Average Comments Per Day - 50
Average Comments Per Hour - 3.125
Average Posts Per Day - 21.66
Average Posts Per Hour - 1.35
(Numbers are assuming that UniversalMonk is a single human who sleeps 8 hours per day)
Either this is a dedicated basement dweller who has no life other than shitposting tankie propaganda like it is their fucking job.
(Or, and I think this is more likely)
This is a coordinated, and malignant effort by a group of bad faith actors to coopt the political discourse on Lemmy in an attempt to drown out real discussion, and turn this place into the tankie equivalent of 8chan for pro-Putin LARPers.
I think it does bring up some larger issues though. Like should limits be placed on accounts. Do we really want users like this? Are they adding to the experience?
Banned for what? Because I have different views than you do?! Do you realise that the vast majority of articles I post aren’t even to this community?! The person you responded to neglected to tell you that.
It’s actually an anti-Stein/Pro-democrat article. Look at the downvotes of the article. And go read the comments. lol
It got downvoted because I posted it. People downvote me because they think I am a russian troll who wants Trump to win. But I have posted several pro-democrat articles. So how does that fit in with your narrative of me and my behavior? Serious question; not “trolling.”
Because my point is that I think people are actually mad because they are emotional that I’m not voting for Harris. And to explain it, they are quick to say that I have an “agenda” or that “I’m trollish.”
But if I post articles that are pro-democrat/pro-Harris/anti-Trump/anti-Stein, and people are still mad, then how does that fit the idea that I am the one with some agenda?
So you’re saying I should just sit back and say nothing when people spread falsehoods about my motivations? What about when I’m accused of being Russian or not even living in the US—just let that slide too? What about that I am “multiple people” on this account because “no human could do that!” (which is hilarious by the way)
You’re literally advocating for me to be banned, and I shouldn’t respond to that? Really?
How about this: If people don’t want a response from me, or think that my responses are “trollish”, then maybe they should stop making accusations about me and just discuss the article.
A guy in this very thread, posts how many articles I post. And he does it every day. Sometimes multiple times a day. And he comes right out and says I shitpost. Now he is free to do that. My post history is public. But isn’t doing that sort of trying to get some response?
Him posting that and baiting me doesn’t get a rise out of me at all. But it’s obvious he’s targeting me and has been for some time. Feel free to check his post history and what he says to me. Again, he’s free to do that as much as he wants. But don’t I have a right to reply?
I had someone the other day, mention that they were responding to me ad nauseum to just increase the comment count for the post.
Is that in good faith?
If people just stopped responding to me, wouldn’t that pretty much eliminate all the drama?
Now, people TOTALLY have a right to respond to me and try to “call me out.” As often as they want, because it won’t stop me from posting. But if they have that right, don’t I have to right to respond?
My advice would be to only discuss the points of the article and stop trying to defend yourself in such a ridiculous manner. You don’t need to at all honestly and at this point it only further solidifies people’s perception of you.
You can only control yourself and pointing your finger at everyone else is never a good look.
Surely you can see what you have been doing is not working. Try something else.
Thanks for the advice. But I’ll defend myself and my views when I feel it necessary. Sometimes I ignore, sometimes I don’t. Depends on my mood. And though it was good for some discussion points to have with you, at the end of the day, I don’t really give a shit what angry Lemmy commenters say. lol
I gave you examples, but then you decide to not address those at all. So yeah, I’m not really gonna take your advice on this.
And for the record, I DID ignore all comments and only asked people to respond to the article and not make things personal, and everyone said I was a troll and/or a bot. In fact, I used to put it as a disclaimer when I posted. Caused WAY more uproar and drama than me responding. lolol That’s in my post history as well. So…
I’ll keep posting what I want, when I want, where I want, and respond to people how I want. Whether it is “working” or not. Thank you!
That’s not me being a troll. That’s showing you that no matter how many people here try to bully or pressure me, I have to right to post. That’s me being totally free to post what I want. Just like you are.
Also, it’s against this community’s civility rules to call someone a troll. Thank you!
Try harder please. I have read several articles posted by OP. They clearly have an agenda and have engaged in a lot of trolling behavior.
So the question is having an active troll/propagandist really good for the community. Maybe you could argue that they generate engagement or that we need to protect people’s right to disagree.
