Block Fast, Mute Often

Online communities have been vicious places since they first appeared. I’ve been a part of them for decades, and flame wars and nastiness are still as common as they’ve always been. Half-hearted attempts to encourage civil interaction inevitably take a back seat to growing a community’s user base.

The reasons for this have everything to do with money and prestige. The larger group of people someone is in power over, the better. Having a sustainable forum with healthy, useful interactions is less useful to people running communities.

Banning people (or threatening to ban them) who behave badly has always been the main tool for policing such communities. How bans are applied is never in a thoughtful, consistent manner. The people in charge act liked harried parents who arbitrarily hand out punishments based on their mood and whatever will resolve the situation most quickly. Often these people will claim they’re overwhelmed by the demands of the community, while refusing to share authority over the group.

The one tool that’s usually available to users is a block or mute button, which allows them to not see any contributions from a particular member in the future. SOMETIMES it stops that user from seeing the blocker’s contributions as well.

I have developed the strategy that the instant I get a hint of nastiness from another user, directed at me or someone else, I block them. I won’t even bother reading their comment in its entirety if it starts off badly. Rudeness or stupidity (or both) get a speedy block from me and I move on with my day.

The most persuasive argument against this is a traditional liberal defense of the value of free expression and exchanging ideas. I believe in these ideals, but participants in online discussions rarely engage in good faith. If you try to engage with everyone you come across online, you’ll have your time wasted by people trying to provoke a reaction with no interest in an exchange of ideas. A small number of online communities attempt to foster this sort of interaction, but even those fail more often than they success.

I have never experienced any negative outcome from blocking people. Some online celebrities who attract stalkers and other mentally ill people have had the experience that blocking crazies escalates their behavior. This hasn’t happened to me.

Some people don’t like blocking or muting because they don’t want the other person to get the last word. I understand this. There’re worries that people will see the interaction and think you didn’t have a defense against their claims or that you’re agreeing that they’re correct by not responding. If you think about your own experiences online, you don’t interpret interactions this way. Someone trying to engage who gets ignored doesn’t read as the original person “deferring” to the person trying to engage them. If anything, it feels like it’s not worth their time.

Those who *DO* respond, usually escalate the dispute rather than resolve it. I had a reader of one of my books comment that one part was unbelievable. I politely responded and gave real world examples of similar situations. He just rejected it again, more aggressively the second time, and didn’t engage with any of the material I’d pointed him to. At the end of the day, he just wanted to make a complaint. Now, if I get something similar, I just ignore it. They’re welcome to point out any problems with my writing that they see.

There’s been a move towards exchanging “zingers” when interacting online. These are rude, funny put downs. In media, such interactions are celebrated. We all love when Tyrion Lannister makes a funny, disparaging comment on Game of Thrones. In fiction, the target of zingers is cowed, any listeners are impressed, and the source of the zinger wins the argument. On-line, the target responds with a ruder zinger of their own, this continues back and forth until they’re making death threats against one another.

The motivation of many people on-line isn’t a liberal, free exchange of ideas. Many commenters are the equivalent of older siblings, poking at other users and trying to provoke a reaction. Their messages are deliberately rude and antagonistic, because trying to upset others is their entire goal. Such people are adept at antagonizing other users staying JUST within the rules of the forum, and taking delight if they provoke someone into a response that gets them banned. Blocking, without any response, is the best way to subvert this dark desire.

Some people are just angry, miserable individuals and making other people unhappy is their best strategy to ease their own suffering.

These types of people have been driven online, because their behavior is tolerated in large, virtual communities in a way that a group of friends or family member never would. If they acted this way in real world communities, they’d be socially isolated as everyone got sick of their behaviour. Online, they can have as many negative interactions as they desire.

Blocking doesn’t make online communities a delight to be a part of. Sadly, there are always more trolls. Nevertheless, it’s always reassuring to hit the block button and realize you’ll never have to deal with that particular miscreant again.