1,526 views
Hello Wefugees,

there has been a troll posting a few days ago (I've discoverd that on sunday), somone wanted to contact German girls in a disgusting way. Two days nothing happend, nobody seemed to care, I felt sad and finally I got angry because of such a lack of esteem for women's dignity. I thought about the ongoings at Cologne at the beginning of 2016 and I hardly could fight back my tears.

Yesterday morning a user made a comment that showed a quite clearly position, I saw some respect for women‘s affectivity. This made me think, Wefugee community management might have had a strategy to deal with troll postings (I actually don't know if the user is part of the management team): See and ignore troll postings but show some backbone when the chips are down. But now posting and comment are gone and I am waiting for the next troll.
Wefugee community management seems to be obviously completely indifferent concerning trolls or is a least unable to cope with troll postings.
There ain‘t no strategy at all, There is no commitment against inhuman speech any more!
I am dissapointed because Wefugee team seems to hush up problems and ducks out of facing critical situations instead of showing some attitude. It's a crying shame! That's why I say goodbye to Wefugee today.

People, get up and fight sexual harassment, no matter where your‘re from or what‘s your hair‘s or eye's colour, say NO to misogynic women troll postings!

Hamida
asked Jul 27, 2016 in Other Questions by Hamida | 1,526 views
I have been very happy how clean Wefugees is. I have seen a lot of terrible things on other platforms.
Sorry, that you feel the need to leave, someone like you might be needed most here.
You may have seen many terrible things, it's a pretty good reason to fight misuse right from the start and with resoluteness. Don't treat wonen's feeling of being an aim of menace lightliy. Things can always be worse, that's no reason to relativise a serious problem at all! Nothing will get better saying "it's even worse on other platforms".
Well spoken, Suleika!
Leaving is not the solution. Fighting against trolling

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4 Answers

+2 votes
Dear @Hamida,

it makes me, and my team, really really sad to read those words.
The troll on wefugees was defenitley not seen soon enough! I know it is our fault as admins to do not recognize those kind of things, but sometimes even we are having a day off. I truely apologize for this disgusting post, which we should have seen earlier. Nevertheless the late recognition didn't stop us from directly deleting the post and confronting the "whom ever who did that" with our decision. We do have a strategy regarding trolls. We do not accept them and we are contacting the person who did it. If you have any suggestions what else we can do, we are happy to hear them.
We do not want any kind of sexism, xenophobia or homophobia in this community!
Since we thought, this kind of things would be clear, we didn't saw the necessity of commenting the post ( and thus give him attention) or even let them stay in our community. As you are reproaching wefugees now, for not reacting, I recognize that I have to react!

You must know, that I am personally strongly engaged in fighting for women's rights and empowering women. I am also working for and I did created my own Women's right group in Berlin.
I am sure that Wefugees is build on the shoulders of people thinking like me in these manners. We should not let us stop or start to hate because of some idiot who is posting trolls!

I respect your desicion Hamida but I still hope that you are reading my answer and rethink it. Wefugees needs  strong women like you!

Best

Henriette
answered Jul 28, 2016 by Henny
Henriette, you speechify quite a lot. There has been a user (other than Hamida I memorized the name), he showed alertness, he acted just at the right time. I had the feeling that someone kept an eye on the troll poster, even if I thought nobody would care, there existed a discreet guard in the background. This feeling is missing now, I agree to Hamida's point of vlew completely. I think about leaving too.
Leaving is not the solution. Fighting against trolling
To leave is a clever solution if fighting leads to nothing. Did you fight the troll? Not at all. But I'm sure you saw him.
0 votes
Dear @Hamida,

I am glad that you brought this up, even though I am very very sad to read it.

You´re right, the admin community is perhaps in a phase where we are not 24/7 on the forum, available to block horrible posts such as that one. The ideal would be able to directly filter posts that are unnecessarily vulgar, offensive and a help to no one in our community. We are now absolutely instating measures to ensure that such a post does not pass us again.

However, as Henrietta said, that is not the case currently and so the post stayed on the forum for much too long. You mentioned that you felt as though someone was in the background "watching" during this time, and I see what you mean by that. I am so happy and proud of the community because that post did not turn into some angry and inflamed commentary. It was primarily ignored as it should have been until it was deleted.

