Trolls

  This article, by Cory Doctorow, taught me more about ways that online communities can reduce the amount of negativity that can be spread by internet “trolls”.  As well as how serious the “trolling” can be. The system he mentions, disemvoweling, created by Teresa Nielsen Hayden, seems like a creative and effective approach to discouraging “trolls” who post rude or inappropriate comments. It takes some of the power out of their words. Doctorow also helped me to understand some of the thoughts and goals behind the people who post the rude comments. That they either want everyone to talk about them or for no one to talk at all. They are basically just attention seeking out of boredom and dislike for the community or topic. He mentions the site, Friendster that attempted to get rid of "trolls" by limiting who could talk to who, but this doesn't seem as effective as people will always try to sneak through barriers to cause problems. The idea that people want to post negative comments just to get a rise out of others seems like such a strange idea to many of us who take part in online communities for fun and information. Some anger behind the "trolling" can be quite sad and irrational. 

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2276599/BAFTAs-2013-Anne-Hathaway-Amy-Adams-A-list-paint-black-sodden-BAFTAs-red-carpet.html

Sites such as Daily Mail, often have negative comments but use rating and reporting systems to attempt minimize the voices of "Trolls".

    The online community I am beginning to join is Tumblr. Due to it being image based, there is often a risk of inappropriate, rude or offensive pictures being posted. I have not seen much negative behaviour so far on Tumblr but I can also imagine offensive blogs being created and other bloggers' images being reblogged to other pages with rude comments. Tumblr has a list of guidelines which users must follow. In the image below, it explains how users can suspended for violating Tumblr's guidelines.

http://www.tumblr.com/policy/en/community