Wolfpack Students Facebook page: A place where students can go to ask questions, get answers and get harassed? 

Recent Student Government meetings regarding the page evoked complaints of harassment instead of what many students thought was the problem—trolling. 

Trolling is the act of provoking someone, typically in an online forum, for the sole purpose of eliciting an argument.

“I do that stuff on the group and troll because it’s fun and I like making people laugh,” Alex Sanchez, a senior in public relations and a regular on the Wolfpack Students page, said. “I feel like doing stuff like that is part of every successful online community.”

Sanchez said people troll most social websites. 

“On Reddit, tons of people troll,” Sanchez said. “It’s set up a little bit differently than Facebook groups, but tons of people are trolls. But if you sift through all of those, there’s real stuff out there, there is still really insightful answers to questions and interesting facts or helpful things, so it’s not really a problem.”

Though Sanchez trolls regularly, he said that the Facebook page is still useful.

“I think Wolfpack students is still a really valuable tool for students, organizations and whoever else is a member,” Sanchez said. “I don’t think it’s useless, but I do definitely think it could be better managed.”

Student Government manages the page and had an open dialogue session last Monday night, asking students to offer input on the new bill, which is supposed to regulate the page.

Sanchez, who attended the meeting, said it went well and said he found it surprising that student body president, Alex Parker, wanted to moderate the group as little as possible. 

“It was nice to be able to share some of my thoughts and ideas about the page,” Sanchez said. “Though the meeting didn’t really accomplish much in terms of creating and passing legislation, it did manage to get the ball rolling.”

Sanchez said he believes that the next meeting, held on Sept. 18, will be the most important and he advises that students attend.

“I found it interesting that only a small handful of non-SG students showed up despite the ‘numerous complaints’ SG says it has received,” Sanchez said. 

Sanchez said he, for the most part, agrees with the way in which Student Government handles the group.

“I don’t agree with students who are saying that Student Government should be focusing on bigger things because this is one of the few things it has direct control over,” Sanchez said. “It’s nice to see them taking on something they’ve received complaints about.”

Sanchez said he appreciates Student Government’s acceptance and encouragement of student input at the meeting.

“One of the challenges I posed to Parker and the rest of Student Government was to use the page as a tool for collecting feedback from students,” Sanchez said. “Since the meeting, I’ve noticed they’ve used [Wolfpack Students] a couple of times to poll students on a few things Student Government was thinking about. I think that’s great and would like to see more of that in the future.”

Stephon Beaufort, a sophomore in mathematics, follows the Wolfpack Students page and attended the meeting Sunday. 

“I thought it was productive in understanding where Wolfpack Students is right now, but I’m not sure that Student Government went out of the forum with a clear course of action to take,” Beaufort said.

Beaufort said the future of the page is ambiguous.

“I can only assume that [the page] is going to be more tightly moderated but to what extent remains un-guessable for me,” Beaufort said.