One of the easiest ways to strengthen a community against attacks is to shine a spotlight on the behaviors shown by people attempting to sabotage it. This is done by labor organizers in real life to strengthen a group of workers against union busting, for instance.

The term often used for this is “inoculation”. Similar to being vaccinated once you are aware of an attacker, the effectiveness of their behavior decreases.

So Hexbear comrades, what patterns have you noticed in wreckers, trolls, and feds? Comment in the thread and I’ll update this post to include your feedback.

Terminology

Troll

:troll:

Standard internet bog person. Not particularly clever or inventive. 4chan-tier. Nothing in their brain but slurs.

Wrecker

:silver-legion:

Typically fixated on the site, repeat and/or sustained activity. (Eg Pumpkin Spice Flintstone guy). Might be a reference to an old USSR term for saboteurs in the party?

Fed

:fedposting:

Rare (?). Tries to encourage illegal behavior. Bad at it. Often doing it just to see who corrects them and in what ways.

Patterns I’ve noticed

General

:cissues:

  • new account with slightly “off takes” that gradually becomes increasingly aggressive

  • “just asking questions”

  • “innocently” brings up incredibly specific past struggle sessions

  • tries to position obvious shitposts as sincerely held opinions that somehow reflect poorly on the site (eg “everyone loves hunter biden”)

  • attempts to take other user’s sentences out of context and spin it into an argument

Wrecker Types

Fresh Accounts without History (FAWH)

:amogus:

These are accounts created in the last few weeks with little to no activity FAWHs indicate ban avoidance, shell propaganda accounts, and/or a desire to hide a pointed agenda. Identify and counter this by checking post histories.

Defrosted FAWHs

:corporate-art:

These accounts behave similarly to FAWHs but show a much older registration date combined with long periods of low activity, reflecting history editing or dormancy. They will occasionally only have comments at or around the time of struggle sessions. Identify and counter this behavior by checking post histories.

Drive-by Accounts

:stupidpol:

These accounts post bigoted or inflammatory comments in active threads then delete/edit their comments a day or two after the submission dies to obscure the pattern of their activity.

This is hard to spot unless you check back in with your suspected trolls or seek them out by reviewing. If you catch them in the act it's hugely indicative of subversive intent.

Identify and negate this by monitoring suspected trolls for post deletion and reporting before they are deleted. Also quoting especially aggressive replies so they can’t edit it away.

I’ll update this based on other’s comments. Viva la Hexbear!

:hexbear-retro:

  • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    7 day old account acting needlessly aggressive in response to a completely inoffensive post

    yeah thanks for the example, buddy

    • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Considering how readily the website bans people even with long histories, taking no intermediate steps between "silently removing comments hours later" and "banned", it's no wonder you get people with new-ish accounts and negative opinions on the assumptions people make for the sake of community discipline.

      You, and now I mean specifically you as an example, are creating a narrative in which everything can be dismissed with the same level of critical thought as "Russian bots" and "wumaos" and so on because of how readily you assume they're a wrecker, implying they should be banned, which means that if they want to participate they need to make another account, and thus will be commenting from a new account. It's a feedback loop.

      I don't think I'll change your mind, I'm just thinking aloud because I only just now realized how that loop works. You can't simultaneously be loosey-gooosey with bans and then implicitly penalize people for having new accounts if you want something more than a mechanism to enforce the specific ideologies of the moderators with no ability to discuss what might be worth changing.

      • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        how readily you assume they’re a wrecker, implying they should be banned

        That's really not it. I don't care if the person I replied to is a hardcore Nazi who sleeps with a copy of Mein Kampf under their pillow and is currently posting on 8chan about how they owned the commies, or if said individual is the most commie communist who ever communized and will personally lead the global revolution in 2027. Their behavior is not useful to this forum and it should be ceased, one way or another. I would prefer that they simply fall in line with the vibe and stop being an asshole, but if they double, triple, quadruple down on it and get banned I won't lose any sleep over it either.

