MsM

“[George Orwell, in his Introduction to Animal Farm] talks a little, only two sentences, about the institutional structure. He asks, why does this happen? Well, one, because the press is owned by wealthy people who only want certain things to reach the public. The other thing he says is that when you go through the elite education system, when you go through the proper schools in Oxford, you learn that there are certain things it’s not proper to say and there are certain thoughts that are not proper to have. That is the socialization role of elite institutions and if you don’t adapt to that, you’re usually out. Those two sentences more or less tell the story.

When you critique the media and you say, look, here is what Anthony Lewis or somebody else is writing, they get very angry. They say, quite correctly, “nobody ever tells me what to write. I write anything I like. All this business about pressures and constraints is nonsense because I’m never under any pressure.” Which is completely true, but the point is that they wouldn’t be there unless they had already demonstrated that nobody has to tell them what to write because they are going say the right thing. If they had started off at the Metro desk, or something, and had pursued the wrong kind of stories, they never would have made it to the positions where they can now say anything they like. The same is mostly true of university faculty in the more ideological disciplines. They have been through the socialization system.”

Users Suck

The Internet was not designed to stop people from doing stupid things, because that would also stop them from doing clever things. Anybody who believes that because they dish out 15-20 bucks for a donation to an online project that that “entitles” them to ANYTHING must be made to realize otherwise.

Users need to understand that it is not the admin’s job to make them happy, it is the admin’s job is to make sure the system works in the way it was designed to work and that the main purpose of the project remains the main purpose of the project. Then the system will work and the users will be happy most of the time.

If users believe that the admin or developer or moderator of an online project has to make them happy, they will never be happy, and the system will never work. This is not about whether users have a “right to happiness,” it is just a practical point that admins and developers and moderators cannot deliver happiness to everyone everywhere at all times, nor should they be expected to do so.

If developers and admins and moderators allow complaints to undermine their confidence in their project, which has already been proven to work as intended, then they will allow users to become toxic to the project. This is true regardless of whether the project is a piece of software, an online community, a game, a mailing list, a forum, or any other kind of service that developers deliver to users.

Solving problems and accepting that certain users do not work well with others and are not a benefit to the project is the reality of using the Internet and developing various online projects and services. High-maintenance users taking up all the time and support of developers and admins and moderators to meet their unrealistic expectations are simply not worth the costs to the project and the community surrounding it.

Dealing with difficult people is hard enough, but working with volunteers who are difficult is doubly troublesome. There are many questions to be considered such as:

• Is the difficult person a valuable volunteer?
• In spite of difficulties with one group, does this person work for the overall good of the community or project?
• Is the person worth more to the project in spite of their difficulties, or would the project or community be better off without them?

A truly difficult person is someone who seems to thrive on causing turmoil and strife within a group in particular and the whole community in general on a consistent and predictable basis.

The result is that administrators and developers are miserable, dread dealing with user complaints, and often simply ignore the users or, in the worst-case scenario, they resign from the project or online community. The whole community feels stressed, agitated and insecure and the worse it gets, the happier the difficult person becomes. Their happiness is the red flag warning that you are dealing with a difficult person. The main thing to remember is that you must take control of your own emotions and deal with the specific behaviors of the annoying person.

Types of Difficult Users

Bullies :

In her book, “Toxic People,� Lillian Glass describes the bully as, “a verbal terrorist, a loud, obnoxious, rude, demanding, stubborn know-it-all whose motto is, ‘My way or the highway.’ Explosive and volatile, they fly off the handle in an instant. They are happy only when they are running the show.� Remember, that regardless of the excuses a bully might have for their behavior, they are responsible for it and they have chosen to act that way. Provide a counter-opinion and confront them about the behavior you find unacceptable.

Loose Cannons :

Out of the blue, they explode, become furious and have embarrassing and annoying tantrums. This one is scary and has others walking on eggshells. If you feel that this person is making a worthwhile contribution and the explosions aren’t too frequent, you may want to try to figure out what sets them off and show some genuine concern. Like the Bullies, you should confront them with examples of their behavior that aren’t acceptable, define the limits of what they can do, and acknowledge them when they do something good.

Whiners and Blamers :

This negative person doesn’t look for the bright side, because they live on the dark side. Life is a heavy burden, everything is a disappointment and nothing measures up. They suck the lifeblood and enthusiasm out of ideas and projects. They don’t trust anybody, especially leaders and they can find fault in anything. If something doesn’t work out, they are always ready to say, “I told you so.� Don’t argue with them, but make sure the facts are clear to everyone. Point out that helpful, positive, constructive comments and suggestions are preferable and beneficial to the community as a whole. It’s possible to acknowledge that looking at the worst that could happen in a project is helpful in planning and part of the process, but certainly not the whole process.

