[Suggestion] Troll Score

[DireWolfM14]

Theymos' recent upgrade to some of the spam-heavy boards to reduce spam bumping seems to be working well, or at least as intended.  The strategy of adding a "bump-score" to threads to keep them closer to the top of the board is ingenious, in my opinion.  

It got me thinking about another possible application of a "score rating."  One for trolls.  I was thinking that a button on each user's profile page to tag that user as a troll could start to count towards that user's "Troll Score."  A similar approach to users' bumping power can be applied to the each user's troll-tagging power.  Again, a decaying effect of tagging someone as a troll could be applied to reduce it's long-term affects on that user's profile.

Then come some restrictions to the trolls:  If their troll-score gets too high they are restricted from creating new threads.  Higher still, and a possible temp-ban is in order.  What do you guys think?

[AdolfinWolf]

Could be useful, but at the same time could become authoritarian real soon, especially in political boards i could see this being misused fairly quickly. eg To silence people which are unliked. Which in turn will make people think twice about saying "controversial" things, and before you know it you essentially removed free speech and promote serious group/hive mind thinking. I don't know. People who are getting brain fatigues from the likes of CH can always block them.

Not to mention that coordinated group efforts to flag someone could theoretically get someone tempbanned? Meh.

With the exception of a few special ones, the forum seems relatively free from trollers. and really, i'm not sure if i could live without cryptohunter's daily gibberish at this point.

And really, letting the majority of people decide whether or not someone is a troll, and thus censor them out of existence (or not even the majority), doesn't sit right with me. Not to mention it will probably only fuel their self-proclaimed righteousness. (Which isn't really that relevant anyhow, but hey.)

[The Sceptical Chymist]

It's a tempting idea, but there are so many reasons why it wouldn't work--and it's not really necessary anyway. 

If you look in Meta, you can easily tell who the trolls are and that's where most of them hang out I think.  Giving them a visible label is sort of superfluous IMO, but restricting them from starting new topics isn't a half-bad idea.

The main problem that I can see is that such a system would make the forum more of a political battlefield than it already is.  If a member and all of his alt accounts can tag a member as a troll, then you know damn well it's going to be abused.  Some members might end up with the tag just out of spite and not because they're truly trolls.

Anyway, I'd love to hear what others have to say.  I don't think Theymos would go for it, however.

[suchmoon]

Then come some restrictions to the trolls:  If their troll-score gets too high they are restricted from creating new threads.  Higher still, and a possible temp-ban is in order.  What do you guys think?

Merit-to-post ratio could work for this purpose and it would cover more garbage-producing behaviors than just trolling.

Could be useful, but at the same time could become authoritarian real soon, especially in political boards i could see this being misused fairly quickly. eg To silence people which are unliked.

I don't think that temporarily preventing someone from creating new threads, or perhaps throttling to X posts per day, or some other limitation of excessive disruptive posting really prevents them from exercising their free speech. It would be merely a cool down period.

Tempbans should be issued only by moderators, although a "troll score" could serve as a helpful metric if the person also gets a bunch of mod reports.

All this would never get implemented though, unless theymos sells the forum to CSW and retires to his private island.

It's a tempting idea, but there are so many reasons why it wouldn't work--and it's not really necessary anyway.  

Yeah, this wouldn't be needed if only we could figure out how to use the "Ignore" feature...

[Last of the V8s]

Ha ha very funny, nice troll thread op.
so ironic so witty
troll

[Upgrade00]

What defines trolling, and is it against the forum rules? This would be key questions to answer before the administrators consider implementing your suggestion.
The bump score is meant to reduce bumps which are as a result of incentives, or a single user creating multiple accounts to give a thread more visibility (than it deserves)

I could be wrong in this case, but the trust score, could be useful to qualify the general interactions of a user (since flags are now exclusively for scams), be it positive, negative or neutral.

[malevolent]

In the past the more of so-called "established users" ignored a given user, the darker the ignore button's highlight colour would become (from light yellow to brown-ish). That was the only thing that happened as more users ignored a given user, but it was enough inform other users that someone with a highlighted ignore button is likely to be a troll.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg796962#msg796962
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg1195988#msg1195988
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg1584088#msg1584088

It was later disabled due to being too resource-intensive to keep it:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg4295782#msg4295782

I don't know how feasible it would be to have it rewritten to accommodate a larger number of users.

[DireWolfM14]

In the past the more of so-called "established users" ignored a given user, the darker the ignore button's highlight colour would become (from light yellow to brown-ish). That was the only thing that happened as more users ignored a give user, but it was enough inform to other users that someone with a highlighted ignore button is likely to be a troll.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg796962#msg796962
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg1195988#msg1195988
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg1584088#msg1584088

It was later disabled due to being too resource-intensive to keep it:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg4295782#msg4295782

I don't know how feasible it would be to have rewritten to accommodate a larger number of users.

That's actually a pretty cool feature.  It was before my time, so I was not aware of it.  

As V8 so eloquently noted, I was half joking, but only half.  I wouldn't want people to become reserved, and not share their opinion for fear of being labeled a troll, but it would be nice to have a feature that would put the egregiously habitual trolls on notice.  

[PrimeNumber7]

If someone is a troll, you should ignore them, and if enough people ignore the troll, they will eventually go away. You can even use the Ignore button so you will not even see their posts.

