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Comment by steve-benjamins | Hacker News Reader

In any bullying, there are three players: the bully, the bullied and the witnesses.

People who are bullied will often internalize that they are worthless (and that's why they are bullied). That can be one of the hardest parts of being bullied.

This happens especially if people who witness the bullying stay silent. Than the bullied will feel even more alone (and will feel awful about how bad they feel).

But if witnesses stand up and say- "hey, bully: you're being an asshole", then that is a service to the bullied. The bullied will at least not feel so alone.

Hope that makes sense.

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Or maybe ignore the troll, but reinforce the 'bullied' with "ignore that guy, they're being jerks". Less feeding, more refuting.

You should really really REALLY read the article.

In what way does the parent comment indicate the author did not read the article? The article discusses options as a target of trolling, the parent seems directed at bystanders.

The article specifically calls out the "ignore the trolling" tactic is specifically a losing one, as the trolls will simply turn up the volume / severity of abuse. Nearly the entire article elaborates on this theme -- that it's not something that can be ignored, nor fought easily, and that telling someone to "just ignore it" is not going to solve it.

Like I said, though, that is directed at troll targets, not bystanders. Further, "just ignore it" is an incorrect summary of what Joe suggested, which was "ignore it but support the victim". I don't know that this is the correct approach, but I know it's not what the article spoke to.

I didn't read it as being directed only as targets.

There's been a general push, among communities suffering harassment, against the notion that vocally calling out malicious actors is 'feeding the trolls' in the traditional exacerbating sense. i.e. standing aside allows further victimization.

It may deserve to be directed more broadly; reading the article, it was not my impression that it was being so directed - and skimming again seems to support my initial reading ("ignore" is mentioned thrice, and every time in the context of talking to someone who was a target of trolls).

I would note that this discussion lends significant strength to my initial complaint here - which is that a bare RTFA is poor form and one should point to why and how the source disagrees with the comment. People are quite capable of reading the same material and coming away with different things (without anyone being an idiot).

The article also mentions that there becomes a competition among the bullies to see who can find the most effective tactic. ("The more dangerous social-web-fueled gamification of trolling is the unofficial troll/hate leader-board. ....")

This adds a lot to the severity. Ignoring it is not enough.

Note that I'm not saying ignoring it is the best approach. I just don't like seeing a bare "RTFA" when the issue raised was not specifically addressed in the article. (Even if it can be arguably inferred from the article, some pointers at the steps of inference are worthwhile - things are not equally obvious to everyone).

I felt that the aside about social gamification was important conceptually.

As technologists, sometimes we build something and then like to step aside and talk about it like it's inevitable. But how it was made and how it works factors in to how it is used. So it is our responsibility.

Right, thanks, way beyond normal sane responses required I see from the article. Well, maybe there's not been anything invented yet that will solve this problem.

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