BEWARE: TROLLS SIGHTED!

Beware: Trolls sighted! Is your Facebook community a cluttered habitat?

A mixed methods content and textual analysis of two LARP Facebook groups

Derrick Ferry

MacEwan University

BCSC 203: Assignment #3B

Instructor: Marlene Wurfel

December 5th, 2016

BEWARE: TROLLS SIGHTED! 2

Abstract

I decided to observe two Facebook groups, which are dedicated to provoking discussion

about LARP (live action role playing). These virtual communities of practice (VCoP) are two

groups that share the same ideology, but have different methods of implementing them. I

undertook a content analysis of all comments in October 2016 in each group and completed a

textual analysis of comments that were made by trolls, moderators, gawkers (drama point), and

frustrated individuals. I wanted to see if this clutter affected communication between members

of the community. One of the communities turned out to be filled with clutter (off point and

neutral posts) while the other community was considered clean (more on point than off). The

clean community had no troll sightings, while the cluttered community should have posted up a

“BEWARE: There be Trolls” sign. The discussion section lays out my suggested four-point troll

habitat scale, a discussion about the drama point, and finally a look into what moderators can do

to keep their communities clean, but not too clean.

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Introduction

Have you ever been part of an online discussion forum where the pieces of relevant

information are buried deeply underneath the clutter of nonsense posts? I have, and I hate it. I

think all of this clutter causes disruptions in our ability to communicate effectively in these forums. I

decided to take the first steps in determining if I was correct. Is it the clutter that causes a disruption

in communication? Is it possible that the clutter is part of the reason internet trolls feel empowered

to creep out and wreak havoc? Are there techniques that could be developed to assist moderators in

cleaning up clutter? I chose two LARP (live action role-playing) Facebook groups. One of them is

like a National Geographic special; it’s clear, concise, straight to the point, entertaining in its own

way, and generally friendly. The other is something akin to an episode of the CW’s latest

supernatural teen drama (I prefer the Vampire Diaries). I also hypothesis that if there’s enough

clutter then the trolls will tiptoe out-to-play from under the bed, and these aren’t happy trolls with

neon coloured hair, but internet trolls that sew discord and make even more of a mess. I decided

to do a mixed methods content analysis of the comments in these two groups to start searching for

answers. These answers should help us develop solutions, to help reduce frustration by users,

increase the quality of conversation, and force the trolls back under the bed.

Common Terms

 Original Post: Also known as OP. This term refers to the original group post that

started the conversation.

 On Point: Comments that are directly related, and further conversation of the

original post.

 Clutter: A combination of off point comments and neutral comments. These are

the comments that ‘clutter’ up the environment and make communication difficult.

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 Clean Communication: This is the combination of on point comments and saved

comments. These are the communications that would be easier to read/find without

the clutter.

 Off Point: These are disruptive communications that either take the conversation

off track, or insult another member of the conversation.

 Neutral: These comments neither further nor detract from the conversation. They

are just there. These are most commonly affirmatives or anecdotes that have nothing

to do with the conversation.

 Saved: These comments are usually found after an off point comment. These types

of comments save the conversation and get it back on track. Posts calling for

moderator assistance also fall into this category.

Literature Review

Journal articles and documents I discovered focused mostly on the types of people doing the

posting. I wasn’t able to find sources that examined the content being posted. I delved into the early

days of social media and found an article that evaluated Myspace, and identified five heuristics of

online forums. Of these five heuristics, I found selective hierarchy to be the most valuable, because

in this section the authors talk about how a lack of filtering techniques and ease of appointing

administrators (moderators is the term I use) can cause communication overload (Gallant, Boone, &

Heap, 2007). A sense of virtual community was a major topic in the other articles, though they had

different ways of determining how it was developed. Information quality was listed as a primary

factor in creating this sense (Chen, & Lin, 2014), while a shared vision statement, and grading system

can help members increase participation (Chang, Hsieh, & Su Fu, 2016). The next article discusses

how people of trust can influence a community by responding quickly and accurately to questions,

and how it encourages others to participate in the conversation, increasing trust and a sense of

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virtual community (Hang, Saustrup, & Tambo, 2012). The last journal article I looked at was about

why people keep coming back to Facebook, and the conclusion of the article was a simple statement

that the benefit had to be worth the sacrifice (Al-Debei, Al-Lozi, & Papazafeiropoulou, 2013). I also

used the Shannon-Weaver model to

form my ideas about communication,

using Facebook as the channel, and the

noise from the Shannon-Weaver model

would be the clutter (Shannon, &

Weaver, 1949). Discussions have been

undertaken examining actions required to encourage participation, to help form a community

feeling, and what brings people back once their frustrated, but what about keeping the environment

healthy to retain members? What does ‘healthy’ even look like? The quest continues….