[OgNasty]

In the past the more of so-called "established users" ignored a given user, the darker the ignore button's highlight colour would become (from light yellow to brown-ish). That was the only thing that happened as more users ignored a give user, but it was enough inform to other users that someone with a highlighted ignore button is likely to be a troll.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg796962#msg796962
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg1195988#msg1195988
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg1584088#msg1584088

It was later disabled due to being too resource-intensive to keep it:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg4295782#msg4295782

I don't know how feasible it would be to have rewritten to accommodate a larger number of users.

That's actually a pretty cool feature.  It was before my time, so I was not aware of it.  

As V8 so eloquently noted, I was half joking, but only half.  I wouldn't want people to become reserved, and not share their opinion for fear of being labeled a troll, but it would be nice to have a feature that would put the egregiously habitual trolls on notice.  

It was a cool feature.  It encouraged people to ignore trolls in order to take part in watching their ignore button darken.  Maybe prevented some forum drama.

[TECSHARE]

The price of free speech comes at the cost of seeing words you don't agree with. There is no way around it. The good news is no one ties you down and forces you to read anything.

[DireWolfM14]

It was a cool feature.  It encouraged people to ignore trolls in order to take part in watching their ignore button darken.  Maybe prevented some forum drama.

It sounds like a pretty simple yet effective system, it would be nice if Theymos could implement a resource friendly version.

The price of free speech comes at the cost of seeing words you don't agree with. There is no way around it. The good news is no one ties you down and forces you to read anything.

Of course I agree with you on principle.  I just thought it would be nice to have something traceable to help those too dense to acknowledge the obvious.

[tranthidung]

Then come some restrictions to the trolls:  If their troll-score gets too high they are restricted from creating new threads.  Higher still, and a possible temp-ban is in order.  What do you guys think?

I support your suggestion, because troll is not allowed, but I still see some users continously troll over years, and it seems they have not yet get any kind of bans (as I know). Not sure what happened more than 2 years ago with trollers, but last 2 years, I have not seen trollers got ban (by their trolling, not from plagiarism or spam, eg.)

3. No trolling.

[UserU]

Instead of user-tag, perhaps it should be left to the mods based on the report count?

So if one (troll) receives an influx or a steady amount of reports, then they could simply take action.

[hugeblack]

This forum encourages posts and opinions. Adding such an assessment "Troll Score" would make some member shy about putting forward their views and thus contradict the value of the forum.
You are free to speak but don't SPAM "especially if you get paid."
Rebumping topics and Merit system is directed to paid posts and not to reduce opinions.

[hilariousetc]

I really don't think theymos would implement something like this. It's too open to abuse.

In the past the more of so-called "established users" ignored a given user, the darker the ignore button's highlight colour would become (from light yellow to brown-ish). That was the only thing that happened as more users ignored a give user, but it was enough inform other users that someone with a highlighted ignore button is likely to be a troll.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg796962#msg796962
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg1195988#msg1195988
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg1584088#msg1584088

It was later disabled due to being too resource-intensive to keep it:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg4295782#msg4295782

I don't know how feasible it would be to have it rewritten to accommodate a larger number of users.

Yeah, I really wasn't a fan of this, though it was at least some barometer for trolls, but it was also abused or could give the wrong impression. Back in the day people used to use the ignore button if they didn't like what you were saying or just because you were on a signature campaign and they'd be open about telling you that. People shouldn't be lit up like trolls just because someone doesn't like what you're saying. How many of us would be marked as trolls just because there's certain people who don't like you or have a few alts they can do the same on just to try impact you negatively. By all means, use the ignore button if you don't want to see what certain people are saying but that shouldn't effect how others perceive you.

[malevolent]

I support your suggestion, because troll is not allowed, but I still see some users continously troll over years, and it seems they have not yet get any kind of bans (as I know). Not sure what happened more than 2 years ago with trollers, but last 2 years, I have not seen trollers got ban (by their trolling, not from plagiarism or spam, eg.)

It happens, but it's rare, only the most disruptive of trolls end up with permabans, even temp bans aren't very common.

Yeah, I really wasn't a fan of this, though it was at least some barometer for trolls, but it was also abused or could give the wrong impression. Back in the day people used to use the ignore button if they didn't like what you were saying or just because you were on a signature campaign and they'd be open about telling you that. People shouldn't be lit up like trolls just because someone doesn't like what you're saying. How many of us would be marked as trolls just because there's certain people who don't like you or have a few alts they can do the same on just to try impact you negatively. By all means, use the ignore button if you don't want to see what certain people are saying but that shouldn't effect how others perceive you.

A very tiny percentage of all users were marked as trolls, because the highlight appeared only if enough of "very-established users" ignored them, how many people back then had alts active enough to have their ignores count?

You're very established if:
- You have 100+ hours of online time
- You have 100+ posts
- You registered 30+ days ago

There are ~1414 very-established users right now.

The change only shows up in the default theme.

As the number of users, and by extension the number of very-established users grew, the only way for trolls to keep being marked was to keep engaging in trollish behaviours. Every 500 posts someone made would also decrease his ignore count by 1.

Theymos also said he'd ban anyone trying to farm accounts for the purpose of ignoring someone they didn't like with more very-established accounts.

[Welsh]

Instead of user-tag, perhaps it should be left to the mods based on the report count?

So if one (troll) receives an influx or a steady amount of reports, then they could simply take action.

Generally, if a user is that much of a troll, and gaining reports fairly regular it would be assumed that the user would eventually get banned for it. Whether that would be temporary or not depends on the circumstances, and severity of it I guess. Users have been banned for trolling in the past although its definitely one of the harder things to determine.

[Quickseller]

There is no way this would get abused, and the only possible outcome of implementing this is a positive one /s