Trolls - Advice needed

[pippychick]

UPDATE:

In a strange and bizarre twist worthy of Franz Kafka, despite following everyone’s excellent advice above (well, except yours, DA, the price of petrol being what it is), the other site hold me responsible and have officially “warned” me and threatened me with account suspension for an indefinite period of time if I “engage in any further harassing behavior“ I kid you not. At first, I thought they’d sent me the wrong email, but no. The next time a troll posts on my work, they shut me down.

Maybe this is some strange kind of reverse psychology ploy by the abuse team, empowering the trolls in the hope that this will confuse them so much they will leave everyone alone.

This is a little bit like one of those court cases you hear about where someone gets prison time for GBH because they punched a burglar in the face, rather than allow the burglar to nick the silver and torture their wife.

No.. actually it’s not, since I told my readers (in two seperate places) not to respond, which is like making the burglar tea and biscuits, and asking them if they want to know where the really offensive sex toys are, only to receive a solicitor’s letter two weeks later about a compensation claim for food poisoning.

Well… I can’t think of anything else funny to write about this. Reactions from fandom people whom I’ve told seem to follow a general template of:

Quote

What the actual fuck!? Seriously!? No! OMG what the hell are they playing at? etc..

followed by a sad smiley

I’ve got to admit, that’s pretty much been my reaction too so far.

[BronxWench]

It’s definitely a what the actual fuck moment, enough so that I’ve removed my solo work from AO3 and amended my profile to reflect (politely) how I feel about their behavior.

Now, given Pip and I have a co-written piece still up there, I do hope the troll drops by that story. I doubt it, because it’s not their OTP, but just in case they are indulging in personal harassment of Pip, I will document it, send it to the Abuse Team, and tell them if the troll isn’t warned, I will require an explanation, in writing, from their Legal Team as to why they are choosing not to enforce their Terms of Service in a fair and impartial manner, with the understanding if I don’t like what the Legal Team has to say, I will ask my attorney to review it to determine if AO3 will be considered culpable in any action I might take.

 

[JayDee]

I always say you can never trust the moderators of a fanfi… uh… that is, I heard people say that. I wouldn’t. And even then, terrible generalizaton.

At this stage though, it seems like walking away from the site might not be the worst option. Not necessarily taking work down, or posting to say why, just disengaging and taking a break. And if you get suspended because of the troll comment, well, if you’ve disengaged and walked away you’d not notice.

Also, What the actual fuck!?

[pippychick]

32 minutes ago, BronxWench said:

I doubt it, because it’s not their OTP, but just in case they are indulging in personal harassment of Pip, I will document it, send it to the Abuse Team, and tell them if the troll isn’t warned, I will require an explanation, in writing, from their Legal Team as to why they are choosing not to enforce their Terms of Service in a fair and impartial manner, with the understanding if I don’t like what the Legal Team has to say, I will ask my attorney to review it to determine if AO3 will be considered culpable in any action I might take.

Wow… *gulps* I was just thinking of kind of “flouncing” off in a flurry of chapters and author’s notes… Given that I’ve said I won’t cover up bad behaviour, I should really include AO3 Abuse Team’s bad behaviour in that.

I really don’t think it’ll come to that, though. The troll isn’t going to comment on our story. What they wanted was to remove that particular story from their view whenever they clicked on the pairing tag, and ironically, ‘Prince in Training’ is not a story I will take down, since it’s a collaboration. Also ironically, I wasn’t considering taking anything down in response to the troll, not even their own comment.

[pippychick]

23 minutes ago, JayDee said:

At this stage though, it seems like walking away from the site might not be the worst option. Not necessarily taking work down, or posting to say why, just disengaging and taking a break. And if you get suspended because of the troll comment, well, if you’ve disengaged and walked away you’d not notice.

That would be the rational, adult thing to do… certainly. Unfortunately, as I said above, I was just thinking of kind of “flouncing” off in a flurry of chapters and author’s notes… *sighs* Bollocks. Now I’ve seen the “responsible adult” option, I can’t unsee it.

I think I’ll get myself a cup of tea. :/

And btw, you always make me smile

Edited January 23, 2017 by pippychick

[JayDee]

The less responsible option is to write a lovingly crafted scene of one of their OTP fucking out the other’s eyes and smearing shit in the sockets. 

Just for balance there.

[pippychick]

14 minutes ago, JayDee said:

The less responsible option is to write a lovingly crafted scene of one of their OTP fucking out the other’s eyes and smearing shit in the sockets. 

I am capable of this. I could gift it to them.

[JayDee]

Honestly, the best option is probably the responsible adult one

[BronxWench]

14 minutes ago, JayDee said:

Honestly, the best option is probably the responsible adult one

But nowhere near as much fun.

[pippychick]

9 minutes ago, JayDee said:

Honestly, the best option is probably the responsible adult one

Yeah… thinking about it, if I did write that, to make it really hammer home for them I’d have to write Tolkien characters in a modern college/coffee shop AU setting, and… I don’t mind the rest of it, but that… *shudders*

The trouble with the adult version is that it depends mainly upon not giving a flying fuck about anything at all, ever again… and I just haven’t mastered that yet. When I do I probably won’t be bothered to write any more.

I’ll probably flounce a little bit, mostly because at least it’ll let people know where the stories have gone. The one adult consideration I’ll make is that before I leave that AN, I’ll remove references to the troll account from my comments section. They’re not responsible for this BS, AO3 is.

[Desiderius Price]

I know nothing about the situation, but it’s not like that stopped me from responding before! 