        The most important thing to keep in mind when you're dealing with a project like this one is that the identity of the individuals in question is completely irrelevant. It is not the person who is the problem, it is their behavior. We're going to have trolls lurking one way or another, but preventing them from making trouble is what matters. If that means I tell a communist who's being an asshole to stop being an asshole because they look :ursus-hexagonia: :amogus: then so be it

        • HodgePodge [love/loves]
          ·
          3 years ago

          I would prefer that they simply fall in line with the vibe and stop being an asshole, but if they double, triple, quadruple down on it and get banned I won’t lose any sleep over it either.

          :this: there’s a certain type of debate bro who would learn a lot from going to local shows and getting thrown out of them for being shitty

        • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
          ·
          3 years ago

          It is not the person who is the problem, it is their behavior.

          This is important. Trying to judge motivations is a losing game that is way too exploitable because of how meta people can make it. This conversation is a decent example, actually. Lenin had provocateurs in his inner circle and was able to make progress, not because the provocateurs were necessarily bad at their jobs, but because the party had falsifiable standards for actions.

          And to be fair, I think site leadership and membership alike could put more effort into establishing those falsifiable standards. We have the TOS and the CoC, but those aren’t rules which are generally integrated into the culture of the site. I’m not sure what the answer is here, but have a feeling that we could use some major help from a statistics nerd with a background in social sciences willing to guide experimental and incremental reforms.

          • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Lenin had provocateurs in his inner circle and was able to make progress, not because the provocateurs were necessarily bad at their jobs, but because the party had falsifiable standards for actions.

            Could you provide a source where I could read more about this?

        • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Here is what I was originally going to say in response:

          My claim is that your parameters of suspicion are so bad that it may as well be engineered to be so. Using account age as evidence is not a useful metric when banning is done readily --

          And then I thought about your comment for an extra two seconds and realized "Oh wait, they do know what they are saying." You actually want the website to be ideologically static and for challenges to be shut down. I don't know what to tell you except to offer this: I don't have the audacity to assume that I'm correct about everything, and I won't ever be corrected where I am wrong if I create a space where the overriding directive is to "fall in line". Do you believe that such a space can correct your errors? Or do you assume that you're already right about everything? Or do you just not care? I'm struggling to find an answer beyond those three options.

          • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
            ·
            3 years ago

            You actually want the website to be ideologically static and for challenges to be shut down.

            If you can't discuss disagreements without being indistinguishable from someone whose goal is to upset people, then that is a problem with the way you approach discussions and something you need to solve. For example, in response to a non-hostile good faith post by a 10 month old account in good standing which is intended explicitly to encourage discussion, one should probably not come out of the gate throwing insults at them while posting from a seven day old account.

            • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
              ·
              3 years ago

              We just established that account age is worthless, didn't we? And there's an implicit ideology in the OP that is really toxic along "everyone I disagree with is a Russian bot" lines.

              I agree that that one respondent should control their language, but that still wouldn't be enough for anything but this specific case. A lot of what the disagreements are are on political and moral issues. It's normal and expected (and indeed happens regularly) that people think negatively of someone disagreeing with them, but then that just means there's like a two comment exchange and then the person is banned when a Mod gets around to it.

              If I oppose your opinion on, let's pick an example, the attitude we should take towards sex work, are you not going to call me an asshole for it? And I'm not even saying you shouldn't call me an asshole for it, but let's counterfactually assume I'm correct and you are not on that specific issue. You will still be morally outraged at me, and probably I you, and then I will be banned for being an "asshole" (which, again, is a reasonable impression to have of someone who is supporting views you think are immoral) and then nothing changes and you remain wrong.

              There is no way of being "civil" enough to circumvent the conflict of moral beliefs, you will think I'm an asshole either way, that's what moral argument usually is. That can't be a basis for a ban by itself if you want to even pretend to yourself that you're practicing half-decent epistemology.

              • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                That can’t be a basis for a ban by itself if you want to even pretend to yourself that you’re practicing half-decent epistemology.

