Wednesday 30 July 2008

Troll Policy

Look under the bridges, that's where they hide...

Sigh. I was quite pleased to see myself on the Fatosphere feed, but it seems that there are some devoted Fatosphere trolls, and they have found me.

The internet is like a very long street full of houses belonging to people. A lot of those houses are wide open, and their owners invite people to come inside. Sometimes they come in, love it, and return often. Sometimes they come in, hate it, and leave quietly. Sometimes they come in, hate it, and start flinging shit at the walls and spitting on the floors.

So here's a policy.

All trolling comments will be deleted.

All of them, concern troll and otherwise, all comments suggesting I just need to work harder and eat less, all comments acting as though compulsive eating disorder is not just as much of an illness as anorexia, all comments promoting dieting or a dieting mentality, all comments suggesting fat people are weak or lazy or ugly, all comments that just seem trollish to me, and all comments responding to trolls will be deleted. They probably won't be deleted as quickly as I'd like, because I have no access to Blogspot during the day, but they WILL be deleted. I will not be answering any of them. I will not be blogging about any of them. If trolling continues, I'll just make all comments go through moderation. I don't particularly want to do that, because I only check Blogspot once a day, usually, but I will if I have to.

Who decides if you're a troll?

I do. And I won't get into a discussion with you about why I think you're a troll. If I delete your comment and you really think you weren't trolling, think about why someone else without your assumptions might think you were. If you comment again protesting about being deleted, I will delete that too. I will ignore your emails on the subject, unless you come in sackcloth and ashes repenting your trollishness. Think that's unfair? You are free to leave.

Trolling includes trying to explain to me that you're concerned about my health and should go on X diet because it will fix me.

I have been on that diet. It didn't work. I don't care if you think you care – you don't really care, because you don't know me. If you really cared, you would understand that this is a blog about my eating disorder (and a few related things which may occur to me), and you would understand that any kind of eating disorder is a huge and destructive disease which wreaks havoc on a person's life, and that working through it is exactly that – work, hard, tedious, tiring work which never ends. If you really cared, you would know that you can't fix me with facile advice, and you wouldn't want to hurt me with superior or hateful remarks. Ergo, if you comment here with diet advice or to berate me on not being good enough, you are not concerned, you're an insensitive asshat.

The thing is, this is my blog, my house, it's quite a personal blog talking about some things which are meaningful and sensitive to me, and sometimes about things in society which piss me off. But it's really representative of very little of my external life, and you really don't know me. Oh, you know I'm fat and that I have an eating disorder, but you don't know what I do in my daily life, how fat I actually am, how much I eat or exercise, how much damage this disorder has done to my body or mind, how much I'm progressing, how hard I have to work on a daily basis just to maintain some kind of equilibrium, or anything about the many things that I do which make my life worthwhile.

And I've come far enough not to give a flying fuck what you think. You don't have to like what you see here, but I'm not preventing you from clicking "Back" and leaving me to be fat in peace. I will not engage in email or anything else with you. Clear? Good.

And you lovely people who are reading this who are not trolls, please don't feed the trolls. They'll be deleted, and if you respond to them, so will you, even if I like the rest of your comment. I'm sorry about that. I've thought about it – I even wrote responses to the trolls on my last post. And then I thought, "but I don't owe random asshats a soapbox", and decided on a zero tolerance policy. I just don't have the time or energy to waste on idiots who have nothing better to do than go to strangers' blogs and explain to them how wrong they are. Trolls are a battle I choose not to fight.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good to know I won't be using up any Sanity Watchers points on your blog's comments. :)

maddie said...

Charlee - Heh. I was thinking of reacting, then I really thought, these people are just like those idiots in the car who drove past me three times to tell me they shouldn't have to see me. So why should I pay them any mind?

Rachel said...

Good for you -- not that you have trolls, but that you're being assertive about them. Maybe we should make a sign that reads "Don't feed the trolls."

maddie said...

Rachel - Thanks. And we totally should.

On the plus side, I now have this song in my head, which will never not be funny.

"I won't waste my seed on hideous trolls..."

April D said...

I like Rachel's idea "Don't feed the trolls" ^^ Kudos for setting a solid policy in place too. Nothing baffles me more than having trolls stop by and feeling they NEED to leave a comment as if they couldn't just move one finger muscle to click away from scary new ideas. I look forward to keeping my sanity on your blog! :D

maddie said...

April D - I completely don't get the troll mentality either. There's a strong "point and laugh" culture on the internet, and I get that - I've even been part of that. But I really don't understand the mindset of people who can't just be amused and go back to their own space to point and laugh, but have to make a comment to make the original poster feel bad, like some jackasses who recently drove past my husband and me three times to shout abuse. It's just weird, especially when they think they've got some kind of moral high ground.

Knitty said...

Hi Maddy,
Can you send me your email address? I'd like to email you, but can't find any addy anywhere.

Thanks
Michelle

maddie said...

Michelle - I totally would, but I can't find your email address either, and I'm not crazy about leaving my email address out for spambots and trolls to find... Can you enable access to look at your Blogger profile?

Knitty said...

I'm sorry, I don't have a blog so no profile. :) I should have left it in the previous comment, sheesh... it's knittzu@gmail.com.

Thanks! :)