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Most people do not even truly know just how much of an abusive troll drag really is. I've already posted about it multiple times, and I'll add it here if I have to, but I was harassed directly by an alt of that user, which included porn in my DMs, insults, bad faith accusations, encouragement of suicide, and even death threats (combined with a request to admins to give out my IP).

I'm almost completely certain dragonfucker was behind this harassment and abusive behavior towards me. It happened almost immediately after I responded to one of dragonfucker's posts, that dragonfucker did not like and also wasn't well received by the community (ended up getting removed) the post itself was ironically an accusation towards me of harassment. Very sus indeed.

Then there's the whole thing where dragonfucker encouraged trans people to kill red hats before committing suicide, basically encouraging suicide and murder. Then there was dragonfucker's harassment towards @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world which isn't talked about often if at all but was really shitty, and I watched it happen in front of me.

Interesting take. I haven’t seen any poor behavior from drag at any point and, unless I’ve missed something, drag seems to be a fine and well-contributing member of this community.

Grail, on the other hand, I have no doubt is a troll. Aside from their consistent behavior, they were heavily involved with mindtraveller (if anyone remembers them) who was also very clearly a troll. Granted, they may also just be heavily narcissistic. Regardless, I refuse to entertain claims of divinity. The assertion that someone must be referred to as a god/goddess/superior being of any form is an assault on my and others’ freedom of religion, spirituality, or lack thereof.

No individual is inherently above or below another, nor will I be intimidated into referring to them as such - be it by them, mods, or anyone else.

Whether or not someone is an abusive troll has no bearing on the respectful use of pronouns. I have two concerns here: ensuring people are respected and not encouraging the trolls. If either or both individuals here are trolling, they're getting exactly what they want with our collective response.

In response, I made a process guide for online encounters like these. It works regardless of the other party's motives and better frustrates trolls. If you have the mental/emotional bandwidth, let me know what you think.

Step 1: Treat everyone with respect, including respecting their communication preferences. If it becomes obvious they're not being serious and/or respectful themselves (ball/sack, dog/shit), then simply disengage and report. Their bad behavior doesn't justify anyone else's bad behavior in response, especially because that's what trolls want.

Step 2: If there's only suspicion their requests/preferences are somehow a form of trolling, harassment, or the like, either...
2.1: Respectfully ask non-accusatory questions for clarification, then return to step 1
Or
2.2: Disengage, report to a mod, and let them handle this shit

Rinse and repeat.

There are two overwhelmingly likely results to this little workflow.

1. A troll is treated with kindness and respect until it's found they're trolling, after which engagement ceases and mods have to deal with their shit. Remember: trolls get off on watching other people's outrage. No response = no outrage = an unsatisfying trolling session.
2. Someone who is not trolling but is having a difficult time being understood is treated with kindness and respect.

based

Edit: but also i want to point out that it sometimes helps to talk to people. Drag for example, might be a 15 year old edge-lord, for all i know. I don't want to be insulting, but also i would think talking to (plural) them would make more sense than perma-blocking them.

Of course i recognize that barely anyone has the energy to do it. Just mentioning it.

Those users use neopronouns and apparently for a lot of people it's beyond the limit of their ability to not gatekeep queer people. There was an announcement about it from the admin that was basically "yeah neopronouns are valid, don't misgender anyone period" and several people completely lost their shit and made threads to bitch about it in.

If you don't use the pronouns a user lists in their bio when referring to that user you'll catch a ban. There is a user who has dragon as their pronoun and anyone not using it is being banned.