The user was sent an email before the question was deleted (although I don´t think that the email address given was real). Unfortunately trolls are inherent to the internet, and especially forums, so you are right that there has to be a tactic against them. We do not not tolerate that kind of troll, period. The inaction was a failure of vigilance, not a failure of our position towards bigotry and hatefulness.

The question and responses were then deleted along with the user´s account. As I said, I am happy that you brought this up because it should be made absolutely clear to any other trolls out there that those posts will absolutely NOT be tolerated. However, the question had to be deleted because (besides being offensive and crude) it was not helpful to anyone in the community. It was not a source of information, knowledge, or would it have been a means of having a conversation like we are now.

All of that being said, your decision is as always respected. I would also like to hear more about suggestions as to how to fight trolls! We really value our community so much exactly because of these conversations.

All the best,
Julia
answered Jul 29, 2016 by julia.d
I don't see any suggestions of how things can better. I hear excuses and affirmations. Did you contact your sentinel who kept an eye on what's going on? What did he say? Did he ask you to delete the posting time after he tried to settle things? Transparency is what people need if something went wrong. The sentinel's reaction showed a distinct attitude. That was the information worried people (like Hamida and me) needed at the time. To delete the posting and it‘s comment a very short time after the clarification  without any comment spoiled everything. Let me quote Hamida: „Wefugee team seems to hush up problems“.  This affects people who see Wefugee as a true community of poeple with common values rather than Wefugee as a service provider. I am afraid there is a serious  communication gap between management and community users.
According to our etiquette, paragraph 2 "Keep is civil and respectful", the user´s account was deleted (his username was offensive as well). Paragraph 3 also asks to "Stay on Topic". According to these policies, the account and question were deleted. I hope to continue this conversation, and rest assured that any critique of the website would never be deleted.
What a poor response! Nobody said that community management may never delete a posting. You cite your community rules to argue against the affective results you caused by  executing the policies with great delay. Let‘s talk about „Stay on topic“: As far as I know trolls do stay on topic, they open a thread what means they create a topic.
Your reasoning fails in this case. Your answer sounds to me like politician‘s speech after things went terribly wrong. Though I‘m a new member and I only know the issues I can achieve at present: Very annoying!
For me this answer is unsatisfying, too.
Every admin’s alarm bells should ring as she/he receives reports about a posting simply because of the title “How to find a nice girl”. I myself alone reported the posting two times within 24 hours.
This community has at least three admins or even more and it is simply not understandable, why anyone did react when a lot of people must have reported this disgusting post during the long period until it finally got deleted.
Such a community needs to stay an absolutely safe place for the traumatized and so much trust is lost, when a troll follows and giggles in the darkness about the endless discussion we are having now because of his ugly, inhuman behavior.
As a Wefugee newbie I am really puzzled to find community management overstrained with such a common problem. I salute to the courageous ladies who left no doubt about that.
0 votes
I think everyone knows that the troll was deleted to slowly, but for a good reason. His Nickname alone was one reason. It was seen to slowly, but then Wefugees did the right thing.
I don't understand why someone would leave a nice helping community, because someone just acted to slow. Henriette just Apologised for it and I think with this the topic should be done.

- some human-
answered Aug 2, 2016 by human
totally with you
totally agree with you
Just respect her choice, Hamida gave a very elaborated explanation! A fine mess you've made of that!
I totally agree with you, Suleika!
Telling critics when a topic "should be done" and calling them "Ladies" is nothing but patronizing and has nothing in common with tolerance and openness.
Ehmm, no, I am not the one. But you and "human" stated that the "topic should be done" and we "should let sleeping dogs lie". Sounded to me that you want to tell others when they should stop posting something to a topic.
–3 votes
Leaving is not the solution. Fighting against trolling is the best way I think.
answered Jul 28, 2016 by Don’t Know
To leave is a good solution if fighting leads to nothing. Did you fight the troll? Not at all. But I'm sure you saw him.
Is it a positive solution to copy and paste „Leaving is not the solution. Fighting against trolling is the best way I think.“ to any posting of this topic? Imagine the thread would be a conversation, what‘s the use of repeating a statement time and again? Well, I have to admit, you stay on track, according to Wefugee policy‘s Paragraph 3: "Stay on Topic".
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