I take the bad (abundant, obnoxious, filthy-mouthed, ignorant trolls) with the good, or the good (Arianna’s fierce smarts and many thoughtful guests) with the bad.

youkillednoodle @
10

Please ask Ms Huffington why she had a “home-grown” troll on her site attacking invited posters. Then ask her why she decided to ditch the poster rather than punish the troll in her employ. Could it be said troll was supposed to be stirring up the masses to increase page views?

Just asking.

You can’t be serious?

Very true. Although I don’t know whether it counts as “trolling.” I saw it as bullying, plain and simple.

I just happened to catch the end of the uproar, and went back to read what led up to it. Whether or not the contributor’s posts were off-topic, weird, whatever, HuffPo handled it extremely poorly. The upshot was that their tech guy was posting bullying/hectoring comments (without identifying himself as a HuffPo employee) on every (or just about every) post that contributor submitted. When the contributor began investigating who this individual was, he found the connection, and posted that information of HuffPo. Then the fireworks were on. The contributor was unceremoniously dumped.

Thus began a round of bullying and mobbing that the GOP would have been proud of. I sent a comment in to Arianna’s partner in starting the site, referring him to a number of sites describing those phenomena and telling him it’s to be expected that a whistleblower would be a bit “odd” psychologically, and that whether or not he “liked” the techie in question, it remained an ethical lapse to post as though he were “just one of the crowd,” especially since his comments would likely appear first in line and therefore get voted up by the numerous RW trolls. Never showed up (imagine that!)

They did change the rules for rating up comments after that — now you have to log (as if to actually comment) to do so. One thing that came out of the pitched battle was that contributors to HuffPo apparently had (have?) access to the personal information of commenters – can track ISPs or whatever, which is more than a little disturbing.

As an aside, yeah, the posts in question were very strange and people had complained, apparently. (They always sounded odd to me, so I had never before read any of his posts other than in his area of expertise) However, allowing an employee to (admittedly) bully an invited contributor without any consequence is pretty disappointing for a progressive website.

Furthermore, you’d think they wouldn’t need me to tell them about the psychological issues of whistleblowers. Of course he is what many would term “paranoid” (really “hypervigilant”) it’s a symptom of Complex PTSD, suffered by many whistleblowers.

All that said, youkillednoodle could well be the contributor in question — the one post of theirs remaining reads a lot like his allegations posted at HuffPo. I think the concept of mobbing explains the situation better than pimping for page views. The guy needs help, not abuse that exacerbates his problems.

Finally, I weighed in on this simply to clear up the question. Out of respect to our hosts and other readers here, Arianna’s appearance at the book salon is not an appropriate forum to raise these issues, per the guidelines re: no non-book issues in those threads.

And now back to your regularly scheduled late-night programming….

My one-time best friend worked for A, for a while in the 80s. KerryK often bitched about her and the rest of the family, but being cranky and honest was part of his M.O.

Fast forward (but still in the mid-80s): Ariana is in SF (where I live) co-hosting a party at the Getty’s (yeah) and (obviously KK had everything to do with it) I got an invitation. I tossed it out; I don’t go to parties at the Getty’s… jeebus.

Fast fast forward: I didn’t RSVP, told KK I couldn’t possibly go and the next thing you know I’m on the phone WITH Ariana. Talk about GRACIOUS! Talk about CONVINCING!

Yes, I did go. Super stellar cast. I remained, for the most part, frozen in a corner admiring the knick-knacks, paralyzed, speechless (and I can talk, believe me).

Well, this memory of A got me through the M. Huff days (couldn’t quite believe it, you know). I’m a fan forever. She’s big. She’s real. And so fucking smart.

But you already know that.

Cheers, Ariana.

I considered the George Clooney episode a character-revealing situation for AH. (I’ll stop there.) Since then, I go elsewhere for my daily mind-stretching and snark-polishing exercises.

Respectfully submitted…

I’ve mostly been avoiding HuffPo. Far too many right-wing trolls, every time I’ve been there. Wading through that crsp to read the handful of intelligent comments is not worth my time.

angie @ 176

Jenny from the Blog @ 167

I’ve never tried to comment at HuffPo but wow, she must have a buncha moderators… that’s a pretty big site to monitor so closely.

sometimes, it takes hours… but, it can be worth the wait.

ha! I could never wait for something like that. I only comment here and even that amount of time is guilt-inducing. :)

this is why I comment ‘ere (mostly)

And Samantha Bee is making delicious fun of nanotech, but it really is the future hehe. Very promising technology that will be just as revolutionary as using iron tools and stuff.