What do you want us to say to the trolls? “Jews aren’t descended from Cthulhu, that flies in the face of all science and common sense?”
Perhaps also “I hope you’re trolling and don’t actually believe that.” and “I’m not going to debate it further since it’s so ridiculous, but wanted to just mention lest anyone reading this somehow think this could be true”.
Or “that is a silly theory”
The problem is that you have to be somewhat convincing to make it worthwhile, and that takes time. You could just say it’s silly and let your authority (hopefully established by sensible sane informed comments within that thread) do what work it can.
One way to frame this is that it’s not feeding the trolls if you don’t let them upset you.
But how much will it really help to disagree with little argument? Anyone silly enough to believe the troll in the first place may not really notice that your arguments and authority are a lot better.
I’m still not sure this is worth the time it takes. This is probably the bigger reason informed people don’t correct trolls.
I do think you’ve got a point in some places. I have heard people with wrong, harmful beliefs say they must be correct because nobody will debate them on the topic. That’s because nobody wants to even engage in their ridiculous and foul topic, lest they become associated with it, or just waste their time.
So I guess I’d say this should be done with an eye to the situation.
I think the solution to this problem would be to make an original, thought-provoking contribution to the discussion. Instead of focusing on saying “this is wrong,” try to add new information that is related to the discussion and that could stimulate readers’ minds. Also, none of the persuasion examples you gave contained any avenues for third parties to contribute to the discussion, so I would structure my comments so they provide these opportunities.
Instead of focusing on saying “this is wrong,” try to add new information that is related to the discussion and that could stimulate readers’ minds
That allows the trolls to control the direction of the discussion by picking a topic and having other people add new information to it. Some topics are inherently inflammatory or inherently are likely to attract people who behave badly, so even letting the troll pick the topic can be a disaster. You do not want to have a troll arguing that Jews descend from Cthulu, provide “new information”, and attract people sincerely arguing that Jews are not descendants of Cthulhu but are as evil as if they were, or even just Holocaust deniers.
What do you want us to say to the trolls? “Jews aren’t descended from Cthulhu, that flies in the face of all science and common sense?”
Perhaps also “I hope you’re trolling and don’t actually believe that.” and “I’m not going to debate it further since it’s so ridiculous, but wanted to just mention lest anyone reading this somehow think this could be true”.
Or “that is a silly theory”
The problem is that you have to be somewhat convincing to make it worthwhile, and that takes time. You could just say it’s silly and let your authority (hopefully established by sensible sane informed comments within that thread) do what work it can.
One way to frame this is that it’s not feeding the trolls if you don’t let them upset you.
But how much will it really help to disagree with little argument? Anyone silly enough to believe the troll in the first place may not really notice that your arguments and authority are a lot better.
I’m still not sure this is worth the time it takes. This is probably the bigger reason informed people don’t correct trolls.
I do think you’ve got a point in some places. I have heard people with wrong, harmful beliefs say they must be correct because nobody will debate them on the topic. That’s because nobody wants to even engage in their ridiculous and foul topic, lest they become associated with it, or just waste their time.
So I guess I’d say this should be done with an eye to the situation.
I think the solution to this problem would be to make an original, thought-provoking contribution to the discussion. Instead of focusing on saying “this is wrong,” try to add new information that is related to the discussion and that could stimulate readers’ minds. Also, none of the persuasion examples you gave contained any avenues for third parties to contribute to the discussion, so I would structure my comments so they provide these opportunities.
That allows the trolls to control the direction of the discussion by picking a topic and having other people add new information to it. Some topics are inherently inflammatory or inherently are likely to attract people who behave badly, so even letting the troll pick the topic can be a disaster. You do not want to have a troll arguing that Jews descend from Cthulu, provide “new information”, and attract people sincerely arguing that Jews are not descendants of Cthulhu but are as evil as if they were, or even just Holocaust deniers.
You can’t reduce anti-Semitism without first attracting anti-Semites.