I'm starting to block/mute some commenters on some of the Google Plus feeds I follow. I hate having to do that, because if "feels" rude and I don't want to be one of those guys who only wants to hear what he wants to hear. And I also don't want silence to imply consent. But …
… well, I don't mind disagreement — "The Democrats are wrong in this because of X, Y, and Z" — and in fact find it useful both to promote discussion and to possibly learn something from. (Honestly speaking, sometimes my mind is changed.)
But if the extent of your commenting is "Democrats are poopyheads who ought to be tried for treason and shipped off to the gulag" (paraphrase of a very real comment I just ran across), my blood pressure really doesn't need the trolling, and responding isn't likely to do anything more than add to the noice-vs-signal ratio. So take it to Reddit (or Facebook); I won't be reading it (more than once) on G+.
Google+: View post on Google+
I wish more people would do it, more often. It would make G+, Facebook and YouTube better places. Nobody said comment feeds were democracies. Polish up the ban-hammer, and use with gusto.
For some that means removing any dissenting opinion. For others, only outright trolls. Which is happening becomes quite obvious to regular readers, and neither is inherently bad. People would tend to discussion areas that lean toward the method they prefer.
Anyone who controls any space on the net (whether it’s a blog, forum, facebook wall or whatever) has the absolute right to moderate it in any way they see fit. Anyone who doesn’t like their form of moderation can go elsewhere.
Those who defend trolls in the name of freedom of speech essentially say that the speech of trolls is more important than those they will intimidate into silence,
I feel bad about blocking people on Facebook, especially when they’re friends-of-friends.
Well, in G+, at least, the comment stuff is by person. So even if I "Mute Al Hunt" in the comments I read, anyone else will still see the trollish comments you [don't actually] make.
I won't go as far as actually deleting comments others make in my own posts except under the most dire circumstances. (And, honestly, my own posts aren't so visible that I attract a lot of trolls — it's more yahoos in more prominent feeds I follow.)
With three Facebook friends and two people in my G+ circle, this is not a problem for me.