The good people at CFI have been getting spammed by the usual cranky suspects on twitter, so they have officially announced their policy for blocking people on twitter. It’s a good set of general rules, and is actually simple common sense: there are people out there who don’t recognize reasonable limits and use twitter for non-stop harassment. I personally am pretty liberal about blocking — with something like a hundred thousand followers, it’s fairly easy to get swamped with noise, and one person trying to dominate a conversation can really derail everything. As Fidalgo points out, “‘block and ignore’ is Twitter’s own advice about handling this kind of thing.”
There are six comments on the announcement so far. Would you believe every one of them is from a slymepitter whining bitterly about the policy? Yes, of course you would. When all they’ve got is “raw hectoring” and abuse to offer, of course they’re going to complain when someone declares that they won’t be listening to raw hectoring and abuse.
Please, everyone who hates me: BLOCK ME. I won’t mind, I won’t complain, it will be no problem at all.
Oh, what fun would that be, PZ? Goodness, denying them the right to harass and hound, why, why…Freeze Peach!
Damn, people can actually find things to bitterly complain about in the rules “don’t make derogatory and bigoted slurs,” “don’t harass us” and “don’t violate Twitter’s code of conduct”?
…I suppose I really shouldn’t be surprised.
How can any rational person accept these rules?! I must be able to threaten, harass, attack and otherwise terrorize people with tweets in order to be a perfectly rationale person! If I cannot express my rational rage with no limits on my behavior whatsoever, you are censoring me even though I am attempting to communicate on your channel and you might not want to deal with my sophomoric idiocy! GRRRRRR!!!!!!
I am always surprised that people don’t understand these concepts. If you don’t want to hear from someone, you have an absolute right to not listen. If someone doesn’t want to hear from you, don’t be surprised when they ignore you.
I guess decent people are so used to being polite, and assholes are so used to polite people tolerating them, that folks forget there are also acceptable times to ignore people.
But, but, butt, their FreezePeach means not only can they talk, but they must be listened to. Compared to Fee Speech, where you can talk, but nobody has to listen to your drivel if they don’t want to. Evidently the ‘pitters lack education in basic truths.
Yeah umm I don’t see a problem with the rules. Be a nice civil person and people won’t block you.
I don’t use Twitter, but it seems to me that people who like conversing in 140 characters could save a lot of time and trouble with some kind of automated shared block list. Does such a thing exist?
PZ Myers:
That’s the bit that creeps me out. Having a temper tantrum is one thing. Sustaining one for months at a time is baffling and disturbing.
You can publish lists of Twitter users for purposes of making following or blocking users easier. Interestingly, one of the squatters on the #ftbullies hash tag has a public list called “cunts” which in the usual bizarro mirror world of the slyme-pit, means that most of the people on the list are well worth following, rather than blocking.
I still can’t work out what the hell people are doing when they equate blocking on Twitter with repressing free speech.
Morans.
How much do I have to annoy you, until you’ll love me?
I know there are blog filters that can limit the rate of posts – i.e., the number a single contributor can make in a specific time period. That seems like it could be useful here. Doesn’t prevent any contributor from speaking, it just stops them from overwhelming the blog/feed.
Oooh, PitchGuest and Franc Hoggle. The champions of frozen peaches everywhere!
They repeat this like Christopher Hitchens was some sort of paragon.
Hairy Chris:
They have the mentality of toddlers who believe that not getting the last cookie is a tragic injustice. To them, free speech is whatever gives them the cookie. If they’re speaking, then others are obliged to provide a platform, and to listen. If people are rude back, then that’s harassment and bullying.
I dunno about everyone else, but I enjoyed that comment thread. I love the smell of pitter fauxtrage in the morning.
Speaking of smells, when will SpoiledNectar come on and complain? She’s probably my favorite, except I wish she’d admit what her real problem is: no bees wanna turn her into honey.
RahXephon:
Don’t make comments like that. Just don’t.
Right. Criticize Scented Nectar because she’s dull and dumb.
Caine, spare me.
I don’t think she’s just dull and dumb, I think she’s a horrible human being, like all the pitters. I think that’s worth one insult a year, and I used up my quota on a pretty fucking tame one.
RahXephon:
I’ve been neck deep in a thread with extreme rape apologia going on, for close to 2 days now. I’m in no mood for your shit comment amounting to “oh, she’s ___ because she can’t get laid”. That’s fucking garbage, no matter who you’re talking about, and I’m no fucking fan of SN, she’s an awful excuse for a human being. That in no way excuses the utter shit you vomited up.
My comment had nothing to do with sex. Jesus Christ.
You know what, this isn’t a hill I wanna die on. I’m sorry I made that comment, Caine. I didn’t mean it to be sexist, but apparently it was.
I still think SN is a horrible human being. Can I at least just say that? Cuz she is. Horrible, horrible, horrible.
