Trolling and harassment on this forum

[Gregory1]

I feel compelled to post this topic because at recent times I've seen trolling and harassment on this forum.

 

First I would like to define what I mean by trolling/harassment:

• posting something while having the intention to get other people angry / emotional /  feel attacked
• posting something that is based on the personna of a specific forum member and not based on the topic that is being talked about
• having hatred against certain forum members and trying to attack them in subtle or obvious ways

 

Why is it important to have a discussion about trolling?

Because trolling destroys this forum. It takes up unneccesary space where deep insights and wisdom could be placed and it destroys the atmosphere of trust and companionship that is needed if we truly want to use this place to its greatest potential.

 

What could this forum do for us?

This forum can provide immense value to all its members when it is used in a concious way. It can be used to share our deepest insights and to truly uplift and help eachother. If all the people on the forum have the intention to:

• Grow
• Help
• Get helped
• Share their knowledge/insights

this forum could be awesome! I do not doubt that most people here already share these values and this forum is already a great place. But we all can do better and spot even the subtle forms of trolling that we apply.

 

Subtle forms of trolling/how to behave when the troll in you comes forth:

Essentially whenever we feel emotionally attacked / feel a need to get attention / feel like in some subtle ways the definition of trolling/harassment applies to our current posts we can be pretty confident that the trolly jolly in us (who is in all of us to a degree btw.) is coming forth. This is the moment to stop and ask ourselves:

• Does this post that I am contributing right now really help?
• Could this post be destructive and actually make this forum a worse place than it is right now?
• should I maybe formulate this in a better way that really gets the message across and without personally attacking fourm members?

Everybody here can greatly benefit from this place. To do that however, everybody needs to help to make this place a great place.

 

How to deal with trolls:

If you are being trolled try to understand the trolls perspective. Does he purposefully troll? Or is it subtle trolling that even the troll himself didn't notice. If it is subtle trolling you should stay calm and try to point out without becoming a troll yourself  that the other person is currently not contributing anything of value but instead critizizing your personna.

If this doesn't help: Do not give the troll what he/she wants! What does the troll want?

• Your attention (your response)
• You becoming emotional and angry
• You becoming a troll yourself

Instead, report the troll and message the administrators to take care of the trolls. Some people simply cannot be helped and need to get warned/banned for their behaviour.

 

To all the people here, let us all try to spot the troll in ourselves when it's coming forth. Lets try to stop him and lets try to always check our posts for the following points to make sure they are high quality and add value to that forum:

• Does this post make me / somebody else grow?
• Does this post help me / somebody else?
• Does this post share my knowledge/insights?

 

Thanks to all of you for reading until here, I love you all, peace out!:)

Also feel free to post any insights about trolling that I might have missed down below!

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by Gregory1

[Preety_India]

Thank you for making the post. 

These are my insights. 

 

The whole trolly jolly culture needs to be done away with. 

The word trolly jolly is awful. 

This reminds me of the great debate on freedom of speech. 

Freedom of speech should be about expressing one's ideas in a free and constructive way. It shouldn't be about being an asshole and going around offending people. 

For example if someone is discussing race in an open manner, I would say should be welcome.. 

However using this freedom of speech card to target a minority and use the N word, that in my opinion is not freedom of speech but just using a license to target someone's self esteem. 

There is a line to be drawn where you separate decent open communication and indecent ad hominem attacks targeted to destruct a person's self esteem or to spread a stereotype. This is where pc culture and cancel culture becomes important and necessary. 

This applies to trolling and harassment as well. 

The trolly jolly tendency is a weak bully behavior. At what point is it not  okay to make a light hearted joke, a lot of this support for trolling comes from a place of lack of empathy. When someone's mental health is impacted, a joke is no longer a joke and it's very easy to be dismissive about it and make it seem like it's no big deal, again this comes from a lack of empathy, when you are not the victim of bullying, it's quite easy to say - "just shut down your laptop," or "it's just a joke," racists and bullies often use such excuses to get away with their behaviors. It's only possible to really understand the magnanimity of the situation when you place yourself in the shoes of the bullied person and understand their emotional and mental state. To mock is easy, to understand is difficult. 

