> Are you saying I was not around during the time periods discussed?

I wouldn't presume. Such assumptions are the OP's game, not mine.

> most of it is just vague dismissals

That's simply untrue. I was quite specific about how trolling was different, about the distinction between what users should do vs. what administrators, and why they should be different. Far more specific than you have been. Apparently an imagined slight in one or two sentences prevented you from reading the rest before you replied, but that's not the same as it not being there.

> People who weren't online in an earlier time should probably refrain from making statements about how it was different

> But some of their and your facile generalizations about the past are still rather amusing.

Would you care to contextualize these statements in a manner that upon first, second, or third reading doesn't qualify as assumptions and/or general grand standing?

I concur. The author of the piece was there, which passes notacoward's (IMO too-)strict requirement that those who were not there should not talk about it.

I also think the author's description of '"gatekeeper" behavior' is a good description of this view point.

Going back to notacoward's comments, starting with "trolling back in the Usenet was generally less serious back then".

1993 is when one of my students tried to email me a death threat anonymously. Yes, I know email isn't Usenet. I bring it up because one of the negatives of looking through one's personal experience is that past often looks rosier than it was. So much of it is new, and you don't know what's happening with others.

I think the author already addressed notacoward's comment with:

> But what everyone really remembers about these proverbial times isn’t their purity. It’s how they didn’t see the big deal back then. They remember how they felt a sense of permission, a belief that it was all okay. But that was only true for those who were like them, who thought exactly like they did. All the while, someone else was getting stepped on and bullied while others laughed. The story of the internet has always been the same story: disaffected young men thinking their boorish and cruel behavior was justified or permissible.

I think the author also addressed notacoward's comment "you could leave or even come back under another name" by quoting Quinn: “The internet was my home, and treating it like a magical alternate dimension where nothing of consequence happens was insulting. Telling a victim of a mob calling for their head online to not go online anymore is like telling someone who has a hate group camped in their yard to just not go outside.”

Notacoward also proposes "administrators need to take a more active approach". This is also what the author proposes, saying:

> “Don’t feed the trolls” also ignores an obvious method for addressing online abuse: skilled moderation and the willingness to kick people off platforms for violating rules about abuse. At one website I used to write for, everyone constantly remarked that we had the most amazing, thoughtful commenters. How did we achieve this? Easy: a one-strike policy.

Notacoward wrote "but some of their and your facile generalizations about the past are still rather amusing."

Would you care to point out some of those facile generalizations about the past? I started on BITNET with Listserv back in 1989, so I am also a member of the old-fogey/pre-Eternal September club. I didn't see anything which came close to an amusing generalization.

And yes, I remember the trolls calling for "free speech" even back then, as cover to permit continued abusive behavior.

> one of the negatives of looking through one's personal experience

So your anecdote trumps mine? Sorry, but no. Sounds like you had a worse-than-normal experience. That's bad, but it doesn't change the fact that the environment at the time didn't lend itself to serious trolling. There was less persistence or verification of identity, for example. Finding out who "Alba Troll" on M-Net was, or "Burrito" on LambdaMOO, would have been non-trivial, and so would finding an address for that person (me BTW). Now just about anyone can find my real name on Facebook, and map that real name to a real address, in seconds. That's a huge difference. What's funny is that we're having this discussion on HN, under pseudonyms, which makes it much more like the old 'net than a lot of other places. And not surprisingly, the rampant trolling here has a different flavor than the trolling elsewhere.

"So your anecdote trumps mine?"

How well did you understand what was happening with other people back then? My anecdote was meant to show that perhaps your knowledge wasn't as broad as you might have thought.

I'll quote from the 1993 paper "Gender Swapping on the Internet", at http://public.callutheran.edu/~chenxi/Phil350_132.pdf to give an idea of how even back then women might feel like they needed to hide their gender in order to prevent unwanted attention from anonymous people:

> "Back when I had time for MUD, I, too, played female characters. I found it extraordinarily interesting. It gave me a slightly more concrete understanding of why some women say, "Men suck." It was both amusing and disturbing."

> Female characters are often besieged with attention. By typing using the who command, it is possible to get a list of all characters logged on. The page command allows one to talk to people not in the same room. Many male players will get a list of all present, and then page characters with female names. Unwanted attention and sexual advances create an uncomfortable atmosphere for women in MUDs, just as they do in real life.

> ... Male characters often expect sexual favors in return for technical assistance. A male character once requested a kiss from me after answering a question. A gift always incurs an obligation. Offering technical help, like picking up the check at dinner, can be used to try to purchase rather than win a woman's favor. While this can be subtle and sometimes overlooked in real life, in MUDs it is blatant, directly experienced by most, and openly discussed in public forums such as this USENET discussion.

No, these are not examples of trolling per se, nor is it meant to trump your statement. It is meant to re-enforce my question "How well did you understand what was happening with other people back then?"

"which makes it much more like the old 'net than a lot of other places"

Umm, HN has a strong moderator presence here, like https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang . That's rather different than "the old 'net", yes? (To be certain, there were moderated BBses and MUDs even back then too. But that's not what you were talking about.)

> I'll quote from the 1993 paper "Gender Swapping on the Internet"

...for which I was interviewed and quoted BTW. I was present for many of the other events Bruckman has written about, and was a principal target/victim/whatever in one. Ditto for Turkle.

> "How well did you understand what was happening with other people back then?"

See above.

Now that we have established our bona fides, let's get back to kadenshep's comment. You originally wrote:

> People who weren't online in an earlier time should probably refrain from making statements about how it was different, just as people who weren't actually at a company, in a battle, etc. should refrain from making statements about how it was for the participants.

To whom was your comment directed? To the author of the article? But the author clearly states "I was there in 1993, too, equal parts young, naïve, and shy, but so damn excited about the idea of suddenly communicating with people around the world."

The author also brings up the concept of 'gatekeeper behavior', saying:

> ... his esteem rests on the fact that he knows certain things that others do not. Like all gatekeeper behavior, it was ostensibly a check on the credibility of the target. Also like all gatekeeper behavior, it wasn’t really about whether or not someone passes the test, but rather the gatekeeper feeling like they can control what is true and not true about the subject. Alas for him, I was there in 1993, too, equal parts young, naïve, and shy, but so damn excited about the idea of suddenly communicating with people around the world.

I read kadenshep's comment "I think your view point is directly addressed in the article." in that context. That is, it's easy to interpret what you wrote as gatekeeper behavior.

This of course can also be poisoning-the-well sort of argument, as it is hard to address by simply saying "From my own experience". Which is all that you did.

You still have not pointed out some of those facile generalizations about the past that kadenshep made.