Isn’t it an Internet rule that complaining about a blocking policy is the easiest way to get oneself blocked?
Mike,
erm. what do you think “no bees wanna turn her into honey” means? because from here, it looks like a floral euphemism for “no one wants to fuck her”
Actually, it was supposed to be a pun on her name, because I pictured her being swarmed by bees and it amused me. But that doesn’t matter because intent isn’t magic and all so I apologized for my comment above.
I think we all agree that she’s a horrible human being. Or a Rheum Inhaler Gibbon, to anagramatize it so she can understand what I said.
RahXephon:
Thank you, I really appreciate that.
Yes, as much as you wish. I have no argument with that whatsoever. She’s a terrible excuse for a human being.
PZ:
:Stashes this away for later use:
Again, I’m sorry, Caine. I seriously did just imagine her being swarmed by bees in an Eddie Izzard-ish sort of way. I didn’t consider the possible ways it could’ve been read. The only thing I can say is that I haven’t commented here or, indeed, lots of places in a long time and I’m out of practice.
It does sound like a “she can’t get laid” comment, but it could also be easily taken as “she has no friends.”
RahXephon, I’m sorry for being so harsh. This other thread has me ragged and seriously on edge. I shouldn’t have transferred all that onto your comment.
@Caine, it’s okay, I understand. Post-Thread Anger Transference is something I know far too well. It’s why I took so much time off from so many blogs, because I knew I’d eventually start breaking dishes and that just isn’t in the budget right now.
Scented Nectar is weird more than anything. Perhaps there’s some in-joke I’m not getting, but she apparently spliced together someone else’s video, to make it sound as if that person had inserted a mouse into her vagina, and then filmed an eight minute long video of her disgusted reaction:
Damnit! I didn’t realize that the comment software would embed the video. I apologize.
Quite the Catch-22, isn’t it?
“Here’s the kind of crap people tweet at me: [cut-and-paste of obnoxious vile stuff]”
“You need to learn to ignore the trolls instead of feeding them!”
“I just blocked a bunch of obnoxious trolls”
“You’re inhibiting dissent! FREEZE PEACH!!!!1111!!”
I don’t do twitter and probably never will, but CFI was right to establish a policy as a group or organization. Set rules are better than “seat of the pants” spot judgements.
Second : is it me, or is the average pitter equipped with the IQ of a bunch of grapes ?
Comment #5 on the CFI site is the one that’s given me serious lulz.
Awww, poor poor Oliver wants to be able to use the n-word and the c-word. *cries tears of sorrow for his loss of freeze peach*
Also, looks like someone doesn’t know was a rad-fem is!
But, but, but … they own your brain’s attention centre and can tweak it when they wish!
Screechymonkey @ 36:
Oh, gods, this.
I wonder what kind of correlation there is between the “ignore the trolls” crowd and the “OMG blocking = Nazis!!1” crowd. My initial thought is that it’s approaching 1:1.
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Hypothetical musing: if (IF!) a rational, non-pit skeptic (or group of same) pursued a dedicated campaign of slurs, misrepresentation, and general following-around-the-web-snarking-at-everything-posted against a Slurry-Pitter, what do you think the Pitter’s reaction would be?
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In other words, how exactly would a Pitter react to a Pit-style campaign that lasted for fucking YEARS? Would they respect the apparent absolute rights of Freeze Peach possessed by their opponent and let them have at it, patiently and with unimpeachable dignity answering each and every question and challenge and demand for evidence!!!11, no matter how spurious, childish, petulant and repetitive – no matter how unwilling their challenger was to actually view said evidence or comprehend their arguments, no matter how many times their answers were ignored only to have the JAQ-off questions repeated again, by the same person or by someone else? Or would they seek avenues to avoid such fucking pointless and irritating engagements, including blocking or banning – hang the accusations of “Z0Mg censorship!!”?
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/rhetorical question
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A blog/site/twitter/facebook is as much a private arena as a house or office: you have as much right to lock the doors and bar the windows as you do on a physical piece of property. If people keep knocking on your door or standing on your lawn and haranguing you through your window, you have the right to lock the gate and keep those people the fuck out on the street. In fact, in the Real World (which, according to some online geniuses, is the only place where Things and Words Matter), if some piece-of-shit kept visiting your house or office to harangue you about an argument you were no longer interested in having and wouldn’t accede to your request to be left alone, you’d consider a call to the cops.
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In short: fuck your claim to “free speech” – that ends at my front yard. And my inbox, wall, feed, comment threads…
Exactly what I was thinking, mandrellian. My house, my rules.
@hyperdeath #8
I’m attempting to create something like that on Twitter with the #BlockSaturday (#BS) hashtag. It is like #FollowFriday (#FF), except, you know, the opposite.
The comment thread on the CFI page was slowly destroying my faith in humanity… then at #7 a commenter called “oolon” responds to their douchebaggery and from there on in it seems to be all uphill :) so that was nice.