when you engage with the trolls

[MitchiestInge]

. . . is it a personal thing (actually engaging emotionally) or are you communicating with a wider, more silent audience or are there other motivations?

I can't work out why more people don't ignore them, but every now and then the exchanges are unintentionally funny or interesting - although mostly it gets very dull very quickly. Wondering what's in it for them too.

Male privilege you say?

So there's a chance if we rape we wont get convicted, I suppose that's a privilege for rapists, not all men are rapists though

There's the pay gap, apparantly we're paid more for doing the same job. Why do you complain when women retire earlier?

There's more men in government could be another. These men also deal with women, hardly a privilege

Lets look at where women are privileged shall we?

Tax credits are always paid into the womens bank account
Women get cheaper car insurance
Women 95% of the time get full custody of the kids after seperation AND can stop men from seeing the kids to no consequence
Women can commit paternity fraud and not suffer a consequence
A woman can make a false DV allegation and not be punished, if a man were to do that it'd be a different story and he'd be laughed at

I would have mentioned asset splits after divorce, but women can also get taken to the cleaners as well

Do explain these male privileges

I don't think it's complicated at all. A number of posters on this section seem to be labouring under the illusion that MN Feminism is under 'invasion' by trolls, that it's constantly being attacked. Nonsense. Where is this invasion? On this thread alone, the one openly male poster was hounded off the site. Where's the supposed MRA cavalry, then?

The problem is the over-use of the label troll/MRA on anyone who merely doesn't agree with the labeller - people reading the threads see the terms, and don't wonder whether the label is justified, they just add more 'evidence' to the 'MRAs on the attack again' idea. If posters constantly called anyone who disagreed with them unicorns, people would be convinced that this topic was under attack by unicorns.

There are occasional trolls, sure, but I'll wager there's a huge gap between the perceived number and the real number .

I'm trialling my own version right now.

Forget about edd as another openly male poster, sorry edd! Point still stands, though.

edd shows his hand.

So i'm a troll? I raise valid points and disagree sometimes so... you label me a troll? I'm not sure you know what a troll is

Hi Sinical- haven't seen you around for a few days, how's it going?

I wonder what Daniel's up to today?

Mitchiest both of your initial reasons, but also I am well aware that when things are a bit tough I am scratching a rather self destructive itch.

MN was like that in feminism but long before feminsim started the SN board had to be made safer in part becuase of trollery.

I agree with Dittany however that on th whole tehya re not valuable. Not real trolls anyway: I do think ranges of opinion are fine, but not actual trolls.

Hi LeBof - have been away for a few days - blood pressure reasons am now on LabourWatch - was due yesterday! I see it's been a busy few days round the boards.

'Tax credits are always paid into the womens bank account

Not true, Dh gets ours as I was moving banks when we set it up and he also gets CB for the same reason.

I had to OK that with teh agencies but he gets them.

Actual trolls would be posting links to domesticaly abused women and shouting LOL while making motivational posters about them too

They'd be posting photoshopped pictures of Dawkin, Greer etc to slander them

Someone who has a different opinion is not a troll

Another one! Reality is due any day, and someone else we all know just had hers (I'm not sure she's announced it yet though, so I won't steal her thunder). Good luck!

LeninGrad, I agree that a "hide poster" feature (or whatever it might be called - on another discussion board I sometimes visit, it's called "blocking,") could make an enormous difference. Yes, it is of course possible to ignore and not respond to posts that you don't want to respond to - whether because you just don't have anything you want to say, or because you believe they are being deliberately provocative and do not merit a response. However, it can be irritating when someone effectively "spams" a discussion, insisting repeatedly that they get a response. Also, others who haven't read back far enough or may not be aware of the history and context may be puzzled as to why one person is being ignored.

Hiding/Blocking means that you can simply choose not to see contributions from specific people, for whatever reason you choose. The other person can still see your contributions (usually) but you won't see anything they write. That's generally good and can save quite alot of hair pulling. If you appear to be ignoring someone, others will guess that you've blocked them. However, it can disrupt the "flow" of a conversation, particularly if other people are engaging with that person and you are only seeing part of the discussion. But, taking yourself outside a discussion like that is sometimes worth it because you don't get dragged into side discussions that are usually designed just to derail and cause arguments.

Eventually, quite a few people will block/hide a contributor who seems intent only on generating disruption and getting attention, so it's actually possible to have a discussion without fending off attacks at every turn.

Does that mean that some people will get "hounded off" the message boards? They'll probably insist that they are (but hey, some shout that now just because they find most folks in a given discussion refuse to agree to change their minds to reflect their views.)

No one here is obliged to listen to anyone else, let alone obliged to agree with them. Blocking/hiding just provides a useful way to make it easier to ignore those we might choose to ignore.

Maybe we could veg MN to at least trial it? Even just here- and if it helps, then we could keep it?

Thanks!

Veg? Beg!

I must get onto my brother re the blocking thing.
He wrote a thing for another forum where you can view the forum through his programme, which allows you to block posters from your feed.

I was initially opposed to the idea of a Block Poster option, preferring the low tech version (just ignore) but I have definitely come round to the idea. It might disrupt the flow to a certain extent but honestly not as bad as it is being blocked now.

I gave you those links and the benefit of the doubt in the hope that you would try to understand. oh well.
from the 2nd link ; What you can do about your privilege: This one is harder, but the first and fundamental thing we can do is to be aware we have it. Please don't try to come up with reasons why you are an exception: why your white privilege "didn't help you" in X situation. First, you're embarrassing me, and second, you're missing the point.

from the 3rd link ; When non-privileged groups form our own spaces to talk about our issues, whether or not we welcome participation from privileged groups or not, there is always a backlash from someone who feels that their privileged opinion is not being properly respected.

oh, you've gone. Too bad...

giyadas he has already been given feminism 101 links on another thread. He ignored them too whilst accusing us of not engaging with him.

Just thought you might want to know.