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I wrote about the new dynamics of online harassment and why "don't feed the trolls" might be outdated advice: https://diegoe.be/2025/07/01/the-new-troll-diet/
@diegoe One star is just not enough here. Thanks for writing this up!
@chergert You are too kind! :)
@diegoe this isn’t a disagreement, more of a vent. I feel like we lost an important level of categorization when “trolling” stopped being, like, make an offhand remark about editors that you knew would goad some overly invested emacs and vi users into an argument.
An occasional bit of that trolling; fine. Being a troll and doing it constantly; annoying but can possibly be discouraged or made invisible by not engaging. Harassment, directed or by through open racism, sexism, etc? Very different thing, with “I was just trolling” as a defense along the lines of “it was just a joke”. It was still a racist joke! People were right to be offended by it! That’s very different from sitting back and saying “yeah, maybe I do get a bit too heated about tabs vs spaces, you got me”.
Like, in practical terms the shift has happened, but I think there’s a lot of value in calling this “trolling” harassment as you do here. There’s enough of the old meaning left that calling it trolling feels minimizing to me, if that makes sense.
@diegoe having been using online forums since the BBS days of the 1980s, it's always been the case that you must loudly tell trolls "F#ck off, you're not welcome here." I suppose that's the same idea behind the Nazi bar story.
@diegoe Very funny after @fmuellner, GNOME maintainer, saying that "the feeling [butthurt] isn't as widely shared as you may think" to me.
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/8502
@ivanstepanovftw @fmuellner it seems that's just a reply to your comment about something in shell being "a butthurt". so i'd suggest taking it with the same jest that you seem to have meant 
@diegoe @fmuellner I just want to contribute to make my life easier, for free, no charge. I am not even getting paid from Red Hat for contribution to GNOME. Instead of discussing and suggesting valid acceptable design they discuss funny word they saw on the internet.
@ivanstepanovftw Jonas had already pointed you an acceptable solution that would solve your need (moving the algorithm to shell, so you can override it with an extension). You replying with a reproach for "no one wants to redesign this since 2003" is like me reproaching you for deciding to fix this instead of any other of MY personal issues with gnome-shell. Follow Jonas advice and you'll get the satisfaction of making a difference for you and surely many others
@diegoe this is a really good piece! amazing work
i've struggled with this exact difference in moderation approach before and seen projects evolve towards what you describe here, so great to have something to point to that explains the difference
@cas thank you! I had noticed these trends too but couldn't put it into words except "vibes". I'm glad I was finally able to explain myself
@diegoe
Spot on. The feeding metaphor also referred to engaging in debate with trolls since they take on different masks to bait someone into reacting. Telling them to fuck off in some manner (as the author here suggests) and then not engaging beyond that is more like being a sage perhaps, since this also models effective behavior for others.
@HeliosPi Yes! Eventually you simply have to model a behavior for others to feel comfortable setting strong boundaries. It also shows outsiders they won't catch you being naive
@diegoe Thank you.
@diegoe thanks so much for the text!
I keep suggesting to people setting up rules for their communities, that the specific rules don't matter. What matters is on what people out act on and what behavior you accept.
And nobody is entitled to get a proper explanation either. It shouldn't be the responsibility of mods to teach proper manners.
Reasonable people will listen and accept wrong doings, unreasonable ones will "debate bro" the issue and just be nasty about it.
@karolherbst Yeah. You have to be selective about who you engage, what you let slide and what to immediately cut off. It's hard to put these kinds of "vibe checks" into rules or guidelines