Research Method

I will be using the content analysis and textual analysis methods as defined in

Communication Research Methods in Post-modern culture: A Revisionist Approach (Leslie,

2010). I chose two Facebook groups LARP Haven and Larpers BFF and sorted all comments

into one of four categories. This study has been setup to discuss possibilities and act as an initial

look into these two groups to see if further study is required. The study is considered to be a

nonprobability study (Wimmer, & Dominick, 2014). This discussion not only relates to the

quantitative cataloguing and analysis of the Facebook comments, but the qualitative analyzing of

interesting comments that could be important signs to help gauge the clutter levels of the

Facebook group environment, this is known as a mixed methods approach (Leslie, 2010). The

Shannon-Weaver model of communication also lays out a simplistic diagram to support this

project (Shannon, & Weaver, 1949). If a group member posts up a comment they are in the

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sender position, it is encoded as the English language and posted to the group wall, here it is easy

to find or buried in clutter (noise), once found it can be decoded and understood by the receiver

(Shannon, & Weaver, 1949; Griffin, Ledbetter, & Sparks, 2015). The major difference is that

it’s visual and not auditory communication, this is why we are using the term clutter over noise,

because you have to be able to see the left duck print sock (comment) in your messy room (group

wall) to pair it with the one in your hand (decode), and if you can’t find it, well it’s plain white

athletic (leave conversation) or a mismatched set (confusion).

Method of Data Collection

I fired up my computer and pulled up the LARP Haven Facebook group page. It was

early November, 2016, and I knew that October would most likely be an interesting month

seeing as Halloween was close and traffic in both groups would be steady. I chose to analyze all

the comments in October. I did the same with Larpers BFF. The entire process took me just

over 3 days to complete, and I sampled a total of 7968 comments. Only about 6% of the

comments came from Larpers BFF, due to having only 23% of the membership that LARP

Haven boasted. I still consider the study to be valid as

we are looking at the overall environment created by

the comments, and what the comments can indicate

about the state of that environment. I also recorded

my thoughts about comments and memes I found that

could be harbingers of a decaying environment, for

textual analysis later. I used audio to record initial thoughts to review once counting was

completed. I am currently a member of both LARP Haven and Larpers BFF Facebook groups.

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Data Analysis
LARP Haven
The categories I used are: on
4000

Number of Comments
point, off point, neutral, and saved. I 3000
2000
used the OP as an anchor, and 1000

depending on if the comment 0

On Off
Neutral Saved
Point Point
promoted or detracted from the point LARP Haven 2891 3150 1137 340

of the OP I determined if it was put

into the on point or off point

Larpers BFF
400
Number of Comments

category. If the comment served no 300

200
purpose and neither forwarded nor
100
distracted the conversation it was 0
On Off
Neutral Saved
Point Point
considered neutral. If the comment
Larpers BFF 294 71 77 8
followed an off point comment and

put the conversation back on track, it went in the saved category. I then reviewed my audio

recordings and electronic copies of interesting posts and tried to determine to what degree they

represented the overall clutter of the community. All the comments I had recorded indicated

different reactions to an increasing clutter environment, but why were they in one group and not

the other?

Discussion

I dodged the trolls, and now sit in the tavern with a mug of mead, and wild stories to tell,

good friends. My findings yielded some interesting results, and some that were predictable (but

no less interesting). The quantitative part of the study revealed that LARP Haven was a cluttered

community, while Larpers BFF was a clean community.

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LARP Haven – A Cluttered Community

A cluttered community has to be wary of a few major negatives. The first thing I noticed

about LARP Haven was the sheer number of comments attached to an OP. Initially I was

excited, because it meant the community was highly LARP Haven

engaged. I thought the conversation would be filled with

information about the OP. I was wrong. A cluttered

Clean
43%
community means you need to sort through hundreds (in Clutter
57%
LARP Haven’s case thousands) of posts that don’t deal

constructively with the OP. Everyone has their own

threshold, but if I wasn’t analyzing each post I probably would have avoided topics I initially

found interesting, because I didn’t want to wade through the dirty laundry piled all over the floor.

It also creates an environment where you can miss comments. Respond to a comment and not

realize someone else had already covered it, the conversation had already moved on, or even

worse a moderator had already blocked off that line of conversation (potentially resulting in a

ban from the group for you). Even if you weren’t banned your comment could (and probably

would) trigger a new tirade of off point comments. Now this is and isn’t your fault, because the

information was in the comments, you know buried under last week’s pizza and ground into the

shag carpet. It isn’t your fault, because no one should expect you to dig through all the garbage

just to find a delectable slice of pepperoni. Trolls and Drama point are also concepts to consider,

but we will discuss them on their own after we look at a clean community.

