As far as I know it’s to discourage people from aiming for negative karma, and taking pride in how much they’ve been downvoted—as proof of their trolling or brave thinking out of the box or willingness to “tell truth to power” or whatever. I think that happened a few times.
(it’s a bit like how sometimes punishing a misbehaving child can actually be “rewarding him with attention”, and result in more frequent misbehaving)
Essentially, no. If I recall Alicorn has to delete individual comments rather than ban users… more by oversight than design. As far as I’m aware Eliezer hasn’t got a “boot troll” feature available to him either. Matt would… via an SQL UPDATE if nothing else.
Admins have the power to delete posts and comments, and probably users (though I can’t think of a time it happened); I wouldn’t be surprised if that was used mostly to fight spammers, not trolls.
As far as I know it’s to discourage people from aiming for negative karma, and taking pride in how much they’ve been downvoted—as proof of their trolling or brave thinking out of the box or willingness to “tell truth to power” or whatever. I think that happened a few times.
(it’s a bit like how sometimes punishing a misbehaving child can actually be “rewarding him with attention”, and result in more frequent misbehaving)
Interesting. Everything is a tradeoff. When people aren’t alerted to a troll, there’s a cost, and when they are, there’s another cost.
Is there any mechanism for booting a troll?
Essentially, no. If I recall Alicorn has to delete individual comments rather than ban users… more by oversight than design. As far as I’m aware Eliezer hasn’t got a “boot troll” feature available to him either. Matt would… via an SQL UPDATE if nothing else.
Admins have the power to delete posts and comments, and probably users (though I can’t think of a time it happened); I wouldn’t be surprised if that was used mostly to fight spammers, not trolls.