The community should carefully weigh this moving forward. If accounts that act like bots are allowed then this place will follow in the footsteps of Digg or Reddit.
Personally, I would have already set them straight as a moderator. I have never been impressed by edgy people who add very little to the conversation.
Outright trolling which you all have only moderated a portion of
Overall you have a user that disrupts the community in a variety of ways and contributes nothing of value - especially in their comments. I think at least a temporary ban has been justified for quite some time.
Thank you for calling this out in detail. I think that copy pasting responses several times easily qualifies as trolling and the massive amount of them doing this makes it no question. This alone should be enough.
They should be banned from the instance. I can’t quite follow how it’s controversial unless some of the mods are letting their politics stand in the way of observations anyone can easily make in a couple of minutes. There is nothing redeeming about this account. They are spreading bad ideas in bad faith, and frankly it shakes my faith in the platform that they can get away with it Scot fucking free. It’s disgusting.
If I were to copy paste the same response across many threads, intentionally antagonizing users and making that obvious, what is the secret to having that not be considered trolling? Because apparently op somehow discovered how to achieve that. This user is making it beyond obvious. They intend to troll users, and they’re putting a lot of effort into it. Can you help us understand what makes that okay?
Why would defending my views or opinions not be ok? Other people defend their opinions, why shouldn’t I be able to? Plus if you are that annoyed with me, you can block me and not see anything I post or comment.
I think actively trolling people by arguing in bad faith or through astroturfing like this is definitely poisoning the community. It shouldn’t be tolerated for tolerances’ sake. And I’m not saying to just ban people you don’t agree with. I’m saying people who obviously just post to poke the bear, so to speak, should face discipline for trying to turn Lemmy toxic.
If these articles are from legitimate news organizations, calling it “poking the bear” doesn’t really make sense. I’m not even posting the articles directly—just links to them. And let’s be real, the actual news sites get way more attention than we ever will here. So if you’ve got a problem with the content, take it up with them.
Besides, are people who post a ton of pro-Harris content “astroturfing”? Or do you think what I post is “poison” simply because they don’t match your opinions?
How is posting articles from news orgs “trying to turn Lemmy toxic”? So is posting pro-Harris articles “toxic”? Also you do realize I post pro-Harris articles too, right?
But I’ve posted articles that are critical of Trump, Stein, and Harris, as well as articles praising each of them. How come you don’t mention those articles?
So, if you’re assuming I agree with every viewpoint in the articles I post, how does that even work when I share so many conflicting perspectives?!
I also created and mod a political news community where people have posted articles praising Harris, criticizing Stein, and trashing me—yet I still leave those up.
Right?! And the vast majority of articles I post aren’t even to this community. And I’ve posted pro-Harris, anti-Stein, and anti-Trump articles too. Funny how the poster who posted my stats neglected to mention that. lol
I think basement dweller is much more likely. Let’s not forget, trolling is fun at a certain age. It’s a recreational activity, engaged in as a way to enjoyably pass the time. This is why the advice always used to be to not interact, and just starve them of any engagement so it stopped being enjoyable. To not feed them.
That stopped working when real effects also became achievable, but we shouldn’t forget that the first motivation is still there. Just because ignoring them won’t make them go away now, because they’re trying to actually work on a nebulous goal, doesn’t mean it ever stopped being fun.
I mean, is it so hard to believe, when we used to get regularly DDoSed and even occasionally hacked, that we’d also pick up some dedicated trolls from time to time? It’d frankly be pretty naive to think we’d be so lucky, if someone has ever spent any time in the seedier corners of the internet where these things come from.
It’s that fun aspect we have to remember. I mean, I disagree with ozma, Linker, jimmydore, lots of people very regularly, but they’re not stringing out dozen+ long comment chains just trying to irritate the person they’re interacting with at whatever moment. They’re not trolling, they just have strong opinions. It’s specifically that having fun at other people’s expense thing that makes this one different. And frankly, it’s very common on the internet, just usually not so much in moderated spaces, when the mods are being appropriately responsible. The rest of the internet is still out there though, can always go spend some time on 4chan’s /pol/ if you need to see the sorts of things we’re dealing with. Maybe a LoL lobby, I hear those are lovely. Maybe the comments sections under some Gamergate youtuber’s videos, or Ben Shapiro or someone.
