[Editor’s note: Community member Uber Mashu contributed a piece to our Weekly Musing subject on how to make gaming communities suck less. Please post your own over on the Community blogs. It may get read during our panel at PAX this Friday! — CTZ]
Back in the old days when people rode around on horse and cart, trolls were much easier to avoid. You’d see a crudely designed bridge and just take an alternative route to your destination. Sometimes the odd passerby in a hurry would sprint over it and get a verbal bashing, but they knew the risks involved and only had themselves to blame. Besides this occasional treat, the trolls only source of food was found in the guise of prank telephone calls or by writing in to the letter pages of a monthly comic book or magazine.
Then the Internet was discovered, changing everything and not just for the better. Every household, coffee shop, golden state bridge and sewer was granted access to a wireless internet connection. You could now do your shopping in just your undies without fear of arrest, enjoy multiplayer games without any need of a split screen and even talk to Prince Harry about the latest Retroforcego!, half way across the world without a single word escaping your lips. The spider web is both amaaaazing and sexy. It does have a downside though, just like your ex girlfriend. Remember her?
Every night we welcome the entire world into our homes, trying desperately to forget that some people are better off just left outside. Remember that kid who tore into you for buying a cheap brand of sneakers at school? He’s there and he’s hitting on your wife. The bouncer that took an instant dislike to you at the bar? He’s there too, shaking his head disapprovingly at your extensive CD collection. Everyone you’ve ever hated or took a dislike to exists in some form or other on the world wide web. They breed in forums, achieve climax on blogs and spend a majority of their spare time thinking of numerous inventive ways (and I use that term loosely) of telling people how wrong they are.
The kid who wants to spoil it for everyone usually will if you let him. How do you make gaming communities suck less? Simple in theory. By not letting the kid who wants to ruin it for everyone win. How do you do that in practice? Not nearly as simple and even then you’ll never rid yourself of them entirely. It’s all a matter of damage control. Pour a vial of ink into a swimming pool and you can only flush so much of it out. The trick is in making it less noticeable.
Now are you sitting comfortably? You should probably use the bathroom before I continue. Straighten your hair out too, it looks a mess. While your up, could you put the kettle on please? Mines a milk with no sugar. Ta.
To eradicate a problem, first you need to recognize it.
“Why Mr Mashu you handsome and dashing English bastard” I hear you cry! “I know you mean well, but it’s pretty easy to recognize the threat. How will stating the obvious help?” My response to that is this: Ssh. Daddy’s talking.
The infected come in all shapes and sizes. Typically, but not exclusively they will be young and stupid. They love the acronym and use text speak in everything they write. Be it their shopping list, Nanny’s birthday card or Xbox Live and PSN. Physically speaking you’re looking for someone with a terrible haircut. If they proudly boast the phrase “fighting the console war” somewhere in any of their posts or profile page you’ve bagged yourself a narrow-minded troll. It’s their equivalent of a swastika. Find yourself a trio of goats and Billy gruff the swine.
A few have managed to grow to maturity and find themselves a respective partner. We call these breeders. Should you ever encounter one in the outside world, please cross the road subtlety. If they ever engage you in conversation agree with everything they say. Any difference in opinion may lead to an angry confrontation and end with them nutting you. Should this happen, try to keep eye contact for as long as possible, lower yourself onto the ground and climb into the foetal position. Draw attention to yourself like a fire engine by weeping loud salty tears. This act of human emotion should confuse the predator and subsequently cause them to leave.
Where to find the nest and what to expect.
Any forum thread or news blog that dares to make mention of any console or exclusive game somewhere in its title is a potential target. The actual discussion within the topic is unimportant to these unevolved monkeys. The author could have simply written about how Mr Microsony donated millions of pounds to starving children or pretty puppies. Maybe both. Trolls will still bad mouth it. It’s their kryptonite. They just can’t help themselves. It’s just another excuse for them to inform you all on how much your “chosen” brand of machine vacuums.
