Why are so many people allowed to troll on these forums?

[Thefuryan.6291]

So I've been reading different threads over the past few days and I noticed quite a few people who comment on threads only to troll or be rude to the OP/other posters. Why is this type of behavior allowed? What are the forum moderators doing about this? If someone is not directly addressing the topic, I noticed that they are usually derailing the thread and purposely trying to incite the OP/other posters. Does reporting these post even work? Are the forum mods paid employees of Anet or just randos?

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

2 minutes ago, Thefuryan.6291 said:

Does reporting these post even work?

I've been silenced a couple of times for the most innocent/dumb things so yeah, it works.

2 minutes ago, Thefuryan.6291 said:

Are the forum mods paid

hehe, good one.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Arianth Moonlight.6453

[Thefuryan.6291]

4 minutes ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

I've been silenced a couple of times for the most innocent/dumb things so yeah, it works.

hehe, good one.

Your response tells me everything I need to know. I was advised to use the GW 2 subreddit anyway. Do you know any legit reason to use these forums over another? I know these are the "official" forums but sometimes a title is just that, a title. 

[Doctor Hide.6345]

1 minute ago, Thefuryan.6291 said:

Your response tells me everything I need to know. I was advised to use the GW 2 subreddit anyway. Do you know any legit reason to use these forums over another? I know these are the "official" forums but sometimes a title is just that, a title. 

 

Because it is official is the main reason. Devs are more likely to read this over any other, so no it is not "a title is just a title" thing.

[Thefuryan.6291]

3 minutes ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

 

Because it is official is the main reason. Devs are more likely to read this over any other, so no it is not "a title is just a title" thing.

 

Fair enough. I keep forgetting it's a small team that works on GW 2. Unlike the much larger MMOs I play, where they let the players know that they also read various other sources  (Reddit, Twitter, etc.)

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

40 minutes ago, Thefuryan.6291 said:

Do you know any legit reason to use these forums over another?

nope. This forum is pretty dead tbh. Just a handful of people post regularly, and many don't even bother to post and just read.

[Doctor Hide.6345]

Just now, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

nope. This forum is pretty dead tbh. Just a handful of people post regularly, and many don't even bother to post and just read.

 

It's not that dead. The fact that many still post here show that there is some life left to it. It is a lot better than the hellscapes of reddit where you can get downvoted to invisible just because your opinion doesn't agree with the echo chamber there, or twitter which is just well twitter. 

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

 

10 hours ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

nope. This forum is pretty dead tbh. Just a handful of people post regularly, and many don't even bother to post and just read.

People after 10 years , have chosen the area that play and love and ignore anything else.

Hopelly people will learn to find a middle ground in "new" threads

Spoiler

(not forcing people in trannings guilds where they wait 3 days to do an instance)

, like this one that ask some areas to be neutral for exploration for RP . There could be 1 hour per day that mobs becomes non-hostile (or you get stealth vs mobs) , or  a guild perk , or  choose among 2x new tier 3 masteries that can be active one at a time

Edited December 29, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

The forums have a fairly lenient system.  On the one hand, it lets a bunch of annoying people stay around.  On the other hand, it let me stay around, too.  

[Freya.9075]

Topics are cleaned up when things get out of hand, and if they break forum rules action will be taken. Maybe it’s not been cleaned as regularly these pasts days cause of Christmas.
 

I've not been here much for some days so I have not noticed any specific topics getting out of hand. But I have seen many topics cleaned and removed quite often this past year as a regular forum user. 

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

5 hours ago, Thefuryan.6291 said:

Are the forum mods paid employees of Anet

Indeed they are paid employees.  Check the Dev posts carefully.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/125528-crash-loading-character-merged/page/4/#comment-1818175

Also, there is the official Twitter feed just to the right in this forum where you can find post addressing topics posted in the forum.  

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by Inculpatus cedo.9234

[Jukhy.2431]

The interpretation of what is considered trolling is subjective. After all we are different individuals and view everything from our own perspective.

I rarely see, what I would consider, a blatant example of trolling but I don't browse all the forum sections here. And since I don't possess any mind reading abilities it can be hard to tell at times if the person was just joking around, being sarcastic or even being serious.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Jukhy.2431

[Firebeard.1746]

6 hours ago, Thefuryan.6291 said:

So I've been reading different threads over the past few days and I noticed quite a few people who comment on threads only to troll or be rude to the OP/other posters. Why is this type of behavior allowed? What are the forum moderators doing about this? If someone is not directly addressing the topic, I noticed that they are usually derailing the thread and purposely trying to incite the OP/other posters. Does reporting these post even work? Are the forum mods paid employees of Anet or just randos?