                Moderators do not operate on the level of epistemology. Bad faith actors make a point of being walking thought experiments to waste your time. Moderation’s purpose is social and trying to disentangle it from the murkiness of social nuance is a bad idea. Standards can be put in place, as can checks on power, but it can’t be divorced entirely without rendering it pointless

            • RonJeremyCorbyn [none/use name]
              ·
              3 years ago

              this is fair. i've deleted the language, and i regret that my being a jerk, by my tone/insulting language, is becoming conflated with a substantive point about what kind of posting substance ought to be disciplined.

              a prudential line, that people should not be rude or insulting jerks, would be a fair one. that doesn't seem to be what has historically been applied.

              • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
                ·
                3 years ago

                that doesn’t seem to be what has historically been applied.

                I can't really speak on that, personally. Obviously I'm not a mod, and I don't want to be a mod, and if I ever become a mod I promise to ban everyone who disagrees with me about anything similar to how I promise to systematically dismantle the United States when I become president. All mods are bastards.

                So I can only speak for myself, but personally I apply my logic both ways. He who easily becomes :sus: just as easily becomes :unsus: through the power of good posting. :anarchy-heart:

                • RonJeremyCorbyn [none/use name]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  Obviously I’m not a mod, and I don’t want to be a mod, and if I ever become a mod I promise to ban everyone who disagrees with me about anything similar to how I promise to systematically dismantle the United States when I become president. All mods are bastards.

                  sure, and, of course, if i become a mod, you will be the first to be banned (please read this in the spirit of jest).

                  i don't know what the last line means. but i will continue with my good posting, incorporating your/others' advice to be less of a jerk.

          • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            I am reading her comments as arguing for something similar to rules of engagement for internal disagreements

            • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
              ·
              3 years ago

              That would be worthwhile if there was a better basis for what "internal" means but, again, with bans being offered readily, that doesn't pan out.

              • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                The line is blurry, for sure. But I think it’s blurry in response to various historical constraints of the site. I see the creation of an ingroup culture and the enforcement of that ingroup via moderation as an inevitable outcome of a site looking to embody socialist values, be inclusive to marginalized people, remain pseudoanonymous, and remain engaging. Whether or not any of these goals are good and whether or not any of these goals have been achieved is a separate conversation. But I think these are indeed the goals and I don’t see a way around creating an outgroup via establishing social norms.

                • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  You can't realistically say that the current social norms are the only way to protect those goals.

                  • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    No, not the current ones in particular. Just that some social norms are going to be involved, which is going to inevitably lead to mistakes in aggregate.

      • Kanna [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Considering how readily the website bans people even with long histories, taking no intermediate steps between “silently removing comments hours later” and “banned”, it’s no wonder you get people with new-ish accounts and negative opinions on the assumptions people make for the sake of community discipline.

        Lol what are you talking about? Just thinking of the two long time users that were banned most recently, they had a very long history (well over a year) of saying either misogynistic or overly aggressive things without being banned. That really doesn't match up to the experiences you're describing here. I think most people knew the most recent dude was likely to pop off if you so much as suggested he do something differently

          • Kanna [she/her]
            ·
            3 years ago

            PootrKrobuttkin is the most recent banned person I think? But what I said could be used to describe both Pootr and Z-Poster, since they were needlessly aggro all the time

            For clarity, I meant Pootr and Skoubalon in my post. I don't remember Z-Poster being misogynistic

            • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Since I made this account to get the other post deleted, I'll do a "fuck it, mask off" and disclose being Skoubalon.

              Regarding the other two (tangential)

              I took a small break from the site and missed Pootr flaming out, though I accidentally seem to have incited it on a proximate level. I don't remember Pootr well outside of their discussions with me (where they were kind) and, looking up some relevant threads and trying to piece together what actually happened and what they actually said is confusing.

              Z was never misogynistic to my knowledge, I assumed you meant them for angry one and Pootr for the misogynist since they flamed out after me and people called me a misogynist. All this to say, I basically can't weigh in on negatives of the specific histories of people who were not me.

              Anyway, the reason I ask is because you talk about me having a "long history" of such and such, and that would actually be a good reason if that was a disciplinary history, i.e. a bunch of times where the mods told me to act otherwise and I repeatedly regressed. That's not what happened. What happened was various comments and one or two posts were deleted after the fact and I didn't know about almost any of it until after I was banned. You can create a story for yourself about personal history proving I should be booted, but really I think it shows that I was acting in good faith rather than just some mask-wearing shit who occasionally went mask-off.

