One of the easiest ways to strengthen a community against attacks is to shine a spotlight on the behaviors shown by people attempting to sabotage it. This is done by labor organizers in real life to strengthen a group of workers against union busting, for instance.

The term often used for this is “inoculation”. Similar to being vaccinated once you are aware of an attacker, the effectiveness of their behavior decreases.

So Hexbear comrades, what patterns have you noticed in wreckers, trolls, and feds? Comment in the thread and I’ll update this post to include your feedback.

Terminology

Troll

:troll:

Standard internet bog person. Not particularly clever or inventive. 4chan-tier. Nothing in their brain but slurs.

Wrecker

:silver-legion:

Typically fixated on the site, repeat and/or sustained activity. (Eg Pumpkin Spice Flintstone guy). Might be a reference to an old USSR term for saboteurs in the party?

Fed

:fedposting:

Rare (?). Tries to encourage illegal behavior. Bad at it. Often doing it just to see who corrects them and in what ways.

Patterns I’ve noticed

General

:cissues:

  • new account with slightly “off takes” that gradually becomes increasingly aggressive

  • “just asking questions”

  • “innocently” brings up incredibly specific past struggle sessions

  • tries to position obvious shitposts as sincerely held opinions that somehow reflect poorly on the site (eg “everyone loves hunter biden”)

  • attempts to take other user’s sentences out of context and spin it into an argument

Wrecker Types

Fresh Accounts without History (FAWH)

:amogus:

These are accounts created in the last few weeks with little to no activity FAWHs indicate ban avoidance, shell propaganda accounts, and/or a desire to hide a pointed agenda. Identify and counter this by checking post histories.

Defrosted FAWHs

:corporate-art:

These accounts behave similarly to FAWHs but show a much older registration date combined with long periods of low activity, reflecting history editing or dormancy. They will occasionally only have comments at or around the time of struggle sessions. Identify and counter this behavior by checking post histories.

Drive-by Accounts

:stupidpol:

These accounts post bigoted or inflammatory comments in active threads then delete/edit their comments a day or two after the submission dies to obscure the pattern of their activity.

This is hard to spot unless you check back in with your suspected trolls or seek them out by reviewing. If you catch them in the act it's hugely indicative of subversive intent.

Identify and negate this by monitoring suspected trolls for post deletion and reporting before they are deleted. Also quoting especially aggressive replies so they can’t edit it away.

I’ll update this based on other’s comments. Viva la Hexbear!

:hexbear-retro:

  • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    how readily you assume they’re a wrecker, implying they should be banned

    That's really not it. I don't care if the person I replied to is a hardcore Nazi who sleeps with a copy of Mein Kampf under their pillow and is currently posting on 8chan about how they owned the commies, or if said individual is the most commie communist who ever communized and will personally lead the global revolution in 2027. Their behavior is not useful to this forum and it should be ceased, one way or another. I would prefer that they simply fall in line with the vibe and stop being an asshole, but if they double, triple, quadruple down on it and get banned I won't lose any sleep over it either.

    The most important thing to keep in mind when you're dealing with a project like this one is that the identity of the individuals in question is completely irrelevant. It is not the person who is the problem, it is their behavior. We're going to have trolls lurking one way or another, but preventing them from making trouble is what matters. If that means I tell a communist who's being an asshole to stop being an asshole because they look :ursus-hexagonia: :amogus: then so be it

    • HodgePodge [love/loves]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I would prefer that they simply fall in line with the vibe and stop being an asshole, but if they double, triple, quadruple down on it and get banned I won’t lose any sleep over it either.

      :this: there’s a certain type of debate bro who would learn a lot from going to local shows and getting thrown out of them for being shitty

    • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      It is not the person who is the problem, it is their behavior.

      This is important. Trying to judge motivations is a losing game that is way too exploitable because of how meta people can make it. This conversation is a decent example, actually. Lenin had provocateurs in his inner circle and was able to make progress, not because the provocateurs were necessarily bad at their jobs, but because the party had falsifiable standards for actions.

      And to be fair, I think site leadership and membership alike could put more effort into establishing those falsifiable standards. We have the TOS and the CoC, but those aren’t rules which are generally integrated into the culture of the site. I’m not sure what the answer is here, but have a feeling that we could use some major help from a statistics nerd with a background in social sciences willing to guide experimental and incremental reforms.

      • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Lenin had provocateurs in his inner circle and was able to make progress, not because the provocateurs were necessarily bad at their jobs, but because the party had falsifiable standards for actions.

        Could you provide a source where I could read more about this?

    • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Here is what I was originally going to say in response:

      My claim is that your parameters of suspicion are so bad that it may as well be engineered to be so. Using account age as evidence is not a useful metric when banning is done readily --

      And then I thought about your comment for an extra two seconds and realized "Oh wait, they do know what they are saying." You actually want the website to be ideologically static and for challenges to be shut down. I don't know what to tell you except to offer this: I don't have the audacity to assume that I'm correct about everything, and I won't ever be corrected where I am wrong if I create a space where the overriding directive is to "fall in line". Do you believe that such a space can correct your errors? Or do you assume that you're already right about everything? Or do you just not care? I'm struggling to find an answer beyond those three options.

      • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
        ·
        2 years ago

        You actually want the website to be ideologically static and for challenges to be shut down.

