Keith Devens .com

Is there also going to be an editorial policy for lame Hamlet parodies?

Heh, I knew you'd hate that.

I should just delete all of this... it's all lame. But of course I won't because I have some irrepressible impulse for archiving things.

I suppose, if I can label something a troll, then I should just delete it. But my evaluation would be different if that post was actually current. There's the rub.

I figured you'd have put that up knowing I'd respond in kind by now. It's the kind of set-up I can't refuse.

Besides, I am a fairly big literature geek, as you probably know, so butchering what is widely considered the most profound speech in what is widely considered to be the greatest literary work in the western world is right up there with oh, I dunno, something really bad, like eating babies.

Of course, I personally am not much of a fan of Shakespeare, and I'm sick of Hamlet, but my personal taste does not cloud the objective analysis of it, and I can't deny that it's a masterpiece.

Anyway, to actually put forth a useful idea (as I have been known to do, from time to time), if you are concerned about taking flak Dave Winer style for deleting comments and such, why don't you have a filter option?

To clarify...
You mark a post as a troll, and it shows up with a light red background instead of your usual light gray, so it is set off as a troll. You can also mark it as a "troll" in the timestamp designation at the bottom of the post.

This, of course, is open to a number of categories (you could make a light green bg for "interesting" comments and so forth), and you can call them whatever you want.

Then, in the comment/item/thread view page thing you can have checkboxes there that say "View Off Topic Posts" or "View Trolls" and "View Regular Posts" and "View Interesting Posts" and so on... put this at the bottom in a box called "Comment Preferences" and make sure there is an anchor link there. At the top of the comment page have a link called "Change my Comment Preferences" (or some variant) that jumps them to the bottom. Obviously, these prefs would be saved in a cookie.

Now, if someone really wants to see everything, they will be able to, including yourself... but it also allows you to filter out trolls, or bring out posts that you feel are especially interesting and/or poignant.

But the trolls are amusing! By all means delete spam and really off topic stuff (a similar policy to mark) but leave the fools!

What does "troll" mean in this day and age? Is it someone who deliberately posts viewpoints that they don't agree in to get a rise out of people, or someone who posts views that you don't agree with?

My policy is to delete commercial spam and stuff that's just an offensive attack (i.e. posts of the form "You're a ****"). Anything else can stay - I leave analysis of the comments up to the judgement of the reader.

I'm with Simon on this one. Thankfully I've yet to have a major troll - my Blog just doesn't get that much traffic :-)

Hm, I actually don't see why the person was trolling? Ok, he left a comment on a blog entry which is ten months old, but if you don't want comments on old entries, set up a maximum timespan in which one can post comments. And close the discussion (à la diveintomark) afterwards.

Argh, reached the submit button to soon and did not see that the cookie didn't exist anymore... the post above comes from me, not from some amateur troll.

Other then you not agreeing with him (shock of shocks), it doesn't stand out as anything particularly noteworthy. If your going to talk politics and religion and leave comments open then be surprised with dissenting opinions (even poorly worded ones) why bother? Hate to say it but your being very black and white again (no bad pun intended).

if you don't want comments on old entries, set up a maximum timespan in which one can post comments

I actually prefer to leave them open. I've gotten at least one useful continuation of a past discussion I can remember, and to me it's worth having to delete many trolls if it means I might get one insightful comment elsewhere. I'm not keen on any method of auto-expiring. My policy has been that if I get a post that for whatever reason gets a high Google ranking and attracts a lot of annoying comments then I'll close just that one post, and that's worked fine so far.

A major reason I'd classify this particular commenter as a troll is because he broke what I consider to be a rule of weblog etiquette and commented on an old post, particularly one with no comments. Importantly, he had nothing substantive to add, and his poor grammar, illogic, and "neener neener neener" attitude made me consider it a troll. If it was on a new entry, it'd probably cross the line from being trolly to just being annoying

What does "troll" mean in this day and age? Is it someone who deliberately posts viewpoints that they don't agree in to get a rise out of people, or someone who posts views that you don't agree with?

I've always said views I don't agree with are very welcome. Something crosses into troll territory when something is said just to annoy. Rather than arguing out of a spirit of wanting to get at the truth or to present a viewpoint others might not have thought of, trolls are just time wasters. They can be identified because they usually don't care enough about their own argument (like the commenter in question) to present something logical or grammatical, or to identify who they are therefore and stand behind their words. First and foremost, they're rarely polite

Bean, all of your ideas are neat (as usual), but I'd need to have much larger comment traffic to warrant something like that. If I had that many comments, I'd probably want to change lots of things, like making commments threadable

Anything else can stay - I leave analysis of the comments up to the judgement of the reader.

I like that approach, and it's one that I apply on my site. The main issue here is that it's an old post. The way I look at it, if you're going to comment on an old post, your comment had better be relevant. For instance, if someone left a comment saying "By the way, here's the text of the following Supreme Court decision on this, and here's a link to what Bush said in response to their decision", I'd think that was awesome because it's completely relevant and helpful. If someone wanted to make an argument honestly, I'd accept that too, but more grudgingly because "the moment has passed" and all. But in future cases like this, where the comment is on an old post and doesn't pass the following tests:

• relevant
• polite
• logical and grammatical (as much as you can expect on the Internet)
• not said largely to annoy
• the person put their name behind what they said, rather than an annoying moniker like "pissed off"

I'll most likely delete it. There we go, now I have a policy. Thanks for your comments, all.

Well, I like to think big.

Who knows, if your little secret project takes off, you might see a spike in comment traffic.

Something crosses into troll territory when something is said just to annoy. Rather than arguing out of a spirit of wanting to get at the truth or to present a viewpoint others might not have thought of, trolls are just time wasters.

Thanks - that definition makes a great deal of sense.