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Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on "Hide comments in downvoted threads" is now active - Less Wrong
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Not just metaphorically. People are behaviorally reinforced into trolls because attention is reward and provocation gets attention. By downvoting something and commenting in reply to it, you are building positive associations to getting downvoted, a rather psychologically-sick sort of internal state that is a very bad thing to do to anyone. Would you consider it a nice thing to do to follow somebody around and give them a smile and a kiss each time they lost their temper or experienced some other failure of will, so as to reinforce that behavior? No, right?
Could you taboo "trolling". I think several distinct things are being lumped under that word. Here are the kind of posts that tend to get downvoted:
1) Simply being obnoxious, e.g., "First Post!!!!". As far as I know, these are almost non-existent here.
2) Someone arguing for a crazy position they don't believe.
3) Someone who genuinely believes a crazy position.
4) Someone arguing for a reasonable position that causes some voters to get mind-killed.
Which subset of these do you mean by "trolling" and what do you think is the appropriate response to each?
You forget 5) Someone arguing for a position (crazy or otherwise) in a deliberately provocative way.
Trolling: Provocation for the sake of response.
Pattern-match:
Almost all comments are posted at least in part for the sake of response. What's provocation? In particular, how is it different from nonconformism?
Ok, the next question is whether being voted below -3 is a good proxy for a comment being provocation for the sake of response.
For example, I strongly suspect eridu simply honestly believes the insane ideas he espouses, does he count as "provocation for the sake of response", if not what do you think the appropriate response to his comments should have been?