Trolls :

Trolls are a sad, pathetic fact of life on the Internet. Trolls post something inflammatory so that people will respond with angry and indignant replies and long, drawn-out arguments. The hotter the flame and the longer the threat, the more satisfying from the troll’s point of view. A troll is a cry for attention, a pathetic attempt to be noticed. Even though all the attention is negative, it is attention nonetheless. Deny the troll continued satisfaction to make it go away. Allowing the troll to spew unanswered may give others the impression that the troll won the argument, and if the troll is on a crusade, this could be a Bad Thing. It is sometimes useful to just refute all the troll’s arguments completely, but from an administrator or developer’s point of view, you just don’t have time for this shit. Hopefully, you have good moderators in place who will take care of this for you. If not, get some, and make it worth their while to do a good job for you, even if it means you occasionally buy them something from their wishlist (it’s worth it!). Ridicule can work on a troll with a short fuse. If you can make this type of troll mad enough, it will scream back at you and storm out of the group (usually with some dramatic flair), a very happy outcome indeed. You can also provide yourself and other clueful folks a few moments of entertainment as you turn the troll everyway but loose. Be sure to remain aloof; it upsets the troll even more, which makes the troll’s attempted snappy or angry come-backs even easier to slap down. The downside to this approach is that the troll wants attention, even (especially?) negative attention, so you may just feed it. Try to recognize this quickly and then change your approach.

When people have reached the stage where they constantly seek negative attention through persistent trolling, they are pretty far gone. They need to be reminded how pathetic and pathological their behavior is. The more convincing you are that you truly pity them their sick state of being, the greater the chance you can just shame them out of the group. If the Troll keeps coming back even after being utterly refuted and publicly shamed, you no longer have a Troll, you have a Fuckhead. Ban the Fuckheads, there’s no other possible way of dealing with them.

What Makes A Fuckhead?

by David R. Kendrick

Ever since the dawn of time, Humankind has been divided into two camps: Those who were welcome in the camps, and those who weren’t. Stanley Kubrick’s film classic 2001: A Space Odyssey best depicts this early schism in human ancestors: At the side of the communal water stream, the social apes whacked the antisocial apes over the heads with bones.

Over time, religious tradition, social science, and human evolution have recognized the basic division of mankind into social and antisocial camps. The antisocial have been shunned, excommunicated, pressed into exile, and even hunted as the social group has forced the antisocial from its camps, cities, and homes.

With the advent of the Internet as a force in popular culture, this schism has not only survived, but become stronger and more readily acknowledged. In the new Information Age, the antisocial face new pressures, such as flaming, Usenet death penalties, and being netcopped, and they even have a new name.

They are called Fuckheads.

But what makes a person a Fuckhead? You cannot tell a fuckhead just by looking at the e-mail address, or the Web site, or even by the newsgroups the individual frequents. A fuckhead is a person who, through the pattern of repeated behaviour when dealing with other Netizens in IRC and Usenet, demonstrates certain characteristics and a repeated inability or unwillingness to change or modify his/her behavior to conform to the social code of conduct called “netiquette.”

These are the characteristics that make the Fuckhead:

A Fuckhead Must Have An Exaggerated Sense of His/Her Own Importance

The Internet fuckhead will come to the table insuperably convinced of his/her own correctness and of his/her immediacy in any debate or discussion. For example, the non-fuckhead will join a discussion cautiously, reading over the prior correspondance and offering an opinion thoughtfully. The fuckhead will come plowing in without regard to the established parameters of the debate and without regard to the existing participants.

The fuckhead, when challenged, will then state some fantastic-sounding credentials to justify and bolster the strong opinion. When challenged further, the fuckhead will usually display anger and refuse to further substantiate the presented credentials, some sort of “I already said so, and that should be good enough for you!”

At this point the Fuckhead has demonstrated an exaggerated sense of his/her own importance: He has presented an overriding opinion which, in the fuckhead’s mind, should be definitive and cease all debate, and the fuckhead will be unable to understand why the other Netizens will not accept his/her opinion on sight.

A Fuckhead Must Refuse to Abide By Common Social Rules

One of the most common traits of the on-line Fuckhead is the absolute refusal to follow common social rules. For example, the fuckhead will use racist or sexist terms, will use inappropriate references to bodily functions, or will otherwise not respect the rules of society.

