Humanity or gtfo

Someone came into the channel and addressed the group with a colloquial "guys", by asking "guys, can you recommend a library?".

The author of this account, who is admittedly preoccupied with issues of gender and sexism to the point that they admit to having to make efforts not to take offense at people using "guys" colloquially, accosts the unsuspecting visitor.

... Even though they pointed out that they have gone out of their way to no longer take offense at the colloquial use of the word "guys".

... But is, then, offended by the colloquial use of the word guys.

... To the point that they accost the visitor over it. Even implying in front of the whole channel that the visitor is sexist and ignorant that women exist on IRC (which can be the only purpose of calling them out on that word).

The visitor is likely surprised, shocked, and did not come into the technical channel to discuss a technical question to have a discussion about gender and linguistic issues, so tries to diffuse the situation with some poorly chosen attempt at ironic humor by rhetorically employing a couple common internet memes "proof" and "boobs or gtfo". You know, the same way a lot of nice normal people might awkwardly respond to being sideswiped out of nowhere by someone with a pet-issue to grind at every opportunity (though that is something I usually ascribe to people trying to turn every conversation into a debate about guns, abortion, immigration, or Obama's birth certificate).

Nobody has ever been out in public or at a party minding their own business or having a discussion and had someone come out of the blue to attack them loudly in front of everybody about something crazy that didn't seem to have any relevance to the moment? I'm sure that's how this person felt.

Kind of the way I remember having someone come up to me out of nowhere in public to talk about how I needed to find god and was going to hell and, dismissively, I told them I didn't have time to listen to them, because I was already late for a group satanic sacrifice. Spoiler -- I wasn't actually a satanist and I wasn't really on my way to participate in any sort of sacrifice. I was being gasp dismissive toward the person who attacked me like a crazy person, out of nowhere.

The author, who used to get upset at "guys", but no longer gets upset at "guys", except that they just got upset at "guys" admits that the thing that actually upset them was the way the visitor responded. They "expected" or "wanted" the person to engage in a discussion of gender and linguistics. The author states this in the first half of their livejournal update.

In short, the author of this livejournal entry was trolling, knew they were trolling, and while probably unwilling to admit that they were, goes on to detail what can only be described as trolling behavior on their own accord.

And, because the visitor chose to sarcastically dismiss it by repeating a couple silly internet memes rather than take the author's bait to have a heated gender and linguistics debate in a tech channel, the author appealed to the moderators to have the visitor banned . . . which he then was.

The author then poses the question about whatever are we to do about trolls? A hypocritical question, given the circumstances. Nonetheless, it would seem fairly self-evident that what you should do about trolls in a community is appeal to the moderation team of your community to do something about it and if they don't, consider finding a community with better moderation.

I would suggest that the visitor responded to being accosted rather poorly, but I can certainly understand the intent behind his poor response. He was attacked out of nowhere for something trivial (and not even reaching the levels of trivial to most human beings who simply wouldn't give a damn), but probably should have paused for a moment longer and taken a deep breath before responding at all. Perhaps even ignoring the comment entirely and going on with his technical purpose for being in the channel.

I would also suggest that the author was clearly engaging in trollish behavior and then lobbied the moderation in a room that this person is already known in to deal with the person that they tried to troll by trying to label them a troll. They got their way, likely due to the bias of familiarity with the author, and got the person banned. Then went on to write an article outlining everything and purporting to be yet another victim of yet another brash example of sexist internet trolls.

My advice? If you're going to bitch about trolls on the internet, don't be one yourself. If something truly and legitimately is offensive and disruptive, seek moderation, which exists in most communities. And, finally, no matter how well-intentioned you are, someone will always find things to be offended by with regard to yourself, so learn to just shrug it off, not respond or engage such people at all lest you become fodder for their crusade, and just carry on with what you were doing before.

Addendum:

None of this is meant to imply that there are not legitimate assholes out there intending to offend and disrupt, because there certainly are plenty of them.

I am also not "excusing" or "justifying" anyone's behavior. I know the common response to anything short of "oh, you poor thing -- you had to deal with that hideous troll!" would be treated as excusing mistreatment on the internet. I am simply trying to clarify what happened here, according to the livejournal entry, itself. To suggest that the author played a purely innocent role here and was not itching for a fight and engaging in trollish behavior here and then lashing out (via moderators) at someone would be pretty myopic.

Quite often I imagine many choose not say anything, and things should be said. It is certainly not going to change the person who posted that. I doubt one can "grow" from that low of a level to become much, but it highlights an important topic for everyone else. I will certainly be more mindful and try to be more inclusive when talking to groups (I am guilty of using "guys" often even in mixed groups).

At the same time one can generalize this and ask "how should we deal with trolls in online communities?". Gross jokes, racist comments, the worst one can imagine pop up often in anonymous online communities. The joke about how the language is now "famous" was perhaps not a good joke but there is dose of truth. The language is more visible. One certainly could have logged into the channel even if it had 2 people in it and proceeded to make offensive comments, but the chance of that was just lower. Now it is higher. There will be worse comments seen as well. Sadly it is just a fact of human nature and interaction online.

Now to dig at it a little deeper. I wonder if the disgust and shock was aimed equally at the silent majority, who I suspect, the author feels should have condemned the insult publicly. Sometimes things are written between the lines. The expectation is that one a member of a group is attack I would want to be defended by other members or at least get private words of support from them. And that would make sense except that the practical means of dealing with a troll is to ban and ignore. Condemning things publicly, calling them names back, insulting, even openly discussing it while they are around, just fuels the fire for them. They mission is accomplished then. So everyone ignores them. But to the person who was attacked, it seems like the tacit majority agrees with the attacker or at least doesn't feel the attack warrants words of support.

I think these terms are losing their gender-specificity and merely becoming a way to refer to a generic (non-sex/gender specified) person.

Of course, depending on your peer groups, and the level of formality in communication, your situation may be different. (i.e. if your entire peer-group is hypersensitive, politically-correct language police, feel free to modify.)