Attack of the Nazi Trolls: A Lesson for Message Board Moderators

Richardpoe.com ^ | 10-27-03 | Richard Poe

[SJackson]

Wednesday, August 13, 2003 at 13:41

Attack of the Nazi Trolls: A Lesson for Message Board Moderators

In a recent blog entry titled, "I've Been Red-Baited!", I wrote, "I'm not familiar with LibertyForum.org, but it appears to be an anti-Bush, anti-war message board with a distinctly anti-Jewish undertone."

A member of LibertyForum.org named Max Soldo (aka "thoughtcriminal") has responded by e-mail and provided further clarification of LibertyForum's political orientation. He writes:

This forum is a libertarian forum, and is devoted to the libertarian concept of unabashed free speech. With that principle in mind, most posters aren't libertarian as many fringe types have taken advantage of this policy (which includes a no-banning policy) to run amok...hence the preponderance of anti-Jewish posts on this forum.

All of this raises interesting questions for any message board moderator -- such as myself -- who has tried his best to allow a relatively high level of free expression. Inevitably, Nazi trolls find your forum and begin probing your defenses. If you allow them to post messages, they immediately spread the word to other Nazi trolls and soon your message board is infested.

At that point, all the normal people stop posting. It's a bit like when a fight breaks out in a bar and everyone stops talking and turns to watch the fight, transfixed. Suddenly, your message board becomes an arena for Nazi trolls and people arguing with Nazi trolls.

This is called "free speech."

I decided long ago that allowing Nazi trolls to occupy my message board and drive off everyone who does not share their idiosyncratic obsessions is a very poor method for encouraging "free speech." Therefore, I make frequent and forceful use of such allegedly un-libertarian methods as censoring and, when necessary, banning troublemakers, brownshirted or otherwise.

Apparently, the decision-makers at LibertyForum.org have adopted a different approach. As a result, their self-styled "libertarian" message board has become, by Mr. Soldo's description, a playground for non-libertarian "fringe types" to "run amok."

"It does get quite ugly at times, but that's the price one pays for sticking to one's principles," writes Mr. Soldo in a subsequent e-mail.

Well, if that's the price, I don't think I'm willing to pay it. I will add the sad fate of LibertyForum.org to my growing list of reasons for rethinking whether or not I wish to continue calling myself a "libertarian."

 

[truthandjustice1]

"BTW, I did help launch the Challenger - I was sitting at the C-9 (instrumentation) console for that one - tape recorders and such. I still recall the screen in front of me freezing on the loss of downlink. The booster chamber pressure readings had fallen off on one side. It was an emotional time."

My mistake. Getting old.

But I would pay good money to hear your story. I'll help you do an outline.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Bwaaaaaaahahahahahaha...

Trout... Trout... cast it way out... this is the way that we fish for trout, come on! I'm talkin' to you, come on!

[truthandjustice1]

"Sherman's march to the sea"

Wait, I thought he stopped in Atlanta.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Wait, I thought he stopped in Atlanta.

For a few minutes anyway. ;0)

[Allan]

I have been following this thread for a while now
but I think I'll stop.
From a shaky start it has degenerated into rubbish.
Imagine what it would be like if there were no moderators!

[Catspaw]

Trout... Trout... cast it way out... this is the way that we fish for trout, come on! I'm talkin' to you, come on!

LOL!! I can see you out in the middle of a trout stream, net in hand, singing your heart out--while all the other fishermen scream, "shaddup! You're scaring da trout!"

[snopercod]

I already posted how I might have "saved a mission" by doing some "unauthorized soldering" in the middle of the night on a classified mission. That was a good tale, but unfortunately, I don't think there are enough of those good stories to make a book.

Proposed title: "Happiness is KSC in your rear-view mirror" ;-)

Historical fact: My blood pressure actually dropped a full 30 points the week after I quit.

[truthandjustice1]

"Justice"

Justice will be served, please take a number.

Smoking or non-smoking?

[Chad Fairbanks]

I never fish where there are other people... Too many witnesses...

[Neets]

Sheesh....

I'll take #1 and smoking please.

You got mail BTW.

[Cultural Jihad]

You'll note that the same people who wanted Jim to go easy on moderation are now up to their necks in Nazis. Irony can be ironic sometimes.

Up to their necks in and thereby ruled by, apparently.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

we could divide up into pro and anti Iroquois factions and duke it out into infinity.

Can I be anti? It is historically my right as a Wyandot. Oh the things I could tell you about the Iroquois...

[truthandjustice1]

"I already posted how I might have "saved a mission" by doing some "unauthorized soldering" in the middle of the night on a classified mission. That was a good tale, but unfortunately, I don't think there are enough of those good stories to make a book."

