Hector Martin

That's the thing though, back in the day the Internet was largely a series of small, to some extent manageable, moderated communities. It's only recently that massive global unmoderated shared spaces are a thing. "Don't feed the troll" doesn't work with those.

I mean even in the past decade or so, my time with console hacking, IRC trolling was rarely a problem. We had zero-tolerance policies about things. It's the larger, loosely moderated forums and communities like gbatemp (and now Twitter) where shit got (and gets) nasty.

You should read the article, there's a lot to be said about "back in my day" thought. There were a few gems, but the reality is this mentality has been a thing long before mass scale social media, and it won't change without a pivot in thought.

I'm still reading it, but my point is that yes, people have always been assholes, but the "don't feed the troll [and wait for an admin to kick them]" formula worked back in the days of small communities. The second part is important.

I'd say actively seek an admin rather than wait for one. Consider also that your view of how things used to be is filtered through a lens of privilege. Not all the assholes were removed or called out.

Priviledge? More like, just which community you happened to be in :P And it depends, in some communities I am in admins are relatively ever-present and it was considered bad to poke them because it also gives the troll attention. But of course if they are less active, poke them.

No, by privilege I mean the prestige that comes with, for instance, being viewed as someone responsible for the existence of a community. The privilege of not being a target for some obnoxious "jokes"

That isn't exactly a privilege. You get a lot more shit for being involved and "running things". Anyway, yes, I meant ping an admin and wait for them to show up. That's how it always worked in IRC.