[Noisebridge-discuss] Why the IRC trolls are still there [drama]

[Sai Emrys]

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 7:00 PM, Jacob Appelbaum <jacob at appelbaum.net> wrote:
> I was not involved in anyway when the IRC channel was taken over. I did
> not request or appreciate the death threats, anti-semetic slurs, or
> other harassment that I've had via unsolicited telephone today.

Jake, surely you realize that the vast majority of us are *not*
represented by these idiots?

You're lashing out and being rude to people who are your friends and
allies, rather than at the people who are baiting and harassing you.
Don't; aside from that you're attacking the wrong people, you're
feeding whatever troll is getting off on your anger.

Ceren's not doing anything worse than telling you the same thing I
just did (albeit perhaps a bit unsympathetically): yes you're being
harassed, but calm down anyway and don't attack your friends. That's
not an indication that she has any personal animosity towards you.


I know it really really sucks to get messages like that. It's
completely inappropriate, and I don't think we'd knowingly tolerate
anyone doing the things you described.

Nobody said you asked for it or that you want to be involved. But shit
happens; it's part of being on the internet. "Kill yourself and go to
hell jewfag" is, well, something I'd expect you've seen on the tubes a
million times before. That's no justification, but just pragmatic
truth.

Consider a more positive approach: what do you want us to do about it,
aside from condemning trolls?

I presume that you already know everything I might suggest regarding
filtering, tracing, etc. the actual harassment you've been receiving.
Hopefully you can take some advantage of your technical skills to
solve this problem.


> I'm not in control of the IRC channel, I'm not formally or legally part
> of Noisebridge in a position of power,

FWIW, you do still have +F on #noisebridge, and ownership of the
noisebridge.net domain. Despite your clear desire to separate yourself
from day-to-day control, I think it's inaccurate to say you have no
formal control/power.

You could of course remedy this if you wanted, by transferring
ownership to people who do want to stay involved day-to-day and are
capable of doing so responsibly (or to NB-the-organization, and having
people figure out who holds the ops pointer per usual consensus etc as
needed). So long as you retain formal control though, you'll sometimes
be expected to use it to fix things.


Wait an hour. Breathe, go have some hot cocoa, and remember that most
of us are friendlies. :-)

HTH,
- Sai

PS Note the timestamps. I took my own advice just in case. :-P

PPS For humor:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1926079
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1907543