Plenty of places you can find people that just want to have a good time at your expense. For fun, with just a side dose of fuck-the-world.
Thanks for the shout-out! I feel so special that you think so highly of me!
OR I mean, it might just be that I’m an older, semi-retired guy with some extra time who genuinely enjoys keeping up with third-party news and socialist movements. Not very complicated.
But your theory makes it sound way more fun and exciting! Like I’m some kind of super agent involved in a multi-layered grand conspiracy to… to… what exactly? Oh yeah, post articles on a tiny Lemmy forum that get downvoted immediately!
Still, the way you describe it, I almost feel cooler just reading it!
I’m just about to post a few more articles, so if you could please update your stats when you post, that would be awesome! Thank you! :)
UniversalMonk Lemmy Stats:
Account Age - 2 Months
Comments - 3,000+
Posts - 1,300+
Average Comments Per Day - 50
Average Comments Per Hour - 3.125
Average Posts Per Day - 21.66
Average Posts Per Hour - 1.35
(Numbers are assuming that UniversalMonk is a single human who sleeps 8 hours per day)
Either this is a dedicated basement dweller who has no life other than shitposting tankie propaganda like it is their fucking job.
(Or, and I think this is more likely)
This is a coordinated, and malignant effort by a group of bad faith actors to coopt the political discourse on Lemmy in an attempt to drown out real discussion, and turn this place into the tankie equivalent of 8chan for pro-Putin LARPers.
It is clear they should be banned already.
I think it does bring up some larger issues though. Like should limits be placed on accounts. Do we really want users like this? Are they adding to the experience?
Banned for what? Because I have different views than you do?! Do you realise that the vast majority of articles I post aren’t even to this community?! The person you responded to neglected to tell you that.
Here is my post history: https://lemmy.world/u/UniversalMonk?page=1&sort=New&view=Posts
This community isn’t a “Only pro-Harris posters allowed” community. It celebrates diversity of opinion and thought. It’s not an echo chamber.
If you think the article that was posted for this thread doesn’t align with the community guidelines, feel free to contact the moderators. Thank you!
This was a discussion about you behavior. You did not address this behavior in your post.
The links are okay, but your responses are ridiculous just like the one here. The passive aggressiveness is palpable.
The constant need to disproportionally defend yourself definitely is trollish.
If you wish to address this fine. Otherwise there is not much else to say. I wish you good luck in the future and do hope you will change.
Also, let’s here’s a fun example. I just posted this: https://lemmy.world/post/20405177
It’s actually an anti-Stein/Pro-democrat article. Look at the downvotes of the article. And go read the comments. lol
It got downvoted because I posted it. People downvote me because they think I am a russian troll who wants Trump to win. But I have posted several pro-democrat articles. So how does that fit in with your narrative of me and my behavior? Serious question; not “trolling.”
Because my point is that I think people are actually mad because they are emotional that I’m not voting for Harris. And to explain it, they are quick to say that I have an “agenda” or that “I’m trollish.”
But if I post articles that are pro-democrat/pro-Harris/anti-Trump/anti-Stein, and people are still mad, then how does that fit the idea that I am the one with some agenda?
So you’re saying I should just sit back and say nothing when people spread falsehoods about my motivations? What about when I’m accused of being Russian or not even living in the US—just let that slide too? What about that I am “multiple people” on this account because “no human could do that!” (which is hilarious by the way)
You’re literally advocating for me to be banned, and I shouldn’t respond to that? Really?
How about this: If people don’t want a response from me, or think that my responses are “trollish”, then maybe they should stop making accusations about me and just discuss the article.
A guy in this very thread, posts how many articles I post. And he does it every day. Sometimes multiple times a day. And he comes right out and says I shitpost. Now he is free to do that. My post history is public. But isn’t doing that sort of trying to get some response?
Him posting that and baiting me doesn’t get a rise out of me at all. But it’s obvious he’s targeting me and has been for some time. Feel free to check his post history and what he says to me. Again, he’s free to do that as much as he wants. But don’t I have a right to reply?
