Not feeding the trolls (also, I'm famous for getting 1-6 during last HSC)

sup d00ds

This is a super small request. I know I've said before that it's stupid to try to expect communities of humans to act fundamentally different from each other (ie: expect that a group of gamers won't be sexist, expect a bunch of people not to witch hunt, expect people not to abuse anonymity, etc...etc...), but I thought I'd make a small request and try anyway.

What I'm about to ask for might be counter-intuitive to rediquette and has no precedent in the real world outside of colleges (and high school, to some extent). There's really not even much of a precedent for this in the real world of media, and there's definitely no expectation of this in politics.

Assume whatever you are reading is a troll. If an article is posted and is a troll, don't upvote it, and don't pass it along to friends. I'd go as far as to say it should be downvoted, but I'm not sure if I'd be breaking any rules there.

It's very easy to weave together a network of half-truths to get a point across. It's also very easy to damage someone's career or hurt someone's credibility in the community for absolutely no valid reason.

If you're reading a website and they make a claim, such as, "Broodwar is so much better than SC2" just fly away. Fly you fools !

In the real world, every single action a person does is a form of marketing. Even the most noble of actions (such as a charity fund-raiser or supporting an event) have intentional effects on a person's image. No such thing exist on the internet. With anonymity, anyone can be a troll. I'm not saying that these malicious people are present in today's community, but the possibility always exists. As it stands now, we've fostered a community that's made it incredibly easy for someone to come in and troll people.

What would happen if someone said that Protoss shoud be nerfed ? What if someone says Stephano is American ? What would happen if someone started a "Do you believe in god" thread on Teamliquid ? Tons of useless posts.

No one is above troll-level, ever. There's an expression that I've heard used before, "Don't troll, and eat vegetables" which accurately expresses the sentiments I'm trying to get across. It's okay to troll some people. I'm fairly trollable (I don't believe I've told any major troll or anything), and I consider others (Ret and Haypro) to be trollable as well. But I would never, ever, ever troll someone for fun.

Just my two cents.