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Larpers BFF – A Clean Community

In Larpers BFF I discovered a community that commented and responded to posts in a

thoughtful manner. Contributors even self-moderated more often than on LARP Haven as they

tried to keep conversations on point or save them. I made a

Larpers BFF
pretty big discovery on Larpers BFF; I like a healthy dose

of clutter (no one really wants to live in an Apple

Clutter
electronics store). I enjoyed the few off point conversations 33%
Clean
that were present, and I usually learned something from 67%

them. So I don’t think a community without any clutter

should be a goal. A community that can engage in side conversations, and then agree to start

another OP to further discuss the topic or eventually bring the topic back on track shows me a

community that respects each other.

Drama Point

I noticed in LARP Haven that at some point (see

further research) I discovered that people were

commenting just to say that they were watching the

show. This was to point out the ridiculous level the conversation had reached, and they usually

punctuated it with a meme. On the right you’ll notice two of the most common memes I saw.

All of them are readily available with a Google search or through memegenerator.net. These

were usually posted after something controversial had been said. It reminded me of the circle

formed around two kids about to go for a round of fisticuffs by the bike rack after school. I also

noticed that most of the memes featured popcorn in some way. This reminded me of the culture

in a movie theatre where if you need to speak you do so quietly, and there’s a more than probable

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chance that the receiver of the conversation won’t hear what you said due to the loud volume of

the show in the theatre.

Troll Levels

To catalog the numerous troll posts I found on LARP Haven I decided to theorize about

four troll habitat levels. Further study would have to be undertaken to provide additional support to

these levels, but I wanted to include it in this section as it was something I textually evaluated.

 Level 1 (Myth): There are no visual troll posts; it doesn’t mean they don’t exist as

secret forces (moderators) could be removing them before they create clutter in the

community.

 Level 2 (Sighting): A troll has been or is occasionally sighted, but they usually only

come out to comment on social issue discussions to cause maximum damage.

 Level 3 (Tribes): Trolls participate in most posts in the group. This seems like a

normal function and statements like “don’t feed the trolls” are common in

comments.

 Level 4 (Territory): Welcome to troll territory! At this point trolls are empowered

enough to make original posts, are usually ignored by moderators and complaints to

the moderators are usually met with turning off post commenting rather than

deleting the trolls comment / OP. These shut down comments serve as guide books

to grow new trolls. Allowing trolls to breed and create their perfect habitat.

Moderators and Culture

The group rules and statements in both Larpers BFF and LARP Haven attempt to develop

the same type of community, but the moderators make up the difference. I noticed that most

moderated posts in Larpers BFF were usually self-moderated, or if a moderator got involved they

guided the conversation back on track. I didn’t find any post that had been locked (commenting

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turned off) this led me to believe that any troll posts (if there were any) were removed quickly by

moderators. LARP Haven has a number of moderators, I’m sure they removed a great number of

posts (comments suggested so), but many more were shut down or had commenting turned off.

Moderators often frequently commented in posts and even created OP defending their actions as

the community cried out that they were being censored. This and clutter tells me that the

techniques LARP Haven is currently using aren’t working. LARP Haven needs to determine

what type of community they wish to create. Currently there is confusion about what the term

haven means. Is it like the pirate havens of old where equal protection was granted to pirates,

scoundrels, thieves and slavers, or is it a haven against trolls and clutter, where discussion is

primary and tenants of social justice are upheld? Perhaps the answer is somewhere in the middle.

Currently a large part of the frustration, in my opinion, is caused because moderator action and

posted guidelines don’t match up.

Conclusion & Further Research

Facebook is a great place for communities of similar minded people to come together and

learn from one another, but this only works if there are moderators in place that can keep the

conversation on topic. Since these groups are primarily volunteer run that means that self-

moderation by members should be prioritized. Secondly a clear description of the group and

defined posting guidelines should be laid out. These guidelines should be tailored to fit your

specific purpose, and not just copied from a different group. Thirdly education of members

about self-moderation is extremely important, because your moderators will most likely only be

available sporadically (hopefully someone with more time than me can make some documents or

videos to help guide people with some education techniques). To forward this research I would

take the next step and analyze numerous Facebook groups and determine if trolls and the drama

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point are the same in a number of groups, and if my observations held true in other types of

groups. I would try to determine the tipping point of the troll levels (when does one level

changed to another and what factors lead to this change?). Can this be predicted? Is there a way

to determine a link between clutter and troll empowerment? What is the optimum level of

Clutter? Is it different in different types of groups? If I were to redo the study I would have set up

degrees away from the OP, by doing it this way I think I could have more accurately placed

items into appropriate categories (though it would have led to more categories). The quest has

been long, and eye opening. I may not have discovered the truth, but I did discover a truth. I set

out to see if clutter reduces communication in these groups, and discovered that not only does

clutter reduce effective (clean) communication, but also it gives trolls an environment to wreak

havoc in, potentially giving those in the group a metaphorical purple nurple (fueling anger and

frustration) in the chaos.

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