If someone wants to grow spiritually, the last thing that person would do is hurt someone, even if it is unintentional. 

 

[Jake Johnson]

Trolling is somewhat a matter of perspective. I was accused of trolling while only seeking insight.

[Gregory1]

@Preety_India love the empathy aspect. All the people here should not forget that on the other end of the screen sits another person. That person could be hurt by your assaults / personal attacks. Learn to feel other peoples pain and you won't troll as much as you did before. 

46 minutes ago, Jake Johnson said:

Trolling is somewhat a matter of perspective. I was accused of trolling while only seeking insight.

@Jake Johnson

True, matter of perspective. But also the definition of trolling is clear and apart from rare cases it should be pretty easy to judge whether a post includes the characteristics necessary to classify it as trolling or whether it doesn't. But if someone has 100% desire for insight he isn't a troll. If he is characterized as such, it could be lack of good communication on his part but apart from that... 

[Opo]

A balance is necessary. 

The opposite problem is now happening at reddit. 

People are too autistic to recognize when someone is teasing someone vs insulting them. So now too much moderation is happening and it takes the life out of it. 

It's also important not to forget that the best way to deal with trolls is to work on yourself so they aren't able to trigger you. I think moderation should be used more as an aid to this until people are able to work on their trauma and not as it's own solution. 

[Preety_India]

2 minutes ago, Opo said:

It's also important not to forget that the best way to deal with trolls is to work on yourself so they aren't able to trigger you.

 

Some people are just sensitive. Understand this. Growing a thick skin is not easy 

Telling people to grow a thick skin is akin to saying get an alarm for your home but we aren't going to do anything about the thieves who rob your house, we are just going to blame it on your house alarm that didn't go off. 

There's something called collective social responsibility where we weed out sociopathic behavior and protect those who are vulnerable. 

Something similar happens when the subject of rape is discussed, especially in my culture. A victim shaming culture. It's always the victim 's fault. It's always about the victim could have done meanwhile the perpetrator goes Scott free. 

Right now in this very moment, somebody is jumping off a bridge because they could not bear the harassment and abuse they were subjected to online and offline. What's our job as a society? To simply watch this happen and say that the person wasn't strong enough to stand the bullies 

No matter how strong you try to be in life, there will be points in your life where you will be bogged down by your personal life problems, financial stress, divorce, lack of direction, health issues, lots of things, and in those situations you would want encouragement and upliftment. In those vulnerable times, you would need social encouragement and not bullying and harassing and judgement. You wouldn't want to be driven to the edge of the cliff. 

Even a simple hug and a few words of encouragement can brighten a person and give them the support they need to get up and keep going. 

We are not just individuals. We are also a society. We have to focus on what we can do to help a person who is suffering rather than judging them for not being strong enough. 

Where's our empathy as a collective society? Should we shirk our responsibility by simply ignoring the problem or deflecting blame on the victim, instead of taking a proactive role in getting something done about it. 

Our responsibility lies in keeping things as supportive as possible and this means counteracting all forms of bullying both online and offline and teaching bullies a lesson that there is someone who is going to hold them accountable and by instilling a detriment and setting a precedent that we do care about the vulnerable amongst us and that we are keeping a watch on those who intend to harm or are causing harm to others, that they can't get away with it 

 

 

[Esilda]

2 hours ago, Gregory1 said:

I feel compelled to post this topic because at recent times I've seen trolling and harassment on this forum.

 

First I would like to define what I mean by trolling/harassment:

• posting something while having the intention to get other people angry / emotional /  feel attacked
• posting something that is based on the personna of a specific forum member and not based on the topic that is being talked about
• having hatred against certain forum members and trying to attack them in subtle or obvious ways

 

Why is it important to have a discussion about trolling?

