It's no secret that the fediverse has trolls. Trolling is IMO antisocial and disruptive. We have a few on dbzer0, with one casually saying they have 100 alts. I have to say, I'm unsure how to deal with this. I'm unsure how to deal with someone this dead-set on bullying people, even wanting to recall admins. I have been told this troll probably has ASD (as offensive as that is to me) and that I can't impose my beliefs on others. But I have never banned people for disagreeing with me, my problem was that I and others were trolled and harassed. You could tell trolls things like "please leave me alone" or "stop replying to me multiple times" or even "stop following me" and that does not get actioned because it is not against the rules to harrass people this way. Look at the disengage rule, it doesn't apply to these situations. And try hitting the search button for "troll" on the rules.
I've been told yes these trolls are annoying and disliked by many (if not most) people and yes they drive away people like me from participating at all on lemmy or matrix, but that is not enough of a reason to ban. There are also trolls who report everyone they argue with and use their account solely to argue and troll. I don't want dbzer0 to be known as the place that houses trolls that get anyone who argues with said trolls banned. Report abuse was not ok in other forums, but it is rarely actioned here. The trolls I am talking about have their accounts housed on dbzer0 btw, a place that is not supposed to be freeze peach.
I know many of our users like to tell off right-wingers and libs. That can be fine if it doesn't get out of hand ("kys" is explicitly banned). I could say, let's not allow people to troll, but maybe some only want leftists to not to be trolled. For instance, one group of trolls we have is antivegan. Is that considered an example of leftists that shouldn't be trolled (and I do mean trolled, harassed - not just disagreeing)? Right now, there is a lot of room for trolling all sorts of people. One reason for our zionist rule is because we had zionist trolls that weren't breaking our other rules even though our code of conduct does not allow supporting genocide. Our anti-AI rule was because others were harassing some of our stable diffusion mods. People have been sent nasty PMs as well. You can troll on this instance and get away with it as long as it is not explicitly stated as not allowed in our rules. I have been told it has to be explicitly stated, one of our trolls is a rules lawyer who believes they were given permission to troll before their account was made.
So tell me about your experiences with trolls. How do we fight them? How can we change or add to our rules? Which trolls have been bothering you?
This meta post was finally posted in response to my comment here:
Trolls should be banned. However someone having genuine beliefs which upset you is not a troll. Someone having 100 alts is not a troll. Someone refusing to back down until they're disengaged from, is not a troll. Someone not being polite, is not a troll.
The problem is not that we ignore trolls, the problem is that we disagree with your definition of a troll.
Typically, it's simpler to make rules about which positions we disagree with as an instance and prevent the proliferation of those opinions, instead of allowing those opinions as long as they're not a "troll". This is the approach we have taken with both oppressive positions (patriarchy, transphobia etc) and with things like zionism. We don't ban Zionists because they're trolling, we ban zionists because they're zionists.
Likewise, we explicitly do not follow the authoritarian approaches of other instances, where the admins and mods become instant judge and executioner because that creates massive chilling effect, is counter-productive as far as community goodwill is concerned, and can easily be turned inwards when it becomes established. It's unironically, a slippery slope to encourage admins to determine who is a troll based on positions that upset them personally (or their friends), and then take instant action. Because tomorrow another admin might find your friends, or your opinions distasteful, and label them as "trolls", and summarily ban. And that then causes inter-admin conflict and the whole things implodes.
As evidence, you don't need to look much further than the liberal instances regularly banning leftists as "trolls", especially those who dare to have an principled anti-electoralism stance.
And yes, I made this instance explicitly to be friendlier to ND people. I will not apologize for recognizing ASD behaviours and trying to be charitable to people who are otherwise always alienated - because the rules are not clear enough, but people rather rely on soft rules like "trolling" and who's friends with whom, and who's in the inside group. It's why I purposefully push admins to determine clear rules and agree with them and give second chances to people who might not know them , before taking action on peeps.
What I agree with, is that we should agree on a code of conduct where people should not engage in behaviour that is driving other anarchists away from our instance. But that is a difficult task to achieve without not also protecting people who must be driven away. Because any rule that says "stop engaging with people who told you, you upset them" can also be weaponized by, say a "brahnarchist" to avoid being called out for their sexist takes. It's not as simple.