My Living Room Policy--or why I banned Bob
Every six months or so, I find I have to repost my Living Room Policy, first stated in October 2006. If you want the executive summary it goes like this:
I treat people who come here with courtesy and respect, but if you are rude to me and my guests, I'll ask you to be nice, If you get rude again I will toss you out and never let you back in. I also do not let people into my home, who won't let me know who they are, then I am going to throw them out and not let them back in.
The most recent one is from someone calling himself Bob. No last name, no URL, just Bob. He put down his email as: anontroll07@gmail.com. Get it: "Anonymous troll."
You can see Bob's first two comments on my recent Open Letter to the Twitter Guys. The rest are cyberdust.
Bob has not been rude at all, even though we disagreed. He thought that since I am not a developer I did not have the right to comment on the scalability of Ruby on Rails. Now, I will submit that I may not know what I am talking about when it comes to the tech problems with Twitter, the subject we were discussing. But I maintain that on my own site I have every right to make a fool of myself intentionally or accidentally.
I told Bob about the living room policy and that if he did not identify himself I would ban him. He didn't like that and told me why I was a hypocrite demanding my own freedom of speech and demanding his right to speak in my virtual livingroom.
So I blocked him. 86. Poof. No more Bob. Bob, who claims to be a veteran developer with more than 20 years creds is now sending comments every few minutes. I may be no technical wizard and I do know how to tell Typepad to ban all comments from this anonymous troll. Typepad is sometimes slow to get it going and that means I need to play the silly takedown game tonight, but by tomorrow, Bob will be gone.
I feel good about this.
I read about your living room rule in your book, but I have yet to see it in action until now. It is your site, and do make your own rules. There is a line in the sand that everyone should respect, thank you for leading the way by standing up to rude people.
Posted by: Boring Market | January 27, 2008 at 06:53 PM
Good for you. I would do the same, though I don't have an explicit policy. Anonymous commenters are OK, from time to time, but if they want to engage in an ongoing conversation they better come clean. The rest of us are standing out here naked.
Posted by: Harold Jarche | January 27, 2008 at 07:03 PM
I've had to ban a few people to by IP address. If you want to be apart of a community, then "show yourself."
Posted by: Dan Schawbel | January 27, 2008 at 07:03 PM
I agree, Shel. I have very low tolerance for "anonymous" trolls in attack mode. Block away!
It's just not necessary. You are only as good as your name, and that's equity needed for truly social interaction.
Posted by: Geoff Livingston | January 27, 2008 at 07:25 PM
I've been lurking around here for a while and never felt the need to comment. I just like watching all of the information being passed around. I usually post on Political websites. I just couldn't hold my tongue with this. I can't believe what I am seeing tonight. How childish can this get. I mean my last name is Jones, do you really believe me or think I am making it up. My e-mail has the word Graciee in it and not my name so does that give me less credence for being real. It just so happens I like George Burns and Gracie Allen and like to have fun with my e-mail. So it is true that I have a common last name, my e-mail does not contain it, and I most certainly sound as fake as they come. But here I am with all the attributes needed to appear as a true person on this site. So what was the big deal with Bob tonight? He was not rude, listed his name, and had an e-mail. So I just don't get why he got banned. Maybe you just don't like g mail. Will I be banned now? I obviously made a statement referring to all of this as childish. However, I am indeed real. Afterall... I listed my name and e-mail. Which sound fake, but just happen to be true.
Posted by: Liz Jones | January 27, 2008 at 07:38 PM
Go Shel.
Bob, I suggest you start your own blog, and Rail (get it? Rails? RoR? See? LOL) against Shel and his Living Room Policy there. Do what you want in your own house. Heck, link to it from here (you can create one w/ your jazzy anontroll Gmail account at Blogger, after all), and you might even get the teensiest bit of attention.
Otherwise, get over it. And first and last time I respond to you here, btw, Bob. Trolls really aren't that interesting.
Posted by: Ken Kennedy | January 27, 2008 at 08:45 PM
You're 100% right Shel. Don't even think twice about banning trolls.
Posted by: B.L Ochman | January 28, 2008 at 08:20 AM
I'm a little late to the party - but I also used to feel bad about banning trolls (freedom of speech and all). But really, would I let them stand in my living room and sling insults? Hell no. I do tolerate anonymous commenters, but not when they come and post inflammatory rude comments.
I think some people tend to use the anonymonity of the web to be bullies - but that's not really surprising.
Posted by: Jacqueline | February 04, 2008 at 08:55 PM
Jacqueline,
That's because some bullies are also cowards.
-S
Posted by: shel israel | February 04, 2008 at 08:58 PM
Jacqueline,
That raises an interesting follow-up question...
Is there really a difference between cyber-bullies and cowards? In our online business, we've met more than our fair share. In many cases, they are competitors pretending to be disgruntled jackasses.
Everyone should have a Living Room policy. What a great idea!
Posted by: Josh Feinberg | February 05, 2008 at 05:39 AM
This just in from Techcrunch
"Court Finds That Trolls Can Remain Anonymous"
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/08/court-finds-that-trolls-can-remain-anonymous/
Posted by: John | February 08, 2008 at 10:11 AM
Thanks John. I have already posted a blog on that topic. BTW, just what is your last name?
Posted by: shel israel | February 08, 2008 at 05:03 PM