I had someone the other day, mention that they were responding to me ad nauseum to just increase the comment count for the post.
Is that in good faith?
If people just stopped responding to me, wouldn’t that pretty much eliminate all the drama?
Now, people TOTALLY have a right to respond to me and try to “call me out.” As often as they want, because it won’t stop me from posting. But if they have that right, don’t I have to right to respond?
Example:
My advice would be to only discuss the points of the article and stop trying to defend yourself in such a ridiculous manner. You don’t need to at all honestly and at this point it only further solidifies people’s perception of you.
You can only control yourself and pointing your finger at everyone else is never a good look.
Surely you can see what you have been doing is not working. Try something else.
Thanks for the advice. But I’ll defend myself and my views when I feel it necessary. Sometimes I ignore, sometimes I don’t. Depends on my mood. And though it was good for some discussion points to have with you, at the end of the day, I don’t really give a shit what angry Lemmy commenters say. lol
I gave you examples, but then you decide to not address those at all. So yeah, I’m not really gonna take your advice on this.
And for the record, I DID ignore all comments and only asked people to respond to the article and not make things personal, and everyone said I was a troll and/or a bot. In fact, I used to put it as a disclaimer when I posted. Caused WAY more uproar and drama than me responding. lolol That’s in my post history as well. So…
I’ll keep posting what I want, when I want, where I want, and respond to people how I want. Whether it is “working” or not. Thank you!
“I’ll keep posting what I want, when I want, where I want, and respond to people how I want. Whether it is “working” or not. Thank you!”
You keep confirming you are a troll, time and time again.
That’s not me being a troll. That’s showing you that no matter how many people here try to bully or pressure me, I have to right to post. That’s me being totally free to post what I want. Just like you are.
Also, it’s against this community’s civility rules to call someone a troll. Thank you!
Ban because you disagree with them? And you people say that Republicans are authoritarian.
Try harder please. I have read several articles posted by OP. They clearly have an agenda and have engaged in a lot of trolling behavior.
So the question is having an active troll/propagandist really good for the community. Maybe you could argue that they generate engagement or that we need to protect people’s right to disagree.
The community should carefully weigh this moving forward. If accounts that act like bots are allowed then this place will follow in the footsteps of Digg or Reddit.
Personally, I would have already set them straight as a moderator. I have never been impressed by edgy people who add very little to the conversation.
The mods and admins have actually discussed their account multiple times.
The consensus is, yes, they have shitty opinions, but having shitty opinions is not against the TOS.
The links they post are legitimate links from respected sources.
So, no, nothing bannable or removable here. The comments and downvotes do their job exposing just how shitty their opinions are.
I don’t think anyone has a problem with shitty opinions. I think the bigger problem is a pattern of behavior that impairs the community.
Overall you have a user that disrupts the community in a variety of ways and contributes nothing of value - especially in their comments. I think at least a temporary ban has been justified for quite some time.
Thank you for calling this out in detail. I think that copy pasting responses several times easily qualifies as trolling and the massive amount of them doing this makes it no question. This alone should be enough.
They should be banned from the instance. I can’t quite follow how it’s controversial unless some of the mods are letting their politics stand in the way of observations anyone can easily make in a couple of minutes. There is nothing redeeming about this account. They are spreading bad ideas in bad faith, and frankly it shakes my faith in the platform that they can get away with it Scot fucking free. It’s disgusting.
The problem we have is not with bad opinions.
If I were to copy paste the same response across many threads, intentionally antagonizing users and making that obvious, what is the secret to having that not be considered trolling? Because apparently op somehow discovered how to achieve that. This user is making it beyond obvious. They intend to troll users, and they’re putting a lot of effort into it. Can you help us understand what makes that okay?
Makes perfect sense about the links. Now their conduct of being defensive/borderline trolling in all the responses is not okay.
Thanks for bringing me up to speed.
Why would defending my views or opinions not be ok? Other people defend their opinions, why shouldn’t I be able to? Plus if you are that annoyed with me, you can block me and not see anything I post or comment.
Thank you! (I mean, kind of…lol)
I think actively trolling people by arguing in bad faith or through astroturfing like this is definitely poisoning the community. It shouldn’t be tolerated for tolerances’ sake. And I’m not saying to just ban people you don’t agree with. I’m saying people who obviously just post to poke the bear, so to speak, should face discipline for trying to turn Lemmy toxic.
