With our increased readership on the Clone Corridor blog and the increased numbers of followers and visitors in our Clone Corridor Community on Facebook we have also seen a slightly larger exposure to trolls and trolling, especially as the release of the new movie has sparked sometimes bitter controversy in the fan-community. In order to clarify our position and our rules of engagement here a simple ‘user-manual’ for Clone Corridor and Clone Corridor Community.

So what is trolling?

Let us start with what it is not:

• being critical about Star Wars or our posts is not trolling;
• disliking one or more Star Wars outputs, films, toys, animations series, characters, etc, also is not trolling;
• pointing out mistakes we make, spelling or grammar errors, stylistic criticisms, etc, all that is also not trolling;

But then what is trolling? Well:

• fact-free accusations against Clone Corridor writers that they are ‘bought’ by Disney or in any other way have compromised their integrity as writers;
• similarly fact-free accusations against actors, filmmakers, executives and other people involved in the franchise;
• suggestions that our integrity is questionable, that we are not legit Star Wars fans;
• name-calling, ad-hominem attacks against blog-writers, actors, other Star Wars fans or Lucasfilm or Disney people;
• (repetitive) criticisms that (1) do not address the posts you respond to or (2) are not responses to previous comments or previous comments to your previous criticisms;
• posting here not to engage in two-way communication but to simply splurt out your standard rant (there are other websites for that!);

I hope this makes more or less clear what we consider to be trolling. So let us know turn to the question what we do about it!

What happens to trolls?

We reserve the right to ban you without further notice or warning … but: normally if this is the first instance we would remove or hide your comment and warn you that it breaches our standards. In a second instance however there will be an immediate ban.

Why so severe?

There is plenty of internet space available where people can rant as much as they like. A ban here in no way infringes on your freedom of speech, it simply enforces our freedom of not having to listen to a troll. We have gone through the Prequel years as fans of the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy and I would say two decades of unmitigated trolling is enough for anyone … bear with us if we are out of patience when it comes to trolling.

But most importantly, we want to set a standard here. Star Wars fans engaging with the stories and with each other in a critical, constructive and enjoyable way. We encourage discussing disagreements because they are interesting, not because submission and conversion are required. Trolling is neither interesting nor enjoyable but a hallmark of intolerance. We have zero-tolerance for intolerance. That might sound paradoxical … but you also need to speak up if you want to ask for some silence and sometimes you need to fight for peace. Hence we are intolerant of intolerance.