Someone sent me a PM to specifically not engage a particular person because they intentionally try to derail threads and turn them toxic to the point they're shut down. That literally happened in one of the threads I didn't listen to the advice and engaged them. 

I wish I could give some people that level of benefit of the doubt, but it's obvious some people will literally beat someone's brains out figuratively in these forums if they disagree with them. They can't even agree to disagree, they must attack or make the other person look dumb/feel dumb. It's really sad because I've noticed some topics where it's obvious a majority of people agree with the OP, but won't respond to the thread based on reactions, but these same 5 trolls will basically hose down anyone who has a different opinion. 

Heaven help the devs. I feel like our GW2 subreddit is even worse. You'll just get downvoted if you have a different opinion from everyone else. They have content creators with too much time on their hands giving advice most people can't agree with but don't have the time/energy to express disagreement with, these trolls and the gw2 sub reddit to go off of. 

Edited December 29, 2022 by Firebeard.1746

[Sobx.1758]

49 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

Someone sent me a PM to specifically not engage a particular person because they intentionally try to derail threads and turn them toxic to the point they're shut down. That literally happened in one of the threads I didn't listen to the advice and engaged them. 

I wish I could give some people that level of benefit of the doubt, but it's obvious some people will literally beat someone's brains out figuratively in these forums if they disagree with them. They can't even agree to disagree, they must attack or make the other person look dumb/feel dumb. It's really sad because I've noticed some topics where it's obvious a majority of people agree with the OP, but won't respond to the thread based on reactions, but these same 5 trolls will basically hose down anyone who has a different opinion. 

Heaven help the devs. I feel like our GW2 subreddit is even worse. You'll just get downvoted if you have a different opinion from everyone else. They have content creators with too much time on their hands giving advice most people can't agree with but don't have the time/energy to express disagreement with, these trolls and the gw2 sub reddit to go off of. 

Pretty sure I know what thread you're talking about here. There was only one person throwing insults there and you probably know it's not who you're thinking about. There was also a person who realised they misread something on the way, so their insults were unsubstantiated, after which they've edited out some of their previous posts into "delete" to hide what they said. After the thread was cleaned by moderator, the thread remained opened and from what we've seen it was apparently only closed because some user specifically requested it (in, imo, rather funny manner), not because of your exchange with whomever. Here's the post requesting closing it:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/125710-dragons-end-is-still-massively-overtuned-and-random/page/15/#comment-1824497

Also notice how you're labeling multiple people as "trolls" mostly because they disagree with you. That's not "trolling" though, that's "disagreement". How and why some people apparently perceive disagreement as insult or attack on them is another issue.

 

[Gehenna.3625]

1 hour ago, Jukhy.2431 said:

The interpretation of what is considered trolling is subjective. After all we are different individuals and view everything from our own perspective.

I rarely see, what I would consider, a blatant example of trolling but I don't browse all the forum sections here. And since I don't possess any mind reading abilities it can be hard to tell at times if the person was just joking around, being sarcastic or even being serious.

Besides, "joking around, being sarcastic or even being serious", as you put it, doesn't equate to trolling. Some people just need to grow just a little thicker skin imo.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Gehenna.3625

[Mistwraithe.3106]

That's why we have mods who are not emotionally involved in the debates which build up and hence can hopefully take an unbiased view of things.

[vares.8457]

If a post violates the forum rules, report it and move on. Disagreeing with you is neither trolling nor against the rules. 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

45 minutes ago, Jukhy.2431 said:

The interpretation of what is considered trolling is subjective. After all we are different individuals and view everything from our own perspective.

I rarely see, what I would consider, a blatant example of trolling but I don't browse all the forum sections here. And since I don't possess any mind reading abilities it can be hard to tell at times if the person was just joking around, being sarcastic or even being serious.

It's... really not subjective.  Trolling is widely accepted as posting inflammatory comments with the intent to deliberately offend.  There's ways to tell that someone is trolling:

1. Internal Contradictions.  When they say one thing, then say the opposite in the same context.  When their actions within posting on the forums is contrary to the content of their posts..  When the implications of their claims contradict.  When they act as if they don't know something that they clearly should know.  To do this is unambiguously trolling, for the law of non-contradiction is a universal truth.  A person's thoughts are generally consistent, so if someone's posts are consistently inconsistent, it means they're trolling.
2. Lies.  This can be deception by omission, outright false claims, etc.  If you have some pretty hard evidence that somebody is deliberately lying, then they are trolling.  This is also unambiguous, for the primary purpose of honest communication is to seek and spread truth.  
3. Lack of depth.  Posts are written with intent, and this intent is usually to seek information, add information, dispel information, or affirm information.  Even in a disagreement, honest posters will add information, rather than simply being obstinate.  Trolls don't seek truth, so their posts have no intellectual depth.  They'll add nothing to a discussion.  Instead, trolls are confrontational without providing anything, or they're utterly useless.