Because trolling destroys this forum. It takes up unneccesary space where deep insights and wisdom could be placed and it destroys the atmosphere of trust and companionship that is needed if we truly want to use this place to its greatest potential.

 

What could this forum do for us?

This forum can provide immense value to all its members when it is used in a concious way. It can be used to share our deepest insights and to truly uplift and help eachother. If all the people on the forum have the intention to:

• Grow
• Help
• Get helped
• Share their knowledge/insights

this forum could be awesome! I do not doubt that most people here already share these values and this forum is already a great place. But we all can do better and spot even the subtle forms of trolling that we apply.

 

Subtle forms of trolling/how to behave when the troll in you comes forth:

Essentially whenever we feel emotionally attacked / feel a need to get attention / feel like in some subtle ways the definition of trolling/harassment applies to our current posts we can be pretty confident that the trolly jolly in us (who is in all of us to a degree btw.) is coming forth. This is the moment to stop and ask ourselves:

• Does this post that I am contributing right now really help?
• Could this post be destructive and actually make this forum a worse place than it is right now?
• should I maybe formulate this in a better way that really gets the message across and without personally attacking fourm members?

Everybody here can greatly benefit from this place. To do that however, everybody needs to help to make this place a great place.

 

How to deal with trolls:

If you are being trolled try to understand the trolls perspective. Does he purposefully troll? Or is it subtle trolling that even the troll himself didn't notice. If it is subtle trolling you should stay calm and try to point out without becoming a troll yourself  that the other person is currently not contributing anything of value but instead critizizing your personna.

If this doesn't help: Do not give the troll what he/she wants! What does the troll want?

• Your attention (your response)
• You becoming emotional and angry
• You becoming a troll yourself

Instead, report the troll and message the administrators to take care of the trolls. Some people simply cannot be helped and need to get warned/banned for their behaviour.

 

To all the people here, let us all try to spot the troll in ourselves when it's coming forth. Lets try to stop him and lets try to always check our posts for the following points to make sure they are high quality and add value to that forum:

• Does this post make me / somebody else grow?
• Does this post help me / somebody else?
• Does this post share my knowledge/insights?

 

Thanks to all of you for reading until here, I love you all, peace out!:)

Also feel free to post any insights about trolling that I might have missed down below!

 

Why were you trolling @lxlichael then?

Or is this an act of redemption?

You were acting quite disrespectful towards him recently.

[Danioover9000]

   Trolling is more relative than you think. I was jocking with another user here years ago, and got warned for being offensive apparently when it's light banter.

   I was planning on opening a thread to talk about the link between dark humor and spirituality, but some people can't go past sarcasm let alone self deprecation.

[Gregory1]

7 minutes ago, Esilda said:

Why were you trolling @lxlichael then?

Or is this an act of redemption?

You were acting quite disrespectful towards him recently.

I was INDEED trolling him because I got triggered by his crazy claims about me in his post about trolls in the journal section. I am not proud of this behavior and deleted my troll-posts towards him. I am not perfect. 

For reference, this is the post I'm talking about: 

 

Edited August 31, 2021 by Gregory1

[Esilda]

@Gregory1 You're gaslighting him right now. It's already been well established that @Preety_India and @Marcel were being trolled and you're now trolling him by your behaviour right now to try and justify something you're talking about avoiding while also saying you're not perfect.

What is the point of this post then?

You're a musician on here now, why are you not trying to try and be friends?

[Gregory1]

3 minutes ago, Esilda said:

@Gregory1 You're gaslighting him right now. It's already been well established that @Preety_India and @Marcel were being trolled and you're now trolling him by your behaviour right now to try and justify something you're talking about avoiding while also saying you're not perfect.

What is the point of this post then?

You're a musician on here now, why are you not trying to try and be friends?

Just look at the post I linked in my response and you'll understand what I am talking about. I am not here to demonize anyone. I got emotional. And I am not proud of it. He got emotional too (see the link). don't know how he thinks about it and I don't make any claims about his intentions. 