These are pretty much my thoughts as well.
If these articles are from legitimate news organizations, calling it “poking the bear” doesn’t really make sense. I’m not even posting the articles directly—just links to them. And let’s be real, the actual news sites get way more attention than we ever will here. So if you’ve got a problem with the content, take it up with them.
Besides, are people who post a ton of pro-Harris content “astroturfing”? Or do you think what I post is “poison” simply because they don’t match your opinions?
How is posting articles from news orgs “trying to turn Lemmy toxic”? So is posting pro-Harris articles “toxic”? Also you do realize I post pro-Harris articles too, right?
https://lemmy.world/post/20349566
Anti-Stein/Pro-Democrat article I posted. Check the downvotes and the comments.
https://lemmy.world/post/20281854?scrollToComments=true
Anti-Trump article. Check out the comments. So you don’t think I had the right to reply?
https://lemmy.world/post/20405177
Yet another anti-Stein article I’ve posted. Heavily downvoted.
So what is my agenda again? Please explain.
But I’ve posted articles that are critical of Trump, Stein, and Harris, as well as articles praising each of them. How come you don’t mention those articles?
So, if you’re assuming I agree with every viewpoint in the articles I post, how does that even work when I share so many conflicting perspectives?!
I also created and mod a political news community where people have posted articles praising Harris, criticizing Stein, and trashing me—yet I still leave those up.
https://lemmy.world/c/politicsunfiltered
I could have removed them. Seems like a lot of conflicting viewpoints for you to imply I have some agenda.
Right?! And the vast majority of articles I post aren’t even to this community. And I’ve posted pro-Harris, anti-Stein, and anti-Trump articles too. Funny how the poster who posted my stats neglected to mention that. lol
I think basement dweller is much more likely. Let’s not forget, trolling is fun at a certain age. It’s a recreational activity, engaged in as a way to enjoyably pass the time. This is why the advice always used to be to not interact, and just starve them of any engagement so it stopped being enjoyable. To not feed them.
That stopped working when real effects also became achievable, but we shouldn’t forget that the first motivation is still there. Just because ignoring them won’t make them go away now, because they’re trying to actually work on a nebulous goal, doesn’t mean it ever stopped being fun.
I mean, is it so hard to believe, when we used to get regularly DDoSed and even occasionally hacked, that we’d also pick up some dedicated trolls from time to time? It’d frankly be pretty naive to think we’d be so lucky, if someone has ever spent any time in the seedier corners of the internet where these things come from.
It’s that fun aspect we have to remember. I mean, I disagree with ozma, Linker, jimmydore, lots of people very regularly, but they’re not stringing out dozen+ long comment chains just trying to irritate the person they’re interacting with at whatever moment. They’re not trolling, they just have strong opinions. It’s specifically that having fun at other people’s expense thing that makes this one different. And frankly, it’s very common on the internet, just usually not so much in moderated spaces, when the mods are being appropriately responsible. The rest of the internet is still out there though, can always go spend some time on 4chan’s /pol/ if you need to see the sorts of things we’re dealing with. Maybe a LoL lobby, I hear those are lovely. Maybe the comments sections under some Gamergate youtuber’s videos, or Ben Shapiro or someone.
Plenty of places you can find people that just want to have a good time at your expense. For fun, with just a side dose of fuck-the-world.
And then of course, there are those people who like to engage and accuse just so they can increase comment counts:
You keep that saved like its some damning thing, but it’s really not. Trolling is actually harmful to a community. That’s not.
Thanks for the shout-out! I feel so special that you think so highly of me!
OR I mean, it might just be that I’m an older, semi-retired guy with some extra time who genuinely enjoys keeping up with third-party news and socialist movements. Not very complicated.
But your theory makes it sound way more fun and exciting! Like I’m some kind of super agent involved in a multi-layered grand conspiracy to… to… what exactly? Oh yeah, post articles on a tiny Lemmy forum that get downvoted immediately!
Still, the way you describe it, I almost feel cooler just reading it!
I’m just about to post a few more articles, so if you could please update your stats when you post, that would be awesome! Thank you! :)