There's technically a fourth one, although it is not always solid evidence of trolling.  That fourth category is a bizarre focus specifically on people, and not subjects.  Impassionately discussing the objects and subjects within a thread is rarely inflammatory, so trolls will frequently re-direct everything to be about the person saying things instead of the things meant t be discussed.  This one isn't always solid evidence, though, because there are a lot of people who are simply person-focused in their thoughts.

If you're observant, it doesn't take long to identify a troll.  It only takes me 2 to 3 full exchanges, and I'm terrible with communication and social queues.  The important thing to know is this: if you report somebody for trolling, you'll have to leave a fairly detailed comment explaining how you know that they're trolling.  Most moderators are rummaging through endless reports, so they won't know at a glance all of the lies, contradictions, slights, and offenses that a person is posting.  

[kharmin.7683]

3 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

The truth is, anyone can post anything here, whether the community agrees with it or not.

 

Don't you have to have a GW2 account to post on the forums?  AFAIK reddit doesn't require this?

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

1 hour ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

I wish I could give some people that level of benefit of the doubt, but it's obvious some people will literally beat someone's brains out figuratively in these forums if they disagree with them. They can't even agree to disagree, they must attack or make the other person look dumb/feel dumb. It's really sad because I've noticed some topics where it's obvious a majority of people agree with the OP, but won't respond to the thread based on reactions, but these same 5 trolls will basically hose down anyone who has a different opinion. 

This is a huge problem. They do not tolerate other people having different opinions. And we have lost a couple of creative minds already. Others have drastically lowered their activity.

The board has a small impact on how the game develops. Those trolls seem to want the game to change in a certain direction and believe if they hit hard enough on stuff they feel goes into the wrong direction, the developers will agree with them. But to be honest, if an idea is good, the troll-spam never had an impact on it. 

8 hours ago, Thefuryan.6291 said:

Why is this type of behavior allowed?

These people are not dumb. They are imo highly educated and know exactly how to write stuff so it does not violate the rules. Most of the people I have met in GW2 and on the forums are not native-speakers - including myself. The trolls probably are or have a job where you need a special level of language-skill. One of them in particular can humiliate you in a three page essay as the dumbest human being on this planet, without even touching a single rule. They are not truly untouchable. They make a couple of unnecessary mistakes which can be used to flip their whole text-walls with a few words. But to be honest, I do not want to waste my precious freetime fighting people on a game-forum.

As stupid as it may sound: If you see something, say something. The report-function is rather simple to use. You can pick one of the most common reasons and/or write a few words. A lot of the trolls are obvious and do not need an explanation. The moderators actively investigate reports. But if you hope for a moderator to find it on their own, it is a gamble. 

Another strategy I've been testing for a while now is the ignore-feature on this board. The trolls are rather easy to spot and even easier to block. If you block the right people, just 3-5 can make the whole board a lot cleaner. Their stuff is not completely gone, you can still see it if you manually click on it. 

Edited December 29, 2022 by HnRkLnXqZ.1870

[Fuchslein.8639]

The Thing i See a Lot ist that Posts who Just Joke a Bit get deleted while outright insults stay often for a very Long Time after reporting them. I got told Posts only get deleted when enough people Report them, this way almost everyone can get reported for Something. But i don't think this is true, at least Not anymore. 

I remember a time where i got Points for quoting someone and got often banned because i Had different opinions while after me came people who Just insulted the threadwriter or other people, while now i can even Just make a Joke and don't get Touched. I don't know If staff changed to a more chill non biased one or i don't know.

But for Most Part i think the Forum is quite Tame. Sure there are the few people who will Always Post the Same, and the few people who will argue Sites over Sites and will get the thread closed, but for this you need two. 