Fuckheads will frequently use a persecution defense when they are asked to cease their antisocial behavior. They may claim that they are being singled out because of their unpopular viewpoints, or that they are victimized by the nebulous “political correctness” movement. These claims attempt to avoid the obvious cause of the challenge, which is the antisocial behavior itself, by demonizing the reaction to the behavior.

The Fuckhead’s refusal to abide by common social rules is therefore manifested. In the early chapters of history, such refusal to abide by the rules of the group would lead one to be unwelcome by the fire, or to be tarred and feathered. Now, though, it is just one more characteristic in the profile of the Fuckhead.

A Fuckhead Must Never Back Down When Caught In A Lie

It is so easy to obtain all sorts of facts on the modern Information Superhighway that it is hard to imagine anyone attempting to lie, simply because it is so easy to get caught in a lie and therefore have your credence demolished. That does not stop the on-line Fuckhead.

The on-line Fuckhead will lie about where he/she is, what he/she does, who he/she is, and what he/she knows. For example, a Fuckhead will claim to be an attorney, even though there are several on-line directories of attorneys which do not include the Fuckhead. A Fuckhead will claim to be in a certain geographic location but not be able to provide details such as the street on which he/she is located, yet the Internet provides many detailed maps and guidebooks and even services which tell you how to drive from your location to any address.

Yet this abundance of proof and truth does not deter the Fuckhead trait of mendacity. “I never said that,” claims the Usenet fuckhead, yet the Usenet archive can give you chapter, verse, and message ID. And, as befits the Fuckhead, when you challenge the Fuckhead and prove that the Fuckhead has lied, the Fuckhead will usually respond with a completely irrelevant ad-hominem attack. Such is the way of the Fuckhead.

A Fuckhead Must Keep Coming Back Without Mending His/Her Ways

“Don’t you ever learn?” This question is one of the most frequently asked of wayward children or oft-injured adults. But when asked of the Fuckhead, the answer is always, “No.” The Fuckhead does not learn.

“Why must you come where you’re not wanted?” This question has been asked of the socially deviant and challenged since the dawn of time. Yet the Fuckhead will keep coming back, over and over again.

The Fuckhead will defend his or her inflexibility by saying, “I have every right to my opinion,” and “I have every right to participate in this discussion.” And, in the egalitarian world of IRC and Usenet, the Fuckhead is correct. But the Fuckhead will find that other participants, who do not appreciate the Fuckhead’s presence or contributions, will make use of tools such as “Ignore” commands or killfiles. These tools would not exist if it weren’t for the Fuckheads.

You can count on the Fuckhead to shriek “Censorship!” when you tune out their input. You can count on the Fuckhead saying rude things about you when he/she is sure you’re no longer listening. But it will never occur to the Fuckhead to approach topics and people differently, and never, ever occur to the Fuckhead to avoid venues where the atmosphere is unfriendly. This inability to exit gracefully is a distinguishing mark of a Fuckhead.

A Fuckhead Will Change His/Her Beliefs To Suit The Situation

Fuckheads are dedicated to one cause, furtherance of self; and they are committed to only one opinion, superiority of self. All other causes and opinions are secondary to the Fuckhead. The non-Fuckhead may change his/her opinions from time to time, or support or abandon causes throughout life, these changes usually come about when new information is learned, or when circumstances change. The Fuckhead, however, changes opinions and causes as readily as a non-Fuckhead might change shirts.

A good example of this change of opinion was shown by a notorious net Fuckhead in relation to a specific issue. Originally, the Fuckhead held that unsolicited commercial e-mail was evil and a nuisance. The Fuckhead put himself on the record as holding that opinion on more than one occasion. However, when the Fuckhead and his Web site were dismissed from one ISP after another for rules violations, the only ISP left over which would host the Fuckhead’s Web page was a widely-reviled purveyor of unsolicited commercial e-mail. The Fuckhead then, as circumstances dictated, reversed his opinion on UCE and became a booster of that method of advertisement.

Fuckheads change friends as needs dictate, aligning themselves with and against other Fuckheads seemingly without regard to history or common sense. In fact, it is not uncommon for Fuckheads to be at war in one Usenet newsgroup and aligned in another. Rational people may agree to disagree, but the Fuckhead’s limited focus and lack of loyalty allow the Fuckhead to fight with friends and agree with foes so readily that there is almost no distinction between the two. But this changeability makes the individual an unworthy foe and an untrustworthy ally — and hence, a Fuckhead.

What Makes a Fuckhead?

The Fuckhead may display all of these characteristics, or some of them, or only one. Some may love a Fuckhead like a brother, some may think their brother is a Fuckhead. What is incontrovertible is that for all of humanity, there are people that you would rather not have to deal with, and those people, throughout history, are the Fuckheads.