Edited August 31, 2021 by Gregory1

[Preety_India]

I think @lxlichael and @Gregory1 can make peace with each other after all both like singing

Also both are against trolling and harassment. 

I suggest both have a deep conversation with each other and try to bury differences and collaborate their music together. 

 

[Esilda]

@Gregory1 It just seems like he was trying to scare away trolls and you got emotional from his tactics.

You had no reason to get involved in the first place, you weren't a moderator, you weren't a part of the issue am I right?

Why did you feel like you had to get involved at all?

You should just let the moderators handle those things in future, yeah?

I learned this today. Look. Observe. Listen.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Esilda

[Gregory1]

1 minute ago, Preety_India said:

I suggest both have a deep conversation with each other and try to bury differences and collaborate their music together. 

Please no deep conversations he is not my husband

[Gregory1]

2 minutes ago, Esilda said:

You had no reason to get involved in the first place, you weren't an admin, you weren't a part of the issue am I right?

My reason of involvement was because I found his behavior to be useless. Finally he indirectly claimed that I would be a "troll" because I disagreed about the way you should treat trolls. This claim got an admin to close the post. 

[Preety_India]

I'm sure @lxlichael will slowly and gradually start liking @Gregory1 for his many hidden talents, oh c'mon @lxlichaelyou got a big heart, you can easily take this guy under your massive wings, do it for me, this guy has many talents, he only needs a direction and he has a very kind loving heart, trust my words, he is like one of the best people on the forum, don't at all underestimate him and his talents, he has a beautiful soft core, just talk to him and he will open up deeply to you, I like his personality and he is good at his heart, he just recently started a YouTube channel and his singing brought tears to my eyes and I'm not someone who is easily impressed, so please take my word for it. Hear out this guy, I know he did some stupid stuff in your journal, but I tell you he is nothing like how he appears. I know this guy's heart, I intuitively understand people and I can tell this guy has a heart of gold.

Please be friends with him and see for yourself. He is a real gem on the forum. 

 

[Esilda]

@Gregory1 just don't be a hypocrite. It looks bad. Especially when you continue to gaslight someone in a thread where you're talking about not trolling people.

Because you found his behaviour "to be useless". How are you the arbiter of truth here exactly on what is useless versus what is not?

Under the circumstances, how can you not see his claims as valid? It does look strange you got involved the way you did.

[Preety_India]

@Gregory1  I'm extremely fortunate to have met a person like you. You're a great person with a great and warm heart. 

I always appreciate people who are real and I was very emotional after listening to your song. 

You'll achieve great heights in life. You got this. 

I am proud of your talents. You're pure hearted and you stay blessed.. 

I hope you live your life constructively and achieve great things. 

Some people find you funny and or do not understand you. 

But I understand you completely. 

I know deep in your heart you have a heart of gold 

Cheers guy. Happy to have met you 

 

 

[Esilda]

2 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

I'm sure @lxlichael will slowly and gradually start liking @Gregory1 for his many hidden talents, oh c'mon @lxlichaelyou got a big heart, you can easily take this guy under your massive wings, do it for me, this guy has many talents, he only needs a direction and he has a very kind loving heart, trust my words, he is like one of the best people on the forum, don't at all underestimate him and his talents, he has a beautiful soft core, just talk to him and he will open up deeply to you, I like his personality and he is good at his heart, he just recently started a YouTube channel and his singing brought tears to my eyes and I'm not someone who is easily impressed, so please take my word for it. Hear out this guy, I know he did some stupid stuff in your journal, but I tell you he is nothing like how he appears. I know this guy's heart, I intuitively understand people and I can tell this guy has a heart of gold.

Please be friends with him and see for yourself. He is a real gem on the forum. 

 

 

i agree, I listened to it. He has a malicious side he needs to correct. That's just how it comes across @Gregory1. Start being nicer to people, you're not a moderator. Show some decorum.

My comments are not at all to create more disharmony between the two of them @Preety_India

[Preety_India]

@Esilda you're absolutely wonderful and on point. Happy to have met you as well.