Newsgroup: it.sport.calcio.roma
Titolo: IGNORE TROLLS ON NEWSGROUPS

IGNORE TROLLS ON NEWSGROUPS 
Unlike e-mail and the Web, Usenet is subset
of the Internet that doesn't get much press. Usenet is a computer network
system that works like giant bulletin board: You can subscribe to a
newsgroup, or online discussion forum, and discuss just about any subject
imaginable. The best place on the Web to get acquainted with newsgroups is
Deja.com (
www.deja.com
). 
A lot of folks subscribe to newsgroups and
lurk. Lurking means you read the group, but you don't post comments. Most
of the time, posters who write messages to newsgroups behave themselves.
Sometimes, they don't. 
A troll is someone who comes along and wants to
disrupt a newsgroup. He's a troublemaker and wants attention -- even if
it's negative attention. A flame is an insult, a personal attack, or name-
calling. A troll fishes for flames; he posts rude comments just to get a
reaction. 
Ken Hollis put together a troll FAQ (Frequently Asked
Questions) on a Web site (
ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html
). Ken
gives good advice about ignoring a troll who rains on your favorite
newsgroup. He says the best thing you can do is ignore the troll. Don't
post a response to him. After all, that's exactly what the troll wants.
If a troll gets your goat and you're itching to bite, Ken says, "Go clean
that green stuff off the sides of your fish tank like you have been meaning
to do. Try to remember that the Internet is not real life. It is not worth
getting upset over. The newsgroup you are so involved in would forget that
you exist if you stop posting for 6 months (most likely even quicker). Real
life goes on with or without the Internet." 
Some netizens deal with
troublesome trolls on Usenet by creating moderated versions of existing
newsgroups. A moderated newsgroup is a gated Usenet community designed to
keep out the riff-raff -- spam, trolls, cyber-kooks, flameage -- and posts
that are deemed "off-topic" by software filtering called robo-moderation
and human moderators. 
In a moderated newsgroup, posters can discuss the
subject matter of their choice and remain focused on their topic without
disruption. Of course, the posters who participate in moderated newsgroups
have to trust that the human moderators will do their job of adhering to
the guidelines without bias towards the posters. 
An unmoderated
newsgroup is an equal opportunity public discussion forum. Anyone can post
whatever he or she wants without filtering. In an unmoderated newsgroup,
censorship and abuse of power issues do not exist. 
Years ago, I had to
write an essay in college about John Stuart Mill, the famous British
philosopher. In 1859, he wrote a 100-page book titled "On Liberty" -- his
most famous freedom of speech treatise. 
Mill was pretty liberal for his
time. I wonder what he would have thought about moderators having the power
-- and the potential abuse of power -- to filter out posts to newsgroups. I
bet Mill would be appalled at the flames that trolls throw at discussion
groups on the Internet, but something tells me he'd probably just ignore
them. 
Out of thousands of newsgroups that exist on Usenet today, about
280 moderated newsgroups -- or 12 percent -- are listed in the "Big 8"
hierarchy. The "Big 8" news hierarchy comprises of comp., rec., soc., sci.,
misc., news., talk., and humanities. preceding the name of the topic. For
example, in the misc. (for "miscellaneous") hierarchy, some of the
unmoderated newsgroups and their moderated analogues include:
misc.business, misc.business.moderated, misc.kids, misc.kids.moderated,
misc.legal, misc.legal.moderated, misc.taxes, and misc.taxes.moderated.
Recently, a heated discussion erupted in news.groups -- the newsgroup where
one discusses newsgroups -- between misc.writing and a proposed "sister"
newsgroup called misc.writing.moderated. A lot of the writers in
misc.writing became disgruntled about the split desired by the proponents
who used to contribute to the original newsgroup. 
The proponents of
moderated newsgroups like to compare moderators to editors. Potential
posters to a moderated newsgroup agree to have their messages accepted or
rejected. If you don't want to run the risk of having a post rejected, you
may lurk, or subscribe to the unmoderated newsgroup of the same topic. It
is said that a Usenet newsgroup mirrors real life. I hope my editor doesn't
"moderate" this column too much. The news.groupies wouldn't like it.
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://usenet.iol.it

 IGNORE TROLLS ON NEWSGROUPS 
by Glynne Gilmore
Thank you.
http://www.angelfire.com/biz4/glynnegilmore/page11.html
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