Crocker's Rules

From eg

Every user of any troll-friendly wiki must learn the essence of Crocker's Rules, named for Lee Daniel Crocker.

If you declare yourself to operate by Crocker's Rules, then this allows others to optimize their messages for efficiency, not for being nice to you. Note, that this does not allow rudeness towards others. The roles have reversed. Essentially you declare that you take full reponsibility for the operation of your own mind, and if you get upset at someone, you blame yourself.

People have difficulty adhering to Crocker's Rules, but its power as a facilitation tool for groups makes it obvious: if a group can use Crocker's Rules, it can accomplish a whole lot, quickly, without getting blocked in personal disputes. People cannot feign feelings of offence or cut themselves off from debate on something where they have strong feelings - they must follow through and deal with it anyway.

[edit] Cultural applications

The Rules have similarilties to EST, Landmark Forum, Marcian rules, etc..

Trolls redefine the word gnaw in trollish to mean assuming Crocker's Rules apply, and to focus strictly on issue/position/argument and not on feelings at all:

In a trollgnaw, Crocker's Rules apply to anyone and everything regardless of any prior agreement. In a trollsnest they become invoked for everyone in the group all at once and those who don't wish to play by the Rules must leave. If you stay, trolls may bite you on the leg and you have no right to complain then or later. Ethical trolls enforce a right to disappear and go to pains to ensure that no one becomes unwillingly involved in a dispute after they leave a forum: not doing so tends to lead to lawsuits for libel, bad feelings, and other inhibitions to later co-operation. This guarantees a strict protocol: trolls never ask who wrote what.

Mastery of Crocker's Rules raises a member to the 3rd density in the Yoist ordered cosmology.

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