What distinguishes a bona fide questioner from a troll?

[zoli62]

I think there are those who find it more polite and transparent to answer each post separately.

[jonathon]

@Kresimir

They are selfish, lazy people

Actually, those would probably qualify as trolls of a sort. Most help vampires are perfectly nice people who don’t understand why the questions they ask can’t easily be answered and, because they are perfectly nice, end up sucking up a lot of energy even if the answers are already written down somewhere and can be quickly and easily linked to and read.

This aspect of community management is difficult, and it can be a narrow line to walk between gently encouraging people to help themselves while also avoiding RTFM.

[plgonzalezrx8]

Its hard to distinguish.

However, I dislike the fact that a question can be flagged as “Provocative”, or “Inciting flame wars”. This says more about moderators than the person asking the question or the users themselves.

If a new user asking a new user question, creates a flame wars between the users, then maybe the moderation should be pointed towards the flamers and not the person asking the question.

IDK, Thats just my opinion, so I might be wrong.

There should be a balance between helping others by pointing them in the right direction instead of giving them digested information. Help them to help themselves in the future without telling them to “RTFM”.

[fbodymechanic]

@zoli62

Reading the thread about the flagged post, this question came to my mind. It is often difficult to distinguish between them. What do you think about this?

Fedora is better than every other distro! KDE or bust. GNOME is worse than Windows. If can’t use terminal, you don’t know Jack about Linux.

Prove me wrong.

They see me trolling’ they haitin’

Trolling dirty.

[ringo]

At the end we are all human

[Beardedgeek72]

We also should distinguish between the people who start with an honest (but often frustrated) question but don’t like or accept the answer and therefore becomes abusive and unpleasant, or at least annoying, in the following exchange from those who deliberately try to provoke with their initial question or post a missleading one on purpose (aka Trolls).

[c00ter]

@jonathon

There are many people who delight in posing impossible and deliberately misleading questions just to see the train-wreck that ensues.

(Metaphysical) Debate: “You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.”

[keybreak]

@ringo

At the end we are all human

Speak for yourself!

[zoli62]

Well, that’s very true. There are many kinds of people. There are things that annoy one, the other likes.

[zoli62]

@plgonzalezrx8

Its hard to distinguish.

I agree with this.

@plgonzalezrx8

f a new user asking a new user question, creates a flame wars between the users, then maybe the moderation should be pointed towards the flamers and not the person asking the question.

New members aren’t even sure their issue is exploding into a flame war.

@plgonzalezrx8

There should be a balance between helping others by pointing them in the right direction instead of giving them digested information. Help them to help themselves in the future without telling them to “RTFM”.

Balance is very important in a community. As I recall, at the time I was learning to use Linux, users who were more experienced than me were not very reluctant with me, but rather helpful.

[mdoverl]

@fbodymechanic

They see me trolling’ they haitin’

Trolling dirty.

Being a stupid American I knew exactly how to sing this in my head