Why was James Finn banned?

Home - Quora Link

The Peterloo Massacre occurred at St Peter's Field, Manchester, England, on 16 August 1819, when cavalry charged with sabres drawn into a crowd of 60–80,000 who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation. 15 people were killed and 4–700 were injured. The massacre was named Peterloo in ironic comparison to the Battle of Waterloo, which had taken place four years prior.

The crowd of villagers were demanding representation, a reprieve from poor economic conditions. All they wanted to send an MP up to Westminster so they could make some deals and put Manchester on the map. The demonstration was extraordinarily peaceful, literally the whole town was there.

Instead they got caught up in the prevailing political winds, and hotheads ruled the day. The cavalry unit that charged into the crowd was a newly formed branch of yeomen, citizens of means who procured their own equipment so they could be of service. They were itching for a fight and wanted to crack heads.

The point I’m trying to make in all this is that if you’re in the crowd, and angry hotheads with horses and swords come charging down, you do not have any control over the situation. Your only option is to remain above the fray, because these guys will ruin your day.

The cardinal rule of cultivating an audience on social media is never feed the trolls. The trolls are smart in their stupidity. They don’t care about your day. They don’t care about the subtleties of issues. They don’t care about your fight. They don’t care about your town. When 15 people are brutally killed, they will cheer rather than be sad. Trolls don’t care. Don’t feed them. You will never get anything out of it and you’re just giving a troll what he wants.

Quora, and any other social media platform, simply cannot devote the resources needed to moderate to the perfect expectations of the people using the platform. It’s not a question of hiring more moderators. You can draw up a list of requirements, then ask your similarly-minded buddy for his list of requirements, and then you’ll both get into a long discussion about what the rules really should be.

All they can do is set some guidelines and enforce them as fairly as they have the resources for. The rules aren’t going to be easy for everyone to follow. Yes, trolls are going to take advantage of the scarcity of moderation resources to drive outcomes that suit themselves more than justice. People think this it’s Quora’s fault for not having saner rules and devoting more resources to stamping out trolling.

But there’s no way Quora can win. Trolls are more numerous, they’re nimbler, and they don’t have an angry mob of Top Writers to keep happy.

Not feeding the trolls isn’t some Gadotish bureaucratic nonsense. It’s basic Internet 101. If you can’t learn how to do it, then you will eventually bounce out of every social media platform you try to join. It doesn’t matter how often people stand up for you. All you’ll be left with is the platform you create, and the audience you cultivate. And then you’ll have to deal with the trolls there too.

Because when you feed trolls, you lower yourself to their level.