Could we get some troll fencing up around meta?

Question

While I'm a fan of "Presume good intent" it seems unusual to see folks whose entire interest here is in how the CoC is enforced - one rep users with no accounts elsewhere.

I'm noticing some patterns already

We're going to have to deal with a lot of folks thinking they're really clever. There's also going to be folks not as smart as they think they are.

At least for the duration of the current drama, or at least a week or two, could we set a slightly higher threshold for new questions?

Answer 1

No please

1. I'm writing this with a throwaway account (mods can see that the email id is some temp-mail nonsense) because I don't want it associated with my main account. I generally don't write on meta because I associate my account with my academic/professional life, and I feel that meta activity is a bad fit. I use my main account for votes only here. I want to be able to use throwaway accounts which have 1 rep to start and join only one site because maintaining a second meta account is just too much work.[1]
2. Maybe you think that is a bit too localized. But I remind you that there are people who use throwaway accounts (characterized by membership on just one site: meta SE, and 1 rep) because they think the opinion expressed is unpopular or for whatever reason don't want it associated with their account.
3. Answers are just as good for trolls. They don't need questions to show their poor intent. So if you block them from posting questions, they just need to look at the front page of the site to see tonnes of juicy opportunities (in the form of questions regarding pronouns) for some homophobic/transphobic/whatever rants and off-color jokes. Now you're blocking both questions and answers from such users. Consider this answer as an example: I believe it's an important opinion and it's written with all due respect (essentially, I'm not trolling you). Would you have just hoped someone who doesn't follow my pattern of throwaways for meta activity to write this answer instead?

^{1: And please don't tell me I shouldn't sit out of meta if my preference is to avoid showing future employers this content: it's simply that they probably don't understand meta and I feel like this is an extremely important time for me to voice my opinion.}

Answer 2

Some sort of automated rep barrier is definitely tempting, but I am concerned that it would catch way too many false positives; I've seen a lot of folks mention in posts or comments that this is their first time using Meta, and they were drawn in by the ongoing debacle that at this point has reached throughout the entire network (even folks on some of my tiny sites are aware of it!).

If I look through the newest questions that have been asked over the last couple of days, then sure enough, there are a decent number of people who've gone and asked their first Meta question, in good faith and coming from all sides - and we've benefited from those discussions.

That's my primary argument against raising the rep requirement to ask a question, though I am secondarily concerned that it simply might not be effective. It's been . . . quite easy to earn rep here on Meta these last two weeks, for new and old users alike. These trolls are willing to put in the effort to write some detailed questions; I'd argue that maybe they'd be willing to put in enough effort to write an innocuous answer and get an upvote or two and thereby hop over any small rep hurdle we could put in their way.

So . . . where does that leave us? Flagging is probably the best option, though we've only got two (semi-active/inactive) mods right now, and the CMs are overloaded, so we'd need posts deleted via a bunch of spam/rude-abusive flags. Of course, you've got to be sure that you are dealing with a troll, and I'd of course recommend caution here, but in some cases, it's gonna be pretty clear-cut. And the community can deal with those pretty quickly.

Answer 3

Leave it as it is

While I'm a fan of "Presume good intent" it seems unusual to see folks whose entire interest here is in how the CoC is enforced - one rep users with no accounts elsewhere.

The CoC is virtually the core and basis of how the entire network works. The recent changes are also so extensive in their nature that many people feel personally affected. It is no surprise to me that so many people express their feedback.

I'm noticing some patterns already

What kind of patterns? More feedback than usually?

But isn't this a good sign? In my opinion the amount of feedback is huge, but this is wonderful because it shows how important the CoC is and that people actually do care about the health of their favorite site.

We're going to have to deal with a lot of folks thinking they're really clever. There's also going to be folks not as smart as they think they are.

What do you mean exactly? Could you provide examples?

At least for the duration of the current drama, or at least a week or two, could we set a slightly higher threshold for new questions?

I don't think that excluding 1-rep users from discussions would have any positive effects. On the contrary, many interesing and fresh perspectives could never see the light. I fully support daleyepiv answer where they raised very good arguments against that idea that are much stronger than saying there are patterns and not providing any evidence.

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What is that really concerns you? Is it the number of posts or their quality? Personally, I didn't see anything alarming and nothing that I wouldn't have seen before. Addressing people is a topic that is about everyone so you can expect everyone to have something to say.

The more people who show their feelings the better, and even with so many questions and answers they are all pretty unique.

Answer 4

Flagging something is probably the way to go in that situation, as that will identify the trolls in a much more targeted way.

Going through accounts who joined the conversation around the time of the CoC changes as a worst case could lead to the deletion of accounts that were made by the LGBTQ+ community in order to not out themselves on their main account, or, if instead barriers are put in place for accounts in this time, it’ll massively affect a part of the community that needs to be listened to at this point so that we can de-escalate.

Either way, it would just make relationships on the site deteriorate further, in my opinion.

Answer 5

Unfortunately the situation got picked up on Google News by at least two questionable websites, so it's quite likely that we are going to see some more troll activity than usual for awhile.

It really might be a good idea to require accounts have some sort of history on the network for a little while.

Answer 6

That's just what the trolls want.

The goal of trolling of this nature is to get the site to suspect everyone, and destroy any sense of community. False positives will be generated, people will get caught up in massive sweeps, and you will turn allies into enemies.

Then the trolls say "mission accomplished", and have a great day.

Answer 7

Hmm... Troll fencing? What about just making it more difficult for people to join up and post without reading the respective SE site's FAQ at least about what's on topic or not? What about restricting posts from spammers so that we, over at Ask Ubuntu at least, don't face a barrage of spam?

Yesterday, around the same time of this post, there was a wave of spam. Some of the spam posts hung around for an hour:

I asked for help over at some chat room (Tavern?) where at least one person active at Ask Ubuntu was also active in Chat.

Anyway, I guess the (unstated) objective could be to have as many visits to sites to boost stats (and to make ventures more appealing to capitalists). As someone said, the only worse than being talked about is the reverse.

So, no, I think troll fencing for this current situation (which could very very very easily be resolved by a sincere mea culpa and appropriate action by one side) would be just one more typical corporate misstep.