Should you call them out, expect to have the term PS3, 360 or Nintendo fanboy thrown at you. Please note that they’ll never just simply call you a “fanboy”. A true troll hates a “rival” brand so much that the worst thing he could call you within the narrow-minded restraints of his mind, is one of them.
A possible solution?
Like a brave knight in a shiny coat of armour, stand up to this disgusting fire breathing dragon. Tear their argument to pieces and call them a hugging idiot. Tactfully of course.
This is commonly known as feeding the troll. Now I can understand why some people get upset when others do this, because more often that not, they’re escalating the situation. BUT when it’s done right (and I stress right), with a sense of humour and/or with an intelligent argument to back yourself up with, why should it matter? If someone’s being a douche for no reason, why should you just sit back and ignore it? You’re on the Internet remember. You’re main weapon of choice is the written word. Why shouldn’t you use it?
The kind of folk who whine about feeding the troll are in my opinion no better than the troll itself. You’re the type of clown who’d just stand in line and watch as some jerk tears into a polite store clerk over something petty. This makes you a goddamn coward in my book. That’s maybe a little strong and I’m sorry, but less of the nanny state please. Ignoring them and hoping they go away is a lousy way to fight against them. The same could be said about “attacking” them I guess. Ether way, they are going nowhere and neither am I. I’m going to stand up for myself when it calls for it. Not blush and politely excuse myself. We live on a planet where half the population are constantly treading on eggshells, afraid they’re going to upset someone or get their asses sued or hurt. The other half play the villains in this piece. Bowser and his offspring push the rest of the Mushroom Kingdom around simply because they can. Who’s going to stand up and stop them? The occasional Italian plumber. Why is it only him that dares to speak up?
Now I’m not saying we should all start calling each other names if we happen disagree with one another. That’s for Mr. T to do and he does it very well. I’m saying that as a community we need to stand up for ourselves more, puff out our chests and just laugh at the more extreme cases.
Think of the school bully back when your hair was fuller and your legs less hairy. The kids would all crowd round and yell something inventive like “Fight! Fight! Fight!” as some genital head laid into a helpless twig with glasses and shiny shoes. What if instead, they all just grouped together and laughed at this Stone Cold Steve Austin wannabe? He’s not going to feel quite like Mr. Universe then is he? He’s gonna feel like a, as the French say, petite moron. He may even cry. As an added bonus, seeing as this is all taking place on a Web page, it’s not like there’s any real danger of him turning around and lamping you one is there? Physically speaking. You’re not going to find him waiting for you outside the school gates when the last bell rings.
(Author’s note to Master Burch should you ever read this you handsome devil: Hello. How are you? I’d call this the “Boggart Method” should you ever find need for it in the Gamer dictionary. If it does find it’s way in there, I’ll die happy, knowing that I’ve embarrassed a future generation of Uber Mashu’s with a Harry Potter reference).
Fear in the troll, only promotes fear in the troll himself. Don’t be afraid to stand up to him or her. Just try and make your arguments at least a little funny (no “your mother” jokes please) so that way at least it’ll be entertaining to read for everyone. Games are supposed to be fun remember? It’s also a great way to pick up members of the opposite sex. Take your laptop to a nightclub and show that funny thing you wrote on the Internet to anyone you find attractive. Guaranteed groping.
Think of it this way, if any those self deluded fanboys actually read this, they themselves may end up following my advice and attack each other. A negative plus a negative always equals a positive right? (I think!) Maybe they’ll end up wiping each other out. It’s a win-win situation.
Sure, the plan is not fail proof. In fact it could make things a lot worse. I’m not even sure if what I’m saying is a good idea. It’s a questionable suggestion. Please bare in mind I was born with beauty and not brains. I’m very very pretty. I’m also an idealist and ideally, I’d like you to agree with me. It’s something to consider at least? I just wish everyone would try a bit harder in belittling these spoilt brats. They’re not going to hang around outside the supermarket drinking cider and riding their BMX if everyone (and a mean everyone. Not just a select few) threw the verbal equivalent of a cricket ball at them every time they spat at you.