        If you can't discuss disagreements without being indistinguishable from someone whose goal is to upset people, then that is a problem with the way you approach discussions and something you need to solve. For example, in response to a non-hostile good faith post by a 10 month old account in good standing which is intended explicitly to encourage discussion, one should probably not come out of the gate throwing insults at them while posting from a seven day old account.

        • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
          ·
          2 years ago

          We just established that account age is worthless, didn't we? And there's an implicit ideology in the OP that is really toxic along "everyone I disagree with is a Russian bot" lines.

          I agree that that one respondent should control their language, but that still wouldn't be enough for anything but this specific case. A lot of what the disagreements are are on political and moral issues. It's normal and expected (and indeed happens regularly) that people think negatively of someone disagreeing with them, but then that just means there's like a two comment exchange and then the person is banned when a Mod gets around to it.

          If I oppose your opinion on, let's pick an example, the attitude we should take towards sex work, are you not going to call me an asshole for it? And I'm not even saying you shouldn't call me an asshole for it, but let's counterfactually assume I'm correct and you are not on that specific issue. You will still be morally outraged at me, and probably I you, and then I will be banned for being an "asshole" (which, again, is a reasonable impression to have of someone who is supporting views you think are immoral) and then nothing changes and you remain wrong.

          There is no way of being "civil" enough to circumvent the conflict of moral beliefs, you will think I'm an asshole either way, that's what moral argument usually is. That can't be a basis for a ban by itself if you want to even pretend to yourself that you're practicing half-decent epistemology.

          • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
            ·
            2 years ago

            That can’t be a basis for a ban by itself if you want to even pretend to yourself that you’re practicing half-decent epistemology.

            Moderators do not operate on the level of epistemology. Bad faith actors make a point of being walking thought experiments to waste your time. Moderation’s purpose is social and trying to disentangle it from the murkiness of social nuance is a bad idea. Standards can be put in place, as can checks on power, but it can’t be divorced entirely without rendering it pointless

                • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  My point was that moral disagreement makes someone "an asshole" no matter how carefully they choose their words. That's not a jab at the site culture, that's just how basically any society I've ever heard of functions. Because of that, if "being an asshole" is sufficient to ban someone, you are banning moral disagreement, which is a little hazardous.

                  The site ideology has crystalized over time because of this, and some elements of that are actually really good, e.g. :some-controversy: , but some I think are holdovers from when the community was more of a "standard radlib but ruder" space.

                  • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
                    ·
                    2 years ago

                    There may be some contradictions in the fact that we purge core usership along ideological lines. Typically, that sort of purge is more effective in leadership, but the goal of the site is not to be a vanguard party in and of itself.

                    But it sounds less like your concern is with holding ideological standards and more with the standards set for specific topics.

                    • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
                      ·
                      2 years ago

                      Well, I guess I mean that the ideological standards should perhaps be "higher order" and so stances on specific issues in the world should have some leeway so long as they are argued from a reasonable position (e.g. there are legitimate communist criticisms of the CPC, and then there are radlib, neolib, and hard-right criticisms).

                      If I could just have my way, I'd say "ban liberal reasoning", but I got a :who-must-go: for that one, so I'll take what I can get.

        • RonJeremyCorbyn [none/use name]
          ·
          2 years ago

          this is fair. i've deleted the language, and i regret that my being a jerk, by my tone/insulting language, is becoming conflated with a substantive point about what kind of posting substance ought to be disciplined.

          a prudential line, that people should not be rude or insulting jerks, would be a fair one. that doesn't seem to be what has historically been applied.

          • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
            ·
            2 years ago

            that doesn’t seem to be what has historically been applied.

            I can't really speak on that, personally. Obviously I'm not a mod, and I don't want to be a mod, and if I ever become a mod I promise to ban everyone who disagrees with me about anything similar to how I promise to systematically dismantle the United States when I become president. All mods are bastards.

            So I can only speak for myself, but personally I apply my logic both ways. He who easily becomes :sus: just as easily becomes :unsus: through the power of good posting. :anarchy-heart:

            • RonJeremyCorbyn [none/use name]
              ·
              2 years ago

              Obviously I’m not a mod, and I don’t want to be a mod, and if I ever become a mod I promise to ban everyone who disagrees with me about anything similar to how I promise to systematically dismantle the United States when I become president. All mods are bastards.

              sure, and, of course, if i become a mod, you will be the first to be banned (please read this in the spirit of jest).

              i don't know what the last line means. but i will continue with my good posting, incorporating your/others' advice to be less of a jerk.

      • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I am reading her comments as arguing for something similar to rules of engagement for internal disagreements

        • DumpsterDive [none/use name]
          ·
          2 years ago

          That would be worthwhile if there was a better basis for what "internal" means but, again, with bans being offered readily, that doesn't pan out.

          • ShittyWallpaper [they/them]
            ·
            2 years ago

            The line is blurry, for sure. But I think it’s blurry in response to various historical constraints of the site. I see the creation of an ingroup culture and the enforcement of that ingroup via moderation as an inevitable outcome of a site looking to embody socialist values, be inclusive to marginalized people, remain pseudoanonymous, and remain engaging. Whether or not any of these goals are good and whether or not any of these goals have been achieved is a separate conversation. But I think these are indeed the goals and I don’t see a way around creating an outgroup via establishing social norms.