Well, here's the real deal. The Shuttle program is coming to an end. But yet there's no history of the un-sung hero's that made it happen. You're one of them.

You have a book in you.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Ahhh... 1649. What a good year in Ohio for the Iroquois. Heeeeeey. Wait a minute. I thought we exterminated ya all???? What the...?

[SJackson]

I have been following this thread for a while now but I think I'll stop. From a shaky start it has degenerated into rubbish. Imagine what it would be like if there were no moderators!

Enough to make you want to invent them?

[SJackson]

Irony can be ironic sometimes.

That's great. Forrest Gump?

[Cultural Jihad]

Don't know how you could have made it much clearer than that.

You'll notice that "religious bigots" was also clearly listed. Please keep that in mind the next time you visit a thread on how Islam is supposedly a vile, evil religion.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

You did try. And just because the french liked our furs better then yours.

Can I sue you for reparations?

[Chad Fairbanks]

For the French, 1644 was an especially grim year. The Atontrataronnon (Algonkin) were driven from the Ottawa River and forced to seek refuge with the Huron, and three large Huron canoe flotillas transporting fur to Montreal were captured by the Iroquois. The fur trade on the St. Lawrence had come to almost a complete halt, so the French were ready to listen when the Iroquois proposed a truce. The peace treaty signed in 1645 allowed the French to resume the fur trade, and the Mohawk, who had suffered heavy losses from war and epidemic, got the release of their warriors being held prisoner by the French. However, the treaty failed to solve the main cause of the war. The Iroquois expected peace would bring a resumption of their earlier trade with the Huron. Instead, the Huron ignored Iroquois overtures for trade and sent 60 canoe-loads of fur to Montreal in 1645 followed by 80 loads in 1646. After two years of increasingly-strained diplomacy failed to change this, all hell broke loose.

While their diplomats took great care to reassure the French and keep them neutral, the Iroquois destroyed the Arendaronon Huron villages in 1647 and cut the trade route to Montreal. Very few furs got through that year. In 1648 a massive 250-man Huron canoe flotilla fought its way past the Iroquois blockade on the Ottawa River and reached Quebec, but during their absence, the Iroquois destroyed the Huron mission-village of St. Joseph torturing and killing its Jesuit missionary. This scattered the Attigneenongnahac Huron. Sensing a complete Iroquois victory, the Dutch provided 400 high-quality flintlocks and unlimited ammunition on credit. The final blow came during two days in March, 1649. In coordinated attacks, 2,000 Mohawk and Seneca warriors stuck the Huron mission-villages of St. Ignace and St. Louis. Hundreds of Huron were killed or captured, while two more French Jesuits were tortured to death. Huron resistance abruptly collapsed, and the survivors scattered and fled to be destroyed or captured.

The Iroquois, however, were not about to just let the Huron go. After 20 years of war and epidemic, they had paid a high price for victory. Down to less than 1,000 warriors, the League had decided on massive adoptions to refill their ranks. The "Great Pursuit" began the following December when the Iroquois went after the Attignawantan Huron who had taken refuge with the Tionontati. The main Tionontati village was overrun, and less than 1,000 Tionontati and Huron managed to escape to a temporary refuge on Mackinac Island near Sault Ste. Marie (Upper Michigan). The Iroquois followed, and by 1651 the Huron and Tionontati refugees (who together would become the Wyandot) were forced to relocate farther west to Green Bay, Wisconsin. The following spring the Nipissing suffered the same fate (survivors fled north to the Ojibwe), and the last groups of Algonkin abandoned the upper Ottawa Valley and disappeared into safety of the northern forests with the Cree for the next twenty years.

Meanwhile, the Tahonaenrat Huron had moved southwest among the villages of the Neutrals. Throughout the many wars between Iroquois and Huron, the Neutrals had refused to take sides. Huron and Iroquois war parties passed through their homeland to attack each other, but the Neutrals remained neutral - hence their name. Perhaps alarmed by the sudden Iroquois victory over the Huron, they made no effort to prevent the Tahonaenrat from continuing to make war on the Iroquois. After not-so diplomatic requests for the Neutrals to surrender their "guests" were ignored, the Iroquois attacked them in 1650. For the first year of the war, the Neutrals had the support of the Susquehannock who had been Huron allies before 1648. However, this ended in 1651 when the Mohawk and Oneida attacked the Susquehanna. The main Neutral fort of Kinuka fell to the Seneca that year, and the other Neutrals either surrendered or were overrun.

We can't be all bad - we killed some french guys... ;0)

[truthandjustice1]

"From a shaky start it has degenerated into rubbish. Imagine what it would be like if there were no moderators!"

Thanks for helping!