A less Braveheart inspired alternative.
Now for a more realistic solution. Less of the peace and love maaaaaan.
For somewhere like Destructoid, maybe a little more power should be given to the people, post wise that is. We don’t want to run the joint. That’s your job and you do it very well I might add. I’m talking about a far more convenient and better placed user complaint system. Until this morning I wasn’t even aware such a thing already existed on the site. I noticed it by accident. Tucked away down there in the blogs as I typed this, alongside the dirty socks I should have washed months ago.
There must be a better way of implementing something like that? A thumbs up/thumbs down system similar to that of YouTube maybe? An Xbox Live Star equivalent? (Which is practically useless but we can make it work!) Whatever it is, please have it within easy (easier) reach of every user on site. Be it on the accused’s profile page or besides their user name every time they (and we) post. Something you could just click on with ease and say “Oi guvnor. That’s not on.” in a slightly more indirect and professional manner, whenever an eejit happens to step out of line.
I’m not really sure how much trouble or work something like that would cause, I’m ignorant to that kind of stuff really. My time is better spent on things like ice cream and chocolate éclairs. I’ll leave the difficult stuff to the professionals. Also I’m getting old (26 this year. The wrong side of 20) and I can’t help but give advice to anyone who’ll listen. Be it good or bad.
Trusted moderators like those handy chaps that are found in forums wouldn’t go amiss either. Constantly patrolling the front page, taking a lot of grief off the editors. Letting those talented guys and gals interact with the Community without having to dirty themselves by getting involved in a witch hunt every 10 minutes.
None of these are entirely original I know. But it’s better than what we’ve currently got right? You get so many black marks made against you and Mr. Destructoid will show you the the door, after a little investigating of course. He’s not going to toss your rear end outside simply because people don’t like you. Having a different opinion is not reason enough to get banned. He’s gonna kick you out because you’re a feces stirrer. A fecal matter stirrer who is testing the patience of the rest of the community.
My suggestion’s aren’t perfect, but some of them might help remove a lot of the regular offenders more efficiently. Get rid of most of their crap and it may even help the more shy members of our group to speak up. It took me ages to make my first comment. I spent my time lurking like a ghost in a cupboard. Now (and I think this blog proves it) I seem to have trouble shutting up.
No system will flush these asshats out entirely of course. Maybe with a slightly better solution in place (not necessarily being one of mine god forbid) as a group we may stand a better chance of spotting the cancerous cells early and stop them from spreading.
And so the Italian plumber discovered the princess was in yet another castle. He decided she wasn’t worth all that hassle as she’ll only end up getting kidnapped again anyway. He caught a cab home and continued to earn a healthy wage in his chosen profession.
And I’m spent. The last of my two English bronze pennies are gone. In this current economic climate they’re worth even less I guess. Thanks for putting up with my verbose nonsense right up until the very end. Please don’t get annoyed or upset about anything I wrote. My fingers combined with the awesome power of my USB keyboard put them there in good humour. Should our paths ever cross outside in the real world, I may buy you a frothy beverage as my way of a real apology.
I’d like to thank my family and friends, the poor saps who actually read the entire thing, my felines (who I’ll ultimately die alone surrounded by one day) and that bar lady who smiled at me once. If you are a troll, hello. Isn’t there a burns ward whose victims you should be taunting? I do so enjoy our chats. If you’re a single and attractive female with child bearing hips, would you like to go out sometime? I have my own castle and am very very British. If you’re a single and attractive male, I’m not really that way inclined, but for you I’m willing to give it a ruddy good try. If you’re neither of those but are married or attached, it doesn’t matter. They don’t have to know.
Hugs in the form of words. Please don’t tell my mother. And last but by no means least, I’m sorry. I’m so very very sorry.
