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Notes -
Reddit consequence weren’t necessarily the driving factor. I mean, they probably were for mods, but for normal users?
This is a community for engaging in good faith. If one suspects that a post is not doing so, I think it’s reasonable to avoid giving that poster what they’d want, even if it’s not a material benefit. Sure, a troll won’t get people reddit-banned. They can still waste time and effort, as well as souring other users’ impressions of the forum.
Compare, for example, the JB debacle. Once I got the impression that he wasn’t posting to discuss, but to advertise, there wasn’t much reason to give reasoned engagement. I think it was actually justified to call him out on this bad faith, since I was was interested in saving other users the trouble—and in keeping him from “getting away with it.”
For this case, the OP is probably acting in good faith, and my first impression may have been wrong. I’ve edited my responses to jTiro accordingly.
JB was unusually irritating and uninteresting though, which are worse crimes in my book than trolling that looks kind of like interesting posting.
Well, that was part of the debate. The response to JB-posting was inversely proportional to how many of his previous posts one had seen.
He was also very quick to use those few who were engaging as proof that the critics were hidebound reactionaries, rather than just irritated/uninterested. That sort of cover is part of what rude call outs aim to avoid.
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