Sunday, July 13, 2008
Comment troll skat
Megan McArdle develops a diagnostic checklist for the identification of comment trollery. I agree with it completely. We are delighted to engage on the issues with all reasonable points of view and welcome all perspectives in the comments, but leave the name-calling, bad words (unless they are deployed in a genuinely funny way), and actual emotionalism out of it.
3 Comments:
By 
Larry Sheldon, at
Sun Jul 13, 01:51:00 PM:
There will be no charge for the use of the term "troll skat".
Credit might have been nice.
By 
, at
Sun Jul 13, 07:20:00 PM:
And what happens when people use terms which are 1) poorly defined, 2) commonly abused for lack of better descriptors, or 3) thoroughly uninformed, while still carrying a negative connotation as one of its primary meanings? Examples of what I am thinking of: rightist, leftist, liberal, neocon, extremist. I have yet to see compelling and clear definitions for any of these words, but I do see them slung like mud on a regular basis. Are these words frowned upon too? Does their usage constitute an ad hominem attack to be removed by moderation?
By TigerHawk, at
Sun Jul 13, 10:54:00 PM:
Fair point, Larry, and I am doubly ashamed insofar as I thought about linking directly to your comment but did not out of laziness. It was so high in the thread I rationalized my way to thinking that people would see it anyway. Sorry about that.
