Does anyone remember a reference to a (non MN) post about how to disrupt forums?

[FlirtsWithRhinos]

I remember reading some time ago, I think via a link on FWR but could have just been a newsfeed, a post by someone who claimed to be successful in disrupting forums they disagreed with politically.

I forget the details but I'm pretty sure one of their recommendations was to just to keep repeating the thing you wanted to be heard over and over and not get involved in trying to answer questions, refute arguments etc. The idea was that it would make your opponents get angry and they'd come across as aggressive or unhinged.

I was thinking today that really only works if your position is rational, otherwise your failure to deal with very obvious questions looks more like evasion or bad faith.

Anyway, I'd really like to read it again to see if that was mentioned, and also to see if I recognise anything else in the article. If this rings bells and anyone has a link I'd appreciate it.

In the meantime while looking for it I did find this :
https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/rzlm4r/techniques_for_dilution_misdirection_and_control/

Not quite the one I'm trying to find as it is from the opposite perspective of recognising when it's being done to you, but interesting to see that forcing the same conversations again and again until people get bored and give up or the forum devolves into in jokes and fails to engage any new readers is a documented tactic.

I've tended to take the view that repeating good arguments as much as is necessary still has value, keeps the turnover of threads fresh and is definitely better than letting bad ones stand (to offer a ridiculous metaphor, when playing whack-a-mole you know the moles are never going to give up but you'll still lose unless you whack them!) but I will think about it.

The "leave old posts that can be reanimated to divert attention" technique also caught my eye because a couple of older threads that I'd posted on popped back to life unexpectedly. I tend to assume it's MN search gremlins rather than anything more sinister (never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by MN search!) so was interesting to see this is can be a deliberate pre-planned tactic. It would explain why KJK threads seem to pop back to life a lot for no obvious reason. (Then again, I'm not very interested in KJK so maybe it's in response to events I don't know about).

Not quite the one I'm trying to find as it is from the opposite perspective of recognising when it's being done to you, but interesting to see that forcing the same conversations again and again until people get bored and give up or the forum devolves into in jokes and fails to engage any new readers is a documented tactic.

It can work the other way, too. In the early days of these discussions on MN, bad faith OPs would find their threads filled up with recipes. It did not stop proper discussions continuing on other threads.

I remember that happening.
Got a few good recipes that way...
(Totally misses point 😉)

There was the Bunbury Guide to Spotting Community Disruptors?
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3438714-Bunbury-s-Public-Service-Announcement-2

Bunbury was full of wisdom.

I got a really good chocolate cake recipe from one of these.

And then I found out the change of subject and diversions from the topic confused Aston Uni's dodgy data scraping which was a win/win.

It was a bunbury thread. They were great. So many recipes

It’s a good reminder. Though of course one that TRAs have also adopted

It's definitely not the Bunbury thread itself, though it's possible the link is in there somewhere. I have a feeling it may be an article or blog post that the author linked to in a forum. The author isn’t anyone on FWR, they were a 2010s US progressive type.

The tactics deployed by certain posters remind me very strongly of an abusive ex boyfriend.

Even if you recognise during the discussion that something is wrong and point out their bad faith argument you'd be dragged off down the tangent of "I can't believe you'd think I would say/do that intentionally, I am so injured and hurt by you now".

I never did find out what the actual name for that behaviour was, other than "being a prick" or in my ex's case wielded as a tool of abuse.

I'd be really interested in reading the article if it gets found, thanks for the thread @FlirtsWithRhinos

Interesting. I alternate between recognising the behaviour as ‘argumentative and fixed perspective like a teen with ASD’, and considering them as simply narcissistic. I tend to have a decent attempt at the start, then pop back every 15 or so pages to see if we’ve got anywhere.

ETA hadn’t considered it as a deliberate tactic so much as a personality failing. Dogged. Failure to process input.

I'm not sure if it's a deliberate technique, but I'm sure I've seen several posters who, when pressed to answer tricky questions, accuse everyone else of 'bullying' and 'piling on', claim that they have to leave the thread due to the impact on their MH, and then reappear a few pages later repeating what they said before, as if they hope they won't be asked the nasty questions again.

They seem to think that the regular denizens of FWR are a bit thick, with the attention span of stunned starfish.

I get where you are coming from Flirts. I still think it is worthwhile mostly to engage with information and answer questions. However, I think that your point of deliberate disruption with simply grinding down repetition of emotional reasoning without any evidence, or even logic in the reasoning, will sometimes not produce enough positive result.

It really does take energy and it takes brain space. But that it is point of that kind of engagement isn’t it? It is like pigeon chess while watching out for flying squirrels.

Sorry I don't remember the post op but I'd be interested in reading it.

I have to say, I've come away a few times recently without posting and wondering if this board is becoming unusable. I understand why people try and engage but there are a lot of times when I think it's counterproductive.

However one kind of response I do think is effective is when posters identify and initiate a discussion on the tactics being used.

This is true too. It was because of posters calmly pointing out the tactics and cognitive distortions used combined with links to fact check that helped me to sort through posts when I was new to the discussion.

MN is such a great resource to gathering information and different aspects when we are faced with media that is obfuscating. Even just getting other’s perspectives on why something seems to be not an accurate representation of the truth is useful.

Was it the Guardian article about how to neuter a sealion? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/18/how-to-handle-a-troll-and-neuter-a-sea-lion-dealing-with-online-attacks-astroturfine-trolljacking

Yes, there were people on forums who posted about how they started flame wars, trolled etc for the pure joy of disruption. NB: it’s a common trait. In the earliest days of crystal radio, there were people whose idea of a good night in was deliberately causing interference on other people’s transmitters and receivers.

The Bunbury threads had most of the disruption tactics pretty well covered. (NB: is it just that I don’t visit other places much but has the faux semi-literate approach (implausible spelling and grammar) largely died out?)

And then we were told we couldn’t refer to Bunbury. Around the same time as we were warned about ’peaking,’ ‘hill walking,’ ‘gardening,’ ‘planting,’ ‘allotments,’ carrots and seeds etc.

Such times. Sad times even.

Not the Guardian article, and not generic trolling. This was specific disruption techniques for political sites. The author was left wing disrupting hard right wing sites which I would generally feel ok about other than the left has now got this weird obsession that women who think being female is significant enough to need social, legal and political recognition are hard right.

It’s ringing more of a bell now but I can’t find it. I was remembering the info on the bunnies threads rather than what you describe.

You cannot say that in passing!! Sharing is caring 🤗

Sorry Rhino, that was probably from before my time but it certainly sounds interesting.

https://addapinch.com/the-best-chocolate-cake-recipe-ever/#wprm-recipe-container-31552

I think this is it - the boiling water feels wrong but science, innit.

You say that, @WarriorN, but I've never seen a TRA produce a decent recipe to derail discussion. Its such a HUMOURLESS ideology, I feel.

This is very true

Science recommends a chocolate mousse made with some boiling water. It’s a leap of faith but excellent. (I can’t find Hervé This’ recipe who is the chap who originated this but this recipe has the technique.)

barrylewis.net/recipe/chocolate-water-chocolate-mousse/