Vipassana Forum Rules

[Vivek]

Dear all,

 Lately, the forum staff has been observing some unwelcome activities in the forum, especially by a small minority of new members. All members are requested to go through the forum rules thoroughly to make sure that you do not create a cause for the members to ask the forum staff to take any action against you.

If any member encounters behavior described below, please feel free to report the post - staff are alerted to this by email and we will assess the situation and if the case is clear cut, will take action. If there is any doubt we will, as always, discuss the matter with other members first.

The forum rules are available here: http://www.vipassanaforum.net/forum/index.php/topic,678.0.html

Let us work together to preserve and nurture this Garden of Dhamma. Thank you.

With Metta,

Forum Staff

[Vivek]

Dear members, in light of the recent troll activity observed in the forum, the staff would like to point out that trolls or troll-like behavior will not be tolerated in the forum since trolling is disruptive to the general well-being of the community. The forum staff is committed to keeping the forum activity as sane and conducive to peace as possible. Hence, please cooperate with us to keep the forum free from trolls. Below are some general behaviors that trolls exhibit in a forum. We hope that by reading through those will help bring in more clarity and thus members can easily distinguish troll activity from the rest:

(1) Posts inflammatory comments, not to engage in serious conversation, but to "grieve" or annoy an online community.

(2) An obvious glee and elated satisfaction is aroused in them when people join the fight and reply to their deliberately disruptive comments.

(3) Copies and pastes large blocks of text to exhaust the readers of a topic thread, thus driving away legitimate posters of sincere comments. These blocks of text are often recycled and appears on a variety of threads.

(4) Tends to avoid showing respect through acknowledging people who disagree with them, even when those in opposition to the troll make some valid points.

(5) Shuns any conciliatory statements like "You have obviously spent a lot of time studying this subject, and I'm not certain how to reply to your last remark, so let's shake hands, part as friends, and move on." Constructive or civilized discussion is not their way.

(6) Never ends a debate with "Thanks for the discussion" or "I'll consider what you say" or any other finalizing remark, because they love arguing and disrupting civilized conversations.

(7) Keeps an argument going a lot longer than a normal person would, to the point where people will start asking a moderator to turn off comments or block the troll. (However, sometimes some people may do this just because they can't tolerate contrary opinions and are angry at seeing them posted to a thread they enjoyed reading). The mark of a troll is to keep hammering away at a point in an obsessive manner.

(8.) Acts innocent when called a troll, and states "I'm just stating a contrary opinion, and you can't handle it", but the reality is they are not innocent, they are trouble-makers who only post inflammatory remarks, rarely contributing any real value or good information to a discussion.

(9) Starts saying filthy words and making wild accusations when confronted. Their hostility and provoking rhetoric escalates when you ask them if they might be a troll or if they are simply trying to stir up trouble.

(10) Will try to bring up issues that they are angry about, no matter what the topic of a thread is. For example, they will say things like "sounds like the Open Source movement" or "reminds me of Tea Baggers" or "you're sounding like a typical commie libtard now" or "you sound like some irrational Creationism crank" or "you atheists are all the same", or whatever it is they're hostile toward, in an attempt to start a new argument within the current debate. In this way, they hijack the thread and thus the true objective of the discussion is lost.

(11) When people realize or are warned that the person is a troll, and the troll is then ignored, and nobody will respond to anything they say, the trolling person tends to give up and go to some other thread. They crave attention and they try to get it by being obnoxious in a juvenile, or scholarly, manner.

(12) They, when not confronted or exposed sufficiently, will seek to have the last word in an online discussion. When nobody responds to their last troll comment, they will proudly proclaim that they "won" what they fantasize as a "contest" or "battle".