Subj : Re: Back at it
To   : Abbub
From : Dr. What
Date : Sat Apr 29 2023 08:43:02

-=> Abbub wrote to Adept <=-

 Ab> I think CompuServ at it's peak was...3 or 4 million? I think AOL was 10
 Ab> times that. AOL *definitely* had its fair share of trolls, but I think
 Ab> in both cases it wasn't quite the same as it is today.

Compu$erve had a fairly steep learning curve for the time as well as a pretty
steep cost.  That kept most of the trolls out.

AOhelL was intended to be easy to learn and was much cheaper, hence more
trolls.

That was the only place I had a troll directly attack me.  tl;dr; He goaded me
over many weeks.  I responded nicely, but he wore me down and I told him off. 
He threatened to "complain and get me kicked off".  When I told him that I kept
a record of all the messages he sent, he was gone.  Probably off to bother
someone else.

But that gets us to something like Facebook.  Easy to use.  Cost $0.  That
immediately allows huge numbers of trolls.  But Facebook doesn't do much about
them because on Facebook, we, the users, are the product and they deliver our
eyeballs to the advertisers.

They want as many people on their platform as possible and only hold the trolls
down to the point where others don't leave.

I think a good number of us can remember no longer calling a certain BBS
anymore because the trolls were out of control.


.... You will be the victim of a bizarre joke.
___ MultiMail/Linux v0.52

--- Mystic BBS/QWK v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
 * Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

.