Accountability's Hot, Anonymity's Not: Trumping the Trolls

The panel between J.R. Johnson from Lunch.com and Thomas Knoll, Community Manager was a discussion about "Trolls" contributing both anonymously and publicly, and how to deal with them as a members of the same global online community.
 

• What is a troll?

Someone who participates in an online community and disrupts (sometimes unintentionally) the conversation.
 

• What negative effects do trolls have on a community?

Tolerance for others (within the community) drastically declines when troll comments disrupts the nature of a conversation. When the environment shifts from postive to negative people get turned off and participation is directly affected. The result is a decline in community participation. 
 

• Is it possible for trolls to have a positive effects on a community?

The concensus: About 30% of the room have learned something from a troll online.
 

• As a community manager, how do you moderate disruptive comments (ethnic slurs, threats, etc.) without alienating the trolls completely?

• Next steps (action items when interacting online)?

We have to teach this new culture of online participants about how to deal with trolls in order to encourage responsible online participation.
 

Best / Worst Quotes

"If somone bullies you, pay them no mind."

"To anger someone is to own them."

"Freedom of speech is not speaking out on anyone's blog in any way you want." --JR Lunch

"This is going to be a keynote conversation at SXSW in two years (this is a conversation that more people are going to want to hear about)."