[TriLUG] Code of Conduct

[Steve Litt]

On Monday 13 August 2007 09:50, James Olin Oden wrote:
> On 8/13/07, Alan Porter <porter at trilug.org> wrote:
> >  > The TriLUG code of conduct is licensed under...
> >
> > To me, this seems just plain silly.
>
> Alan you took the word right out of my mouth.  Honestly if you need a
> code of conduct for your members to resolve issues amongst themselves
> then this organization is doomed.

Hi everyone,

I'm somewhat of an authority on this subject because I've seen, up close and 
personal, two different LUGs get forked because of trolls and the LUGs' 
inability to shut up the trolls and/or control the damage. Allow me some 
observations...

Many voiced viewpoints similar to James' "if you need a code of conduct for 
your members to resolve issues amongst themselves then this organization is 
doomed." This would be true if huge swaths of the membership were trolls, but 
that's never the case. The rules are intended to control the tiny minority 
who repeatedly insult others. The rules are so loose that they have no effect 
on reasonable list members.

Some have responded that "we're all adults here". My response is this:

s/here/here, at least for the time being/

The time for rules is before the really nasty troll begins deficating on the 
list, because if you enact the rules after, the troll starts whining about 
preferential treatment, and we all know that whining is what trolls do best.

In summary, the rules aren't for the vast majority of the members, they're for 
that one selfish individual who feels no remorse about dismantling an 
excellent organization in order to have the last word and hurl the nastiest 
insult.

Normal list members should not take the existence of the rules personally, the 
rules are not intended for them, but instead intended to shut up the 
professional troll, and do it in a nondiscriminatory way.

Here are the mailing list rules for my current LUG, GoLUG:

http://www.golug.net/mailinglists.html

As you can see, those rules are easily followed by anyone having the slightest 
social awareness.

At least one person argued against the possibility of banishment. Take it from 
me -- for the nastiest trolls, banishment is the only way to save the list, 
because no matter how much such people promise to be nice from now on, they 
go back to insulting and garbaging up the list.

Just to repeat, I've seen two excellent LUGs fork because of trolls. I put my 
time and sweat into building both those LUGs, and a tiny number of people 
ripped them down. In one case the original LUG died.

Here's how a troll destroys a list. He or she repeatedly insults a member 
until that member no longer brings his friends to the LUG. After all, why 
have your friends here how ignorant, biggoted, incompetent and stupid you 
are. If the insulted individual is a strong leader, he or she creates a 
competing LUG. Otherwise he or she slinks off out of LUGdom. Either way, the 
troll finds another victim and starts again. This continues, over and over 
again. The LUG loses members and sooner or later a fork happens, and most 
members of the original LUG are blissfully unaware until disaster strikes.

From my experience, to forego list rules is to place control of your LUG in 
the hands of the nastiest and most childish people roaming the net, and those 
people always manage to find and inhabit the lists without rules.

SteveT