[Vyr.9387]

19 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

It's... really not subjective.  Trolling is widely accepted as posting inflammatory comments with the intent to deliberately offend.  There's ways to tell that someone is trolling:

1. Internal Contradictions.  When they say one thing, then say the opposite in the same context.  When their actions within posting on the forums is contrary to the content of their posts..  When the implications of their claims contradict.  When they act as if they don't know something that they clearly should know.  To do this is unambiguously trolling, for the law of non-contradiction is a universal truth.  A person's thoughts are generally consistent, so if someone's posts are consistently inconsistent, it means they're trolling.
2. Lies.  This can be deception by omission, outright false claims, etc.  If you have some pretty hard evidence that somebody is deliberately lying, then they are trolling.  This is also unambiguous, for the primary purpose of honest communication is to seek and spread truth.  
3. Lack of depth.  Posts are written with intent, and this intent is usually to seek information, add information, dispel information, or affirm information.  Even in a disagreement, honest posters will add information, rather than simply being obstinate.  Trolls don't seek truth, so their posts have no intellectual depth.  They'll add nothing to a discussion.  Instead, trolls are confrontational without providing anything, or they're utterly useless.

There's technically a fourth one, although it is not always solid evidence of trolling.  That fourth category is a bizarre focus specifically on people, and not subjects.  Impassionately discussing the objects and subjects within a thread is rarely inflammatory, so trolls will frequently re-direct everything to be about the person saying things instead of the things meant t be discussed.  This one isn't always solid evidence, though, because there are a lot of people who are simply person-focused in their thoughts.

If you're observant, it doesn't take long to identify a troll.  It only takes me 2 to 3 full exchanges, and I'm terrible with communication and social queues.  The important thing to know is this: if you report somebody for trolling, you'll have to leave a fairly detailed comment explaining how you know that they're trolling.  Most moderators are rummaging through endless reports, so they won't know at a glance all of the lies, contradictions, slights, and offenses that a person is posting.  

A wondrously exquisite utopia You've woven here, my eight-limbed friend.
The single issue I myself have never been quite able to solve is incorporating the human condition into it.

Because, as Hanlon's Razor cuts - never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity - all of these rules superimposed with the simplest principle of defending one's ego paint a very different picture.
In such cases, would it be trolling as well?
The intent cannot be known by anybody besides the author, meaning we're left solely to objective observations. Unfortunately, people internally contradict themselves all the time with the sole purpose of feeling good in the short term, and getting to the bottom of that requires a variable amount of psychological work depending on the severity and nature of the issue.

Of course, it depends on the other commenters how much of their own lifetime they're going to dedicate to help a random person on the internet understand their demons, but it really feels infuriating to me, turning fellow (wo)men outcast without putting in any effort to improve their state of mind - not because it should be required, but because it's a cure rather than a band-aid.
Plus, shunning people based on what they currently (don't) know merely preserves your own comfort, which seems about as short-sighted as the driving forces of ego.

On the other hand, can't even a comment intended to offend be of use?
I'm of the mind that insults don't exist - they're either false, and therefore inconsequential, or true, therefore descriptive (/wave @Forum Moderator.5021) - and as such, the value of a piece of information being shared should be judged purely on its own merit, regardless of whether it's being forwarded by a blonde girl or a wrinkled, bearded old man.

Labeling somebody a troll and disregarding everything they say solely on that alone is, I dare say, even more detrimental to a conversation than having a couple people partake just to cause mischief, because humans are social creatures by nature.
Very few of us - introverts included - are able to thrive alone, which means making somebody a laughing stock, especially of a large crowd, is more likely to break them than anything.

[Westenev.5289]

If I can read a name on the forum and know their response before reading it, I figure that person is fair game for ridicule. Bonus points if said person gives low effort responses like "I prefer resources to be spent elsewhere", or "This thread has been posted before". Unhelpful responses like this are kinda off topic, encourages necro'ing threads (which I believe is against the rules), and generally gets pretty grating after awhile.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Westenev.5289

[kharmin.7683]

38 minutes ago, Westenev.5289 said:

If I can read a name on the forum and know their response before reading it, I figure that person is fair game for ridicule. Bonus points if said person gives low effort responses like "I prefer resources to be spent elsewhere", or "This thread has been posted before". Unhelpful responses like this are kinda off topic, encourages necro'ing threads (which I believe is against the rules), and generally gets pretty grating after awhile.

Why should searching, and finding, previous threads necessitate a necro?  If a person actually searches and reads the previous threads, then there may well be no reason to post in them to necro them as their point has already been made by someone else (see the race change thread on the front page now, which has added nothing new to the previous conversations on the topic).

[Sarius.9285]

10 hours ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

 

Because it is official is the main reason. Devs are more likely to read this over any other, so no it is not "a title is just a title" thing.

doubt that tbh. From reading and my own experience it seems that the devs, especially grouch are way more active on the sub reddit