptionally busy. I have a lot to do on the audit issue. I began work on a submission to the government yesterday. It is already 7,500 words long (although, I admit, 3,500 of these are the questions that they are asking comment on). I have answered one of their 98 questions, so far.
I also have a paper to finish on the national debt, and another on Scottish tax. ‘Money for nothing' needs finishing. And I have a new, albeit small, contract from the Global Initiative for Financial Transparency to take forward work that I am doing with Andrew Baker at the University of Sheffield on tax transparency following comments received from the World Bank, the IMF and others.
This blog is important to me. So are the comments. But trolls are not. I am on a deletion by default policy right now, because my antennae is rarely wrong on new commentators after years of experience. My suggestion is that they stop wasting their own time. It takes me a lot less effort to delete them than it does for them to write. I suggest that they save their own time.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
As you stir up their cosy nests they send the soldier ants out to attack.
I feared you would be subjected to the attentions of the 77th/ii nexus , last year as the truth of Money starts to dawn on people and the fairy tale of Tax Payers funds threatens their whole centuries long planting of such dumbness.
In a century people will wonder just how backward and thick their ancestors were who believed in such fantasies , as we tend to about these from a century ago who still believed in blooding by leeches and a God created Earth in 6 days and every other sky fairy nonsense which gave authority to priests, princes, politicians and yes poets.
I suggested you’d need a thick skin and a hardy finger to keep hitting delete.
Their purpose is multi fold.
To degrade you personally is their preferred option – I know because at the Off-G site (a clear cut controlled Alt -media set up) last year, when their Admin/Mods referred to you as a jumped up 3rd rate accountant, when I was pointing to some knowledge you were bringing forth.
That showed they were aware of you and rattled enough to try such a blatant defamation. I believe I asked them to come here and take it up directly with you. Which they haven’t yet.
But yes they have formulated the playbook for you and the flying blue monkey troll army is now unleashed.
It is I am sorry to say only going to get worse and my only helpful suggestion at this stage is to enrol some trusted volunteer moderators who can aid with the posts. Don’t let them win by becoming distracted or being led into writing something they can use against you as your public profile is now set on a exponential path.
I am never going to complain about any deletion or non publication of any of my comments on YOUR site. Including this one!
Fair enough. Naked Capitalism also values comments and discussions, but periodically it has to close comments. There seems to be ‘flare ups’ of trolling which require direct intervention. Sorry you are experiencing this.
I’m with Yves on this….
I have few possible solutions, and don’t envy you the trauma.
With the multiply changes email addresses, it’s unlikely to be ordinary naysaying sort of folk, given the repeated pattern of how they start – very very unlikely it’s ordinary folk.
There are plenty of people that do get into the habit of attention seeking by trolling – it’s a kind of power over others to be able to get them annoyed, up in arms and defensive. Not a pretty personality trait, but that’s people for you.
That’s an awful lot of comments being posted – and I’d suggest any trolling is for the sole purpose to distract you from your work, ruin your enjoyment of the blog, and to prevent open publication of what you write. We have unique access to specialist knowledge and analysis from you keeping this blog going and I certainly wouldn’t like to see any degradation of access.
It would depend on the percentage of (trolling : okay) commenters, and how the technical stuff behind the blog works, but you could have:
1. Subscription only comments (make it a free subscription) – this might just end up with the same number of subscription as changing identities to be vetted, true – but you could possibly allow comments through from already vetted accounts without moderation, which might save time. Or,
2. Delegate preliminary moderation to someone else – I’m not sure if you could get trusted volunteers for this? – then you’d have a reduced bundle to deal with, and there would be less nastiness to wade through. Or,
3. Automated banned words or phrases – I’ve no idea what those could be,,, “you should” might be a good all encompassing one 🙂 – no one of a pleasant disposition will be telling you what you should do – (dammit that’s me banned already!) – where comments using those get filtered into a ‘look at sometime in the future if I can be bothered’ section, and you only moderate the rest.
You might already be using some of those techniques, and it’s just what I’ve seen other high-traffic blogs use. On a positive note – the volume of traffic shows that you ARE making a difference, and the trolling effort indicates some people or institutions might not be happy about it (and they probably aren’t thinking of our welfare).
Good luck with question 2 of 98!
Contrary
I will stick to it
Several have hit the bin this morning…
The recent mob I informally dubbed the “J Trolls”
First names only. Always starting with a J
Yes…..
Dear Mr. Murphy,
Recently on visiting Dean Baker’s ‘Beat The Press’ blog there is message saying ‘Checking your browser…….’, which takes a few seconds and, I guess, is intended to
help with the troling problem. I have no idea how it works or how effective it is, but I mention it in case it might help.
Yours sincerely,
David Beeton
I confess I have no idea what that means….
Protection against Distributed Denial of Service attacks. Presumably, not relevant.
I’m impressed by the numerous erstwhile members of seventies punk bands that comment here: Glen Matlock, Dave Vanian, Jayne County et al.
🙂
Sid Vicious would certainly be a good one to collect…
What was that about punk though?
“Punk’s not dead, it’s just busy trolling for the establishment”?
Erm…
Sid has been here
I think he got deleted