It’s a shame that those mods aren’t doing a better job at protecting an author from abuse (where they can reasonably do so).  Assuming the mods aren’t being malicious in this, I can think of some reasons.  1) the horde replied to the summons, so you’re now one voice vs many on the matter, and they chose to believe the majority.  2) The mods don’t like your pairing either (or one of them has become part of the horde).  3) Way overloaded, and, well you’re one vs many.  Trouble with trolls, it’s like weeds in a garden, let one stay, and you’re soon overran by them; chasing good authors away isn’t a good long term strategy.

I second JayDee’s opinion, be the adult.  If AO3 isn’t a good fit for you, well, AFF’s archives are open

 

 

 

[pippychick]

Thanks, Des

There has been no “summons” though, so there’s no reason to believe all the troll’s friends have chimed in. They won’t have been informed of anything during the – and I use the term very loosely – “investigation”

I have wondered if there has been personal dislike of my content amongst the abuse team.

I agree, as a strategy it’s not going to go well for them long term.

Oh, AFF is my home! And it has been since before AO3 even existed, back when it was the occasional Yuletide Treasure rarepairing challenge, so no worries there. It’s why I put my personal time in as a volunteer here. I will leave AO3, but I won’t go altogether quietly – sod that. Which means… well, I’ll be as adult as possible. *g*

[pippychick]

Also, I’m writing a lot of last chapters at the moment as parting gifts to my readers, old and new. So on the bright side it’s making me productive this week!

[Desiderius Price]

And roast some trolls while you’re at it.  How much ketchup does it require to smother out the flavor of troll? 

Edited January 23, 2017 by Desiderius Price
grammar

[BronxWench]

AO3 actually moderates abuse reports by committee, or so I’ve been told. This means it depends on the phase of the moon, the state of mind of the team, and any other random factor up to and including the availability of sufficient amounts of chocolate, wine, and other mood altering substances as might be required to render a biased and partial ruling. It’s fuzzy group think taken to extremes, and it’s ridiculously inefficient and utterly arbitrary.

In my opinion, of course...

[DemonGoddess]

2 hours ago, BronxWench said:

AO3 actually moderates abuse reports by committee, or so I’ve been told. This means it depends on the phase of the moon, the state of mind of the team, and any other random factor up to and including the availability of sufficient amounts of chocolate, wine, and other mood altering substances as might be required to render a biased and partial ruling. It’s fuzzy group think taken to extremes, and it’s ridiculously inefficient and utterly arbitrary.

In my opinion, of course...

..and this would be why we STOPPED that kind of nonsense years ago, now.  We have a ToS to work within, and a staff that works together to enforce it.  If any one of us feels we cannot be impartial, we ask for an assist and step away from that particular issue being handled.  Moderation by committee doesn’t work.  

[BronxWench]

Exactly. It’s why we use standardized warns, not because we’re lazy, but because it is impartial. Everyone is warned in the same manner. The standard warns work, and our members know we’re not playing favorites.

On those rare occasions when a situation is outside our usual warns, we work together to come up with a proper approach.

Are we perfect? Nope, but we’re pretty damned good, and I’m proud to be a part of the AFF staff.

[DirtyAngel]

I like it here. Been to a few sites where either the moderators only slam people who they don’t like and everyone else gets a pass, or where there is literally no moderation and you just put up with the stupid crap. Gets annoying fast too. But I haven’t really seen much of that here, and when it does pop up you guys deal with it pretty quickly. I think the Mods do a great job here.

Ok, enough sucking up  

[BronxWench]

  I nominate DA as the official AFF Succubus.

[pippychick]

6 hours ago, BronxWench said:

AO3 actually moderates abuse reports by committee, or so I’ve been told. This means it depends on the phase of the moon, the state of mind of the team, and any other random factor up to and including the availability of sufficient amounts of chocolate, wine, and other mood altering substances as might be required to render a biased and partial ruling. It’s fuzzy group think taken to extremes, and it’s ridiculously inefficient and utterly arbitrary.

It is done by committee according to the OTW site. But mostly, I think they’ve looked at the “Oh, woe is me!” comments of the troll to their anon friend, and the: “She’s being meeeaaannnn to me, and everyone hates me, and fandom is ignoring me, and I am so scared and sad and no good at standing up for myself!” posts, and not looked any further than that. Even though the reason the troll is reacting like that is because they didn’t expect to get called on what they did, ie. by being quoted. They don’t want to take responsibility for themselves, and especially not for their nasty actions. I’m actually starting to wonder if this person is even an adult.

[pippychick]

Honestly, the clear TOS and standard warns make it incredibly easy to work here. It’s all about the content, not about the person, or any drama they might indulge in. All we need is for the TOS to be followed. That is it. Being a moderator here has a definite feel of serving the AFF community as a whole.

It’s that old thing about power, and people feeling like they’re something they’re not. That doesn’t happen here. We are all just writers and readers. The TOS is easy to understand, simple to follow, and it works.

And if my situation was subject to the AFF way of doing things? A, they wouldn’t have been able to hide their bad behaviour, hence I wouldn’t have bothered to point it out, since they would have done that job all on their own. B, they would have automatically been told over review board chat for all the childish dramatics while someone was going through the sweep. End of. All sorted out without any escalation whatsoever.

[pippychick]

7 hours ago, BronxWench said:

This means it depends on the phase of the moon...

OT, but when I took the dogs outside this morning, there is a terribly ominous red crescent moon… quite spectacular really. 

[WillowDarkling]

I deleted my works too from AO3. I left a note on my profile, lightly plagiarized from Bronxie  but I think that’s ok. Pippychick. 

[pippychick]

Thank you, Willow…

With any luck, between us all we’ll bring more traffic here. Another little bright side, perhaps.

[DemonGoddess]

Since I have access to site stats, I can tell you for certain we’ve seen STEADY growth over the last few years.