              What I am contending, not to get that account back (I think I was able to delete it), but as a point of contention about how the site is moderated is that, if a user does shit that merits mod interference, you should actually let them know and maybe even discuss it with them instead of just letting it fly under the radar until you decide it's enough to ban them over, because that's essentially applying every infraction retroactively. Does that make sense?

              It would also have the side effect of making legitimate disagreement slightly more possible.

              Edit: i see the irony in my two uses of "mask-off". To clarify, the first refers to literal identity and the second refers to ideology. I try to be transparent, or at least honest, about my ideological leanings.

              • Kanna [she/her]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Oh hello lol

                Regarding the other two

                I think it would be tough to find what Pootr was saying before getting banned now. I'm pretty sure his old account was deleted and his alts mostly got purged. I saw some of it live and it was just his usual getting very upset because he was criticized. I had nice interactions with him sometimes, but others were very toxic. I personally liked Z, it's too bad they couldn't chill out. I'm sad they were banned

                if a user does shit that merits mod interference, you should actually let them know

                I see what you're saying about reaching out when comments are removed. I think that's a reasonable thing to ask.

                Out of curiosity - the last comments you had removed were about abortion and shifting autonomy away from the person that's pregnant in certain circumstances. That's not good any time, but especially right after Roe was overturned seems especially shitty. How would you like a conversation to play out with you about those removed comments? That might be good feedback since it addresses a specific, recent situation

                • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  I know you don't mean it this way, but it feels like :bait: . I've been trying to not relitigate the specific issue despite talking about how it was moderated.

                  Basically, I was annoyed at people using liberal reasoning and decided to go complain about it on c/strugglesession because that's where people go to have arguments on topics that people feel strongly about, right? Fuckin' whoops. Maybe just a "Hey, actually the thing you consider liberal reasoning is also a dogma of the website, so comply or get banned, okay?" from a mod and then they ban me when I keep arguing. That'd be fair enough from a transparency standpoint, whatever I may think of it ideologically.

                  • Kanna [she/her]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    But you can't have it both ways. You want to talk about how it's moderated, but the context of what you said does matter. It's not bait to say that. You downplayed pregnant people's full autonomy and that can't be separated from what happened after you said that

                    If you wanted a mod to reach out during that, I think that sounds reasonable

                  • HodgePodge [love/loves]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    they don’t let people debate transphobia on this site, why would they let dudes debate abortion?

              • HodgePodge [love/loves]
                ·
                3 years ago

                missed Pootr flaming out, though I accidentally seem to have incited it on a proximate level. I don’t remember Pootr well outside of their discussions with me (where they were kind) and, looking up some relevant threads and trying to piece together what actually happened and what they actually said is confusing.

                Cracker meltdown about racism vs prejudice, started talking about race wars and shit

                • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  I've seen a couple of people saying that, but I've also seen how people have radically mischaracterized what I have said, and I haven't seen quotes from them, so . . . It's hard for me to just believe that on faith.

                  • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    It was on a separate account, but it was indeed unfortunately reactionary. I hadn’t seen that from Pootr before and was surprised. @Awoo seemed to think that they were having some kind of crisis and were acting out. It wasn’t appropriate regardless, but was still upsetting to watch

              • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                This was your original contention as well, yeah? Not the ban, but the lack of notification. I think the reason for this is a mix of technological and a holdover from when launch-time wreckers were manipulating screenshots of conversations with mods. But I agree that the lack of notification isn’t ideal and would be a good idea for the mod team to review if they haven’t already

                • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  Yeah, I made this account to make a thread on that subject. idk, back when I was part of the mod team it was a normal practice to do things like "temp bans" and banning an established user without any sort of intermediary steps was frowned upon.

      • HodgePodge [love/loves]
        ·
        3 years ago

        taking no intermediate steps between “silently removing comments hours later” and “banned”, it’s no

        bruh there is literally a public mod log and you could have appealed why are you writing essays

        • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Because the ban isn't the point. The mods kindly unbanned me so I could delete my account and I did (I think, it took a couple tries for some reason)