
Handling Attacks on a Community - Tomte
https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/814508/3f797d78d0816a08/
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probably_wrong
I've been to several workshops on abusive language, and I have yet to find
someone with a clear, concrete, actionable idea on how to deal with abuse in
online communities effectively. IMHO, what makes this problem particularly
difficult is that, in order to tackle it, you need to...

* ...have a successful community, otherwise there is no attack to care about. And it's not like you can release an entire community's data for research either.

* ...be willing to explore newer alternatives, including the type of rules that slow down your growth metrics and/or get people screaming about free speech.

* ...be aware of current solutions (shadowbanning, moderation, COC, earned privilege, etc), knowing their pros and cons, and being aware that the best approaches are often kept intentionally vague or even in secret.

* ...have the time, energy, and knowledge to explore this problem in depth.

I'm personally a fan of earned privileges (as in HN, where downvoting requires
some karma), but this is only viable if you're willing to inconvenience your
members a bit (a point made in the linked summary [1]).

[1] [https://lwn.net/ml/debian-
project/tslo8tgge89.fsf@suchdamage...](https://lwn.net/ml/debian-
project/tslo8tgge89.fsf@suchdamage.org/)

