We have some important updates to our community rules that we want to share with you. These changes are aimed at keeping our forum a respectful, inclusive, and positive space for all members.
New Rule well not really new, just written down now. : Zero Tolerance for Sexist, Red-Pill, and Incel Posts
To ensure our community remains welcoming and respectful, we are adding the following to the rules page. Posts or comments that promote sexist themes, red-pill ideologies, or incel rhetoric are strictly prohibited. Such content will be promptly removed, and users may receive a temporary or permanent suspension of their account.
Updated Rule: Do Not Engage with Troll Accounts
We also want to remind everyone to not engage with troll accounts. Engaging with trolls only fuels their behavior and disrupts the community. If you encounter any trolling or disruptive behavior, please report it to the moderators instead of responding. If nobody feeds the troll, it will eventually get bored.
If you have any questions or need clarification on these rules, feel free to reach out to the moderation team.
The second, I think, is a bit trickier. It can sometimes be hard to identify a troll. Some are obvious, but others less so. Those of us who have been around a while can identify when the same user seems to crop up over and over with a different profile but the same trolling. At first glance these might seem legitimate to new forum members who, understandably, will try and offer helpful advice to what seems a, maybe extreme, but legitimate enquiry. Presumably no one is going to get in trouble for breaking rules when they just don’t realise a user is a troll? Just after clarification.
Of course! No one will ever get in trouble for being helpful and offering genuine guidance, even to a troll.
It’s more of a polite request I guess. I understand it isn’t easy to just let someone ‘get away with’ being horrid, but trolls feed on the negative reactions. So if we can make the forum a little less tasty - maybe they won’t visit as much. Although sadly that may be a pipedream, this is the internet afterall.
I will admit i politely mentioned the similarities between the previous posts to the troll in the hope they see they’d been rumbled. It can be frustrating when they choose weekends to post their bile, knowing the mods are offline.
But yes, ignoring them is the best policy.
I’m sorry, blame it on being from (I assume) an older generation …
I had to google the ‘Red-pill’ (have seen the film) and ‘Incel’ to hopefully find out what you meant.
As for Troll accounts how do we know it is a troll? Since the site was updated some years ago it seems impossible to find out when the account was open, my details were wiped, it used to be very easy to see ‘Member since’ details, seems impossible now.
If you click on their profile it says the date they joined, unless their profile is hidden.
Usually the trolls join on a Friday, probably cos they’re aware the moderation is limited at weekends.
Fortunately trolls seem to be rare here.
Under the current system users can hide their profile so their is no way of knowing if they have just created a troll account.
In the previous system when someone made a post underneath their image was a ‘Member since’ date which was always very useful and you could click through to their profile and judge from that.
Why hide profiles now? If people don’t want it to be seen - don’t enter the info. but all profiles should be made public (IMO) to make it easier to judge if the posting is made by a troll.
I’ve done this too, also in the hopes that they realise they’ve been spotted. It is annoying though, to ‘ignore’ a user, only for them to pop up again and ask the same questions. Then you’ve got newer members responding to them, bc they don’t know and it just keeps the thread going.
Maybe the mods could have more powers? I do also think that new users shouldn’t be able to post immediately, if they had to read the rules, tick box at various points to confirm understanding and then maybe a 3 day hold before they could post, it would help towards keeping the forum active and discourage trolls. Many a times you see someone new start a thread (usually one that has a million and 12 other such threads) and then they don’t interact with it, did they forget?!
I do agree that peoples profiles should be visible to an extent, it should show how long they’ve been a member and then anything further can be hidden if they choose to.
I don’t necessarily agree with the 3 day hold thing, because it can take a genuine new member a lot of courage to join and post, especially if they’re asking for help or advice.
I do think that maybe having a mandatory tick box for reading the rules and an explanation of the search function before being allowed to post could be beneficial, but its finding a balance
How to discourage trolls while still encouraging and welcoming legitimate new members not an easy thing to accomplish!
I agree with that, we don’t want to discourage new people who are in need of help. I’d like to more discourage the people that join, don’t read much and post thinking that this is a sex chat site or trolls. But getting that balance would be good, thankfully there are more genuine folk than the ones that make my face go
Yes I have always thought that would be a good way for LH, because if you have read it then there is no excuse for breaking the rules, and also having a mandatory ticking every year.
not an easy thing to accomplish!