In the A2K playground: Play the Synbot game today!

@Robert Gentel,

Interestingly I have never heard of any of em.

Any of who dadpad?

ummm forgot already

@dadpad,

Then, by definition, you are a saint.

0 Replies

@dlowan,

What's up with you tonight? You see all my posts as having some special contempt for you, when at this point all I can cop to is being acutely annoyed by all this.

On my RSS thread you said the observationalism blog feed doesn't work with Google Reader and I try to tell you that it works for me. That's usually useful information itself because I don't know any more than you seem to as to why it doesn't work for you, but that the same thing works for me indicates that it's possible and you might want to keep trying. That's all I had intended, I didn't want you to give up on their feed because I know it does work.

You go off on me for merely saying "you must be doing something wrong, it works for me" imagining that I'm insulting you by saying it "must" be you. I don't know what the hell that's all about and would rather not spoil a good evening so I ignore it and now you continue this imagined contempt here.

I'm having a nice night, and don't want any part in this. If I'm bothering you so much why not just ignore me?

2 Replies

@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

Wanna try actual rational discussion? Instead of sneering and contempt and all?

To be perfectly honest, I'd really rather just talk to someone else right now. I'm not going to respond to this any further.

1 Reply

@dlowan,

Hey I was just trying to be helpful. (Actually, I'm having trouble finding much here to interest me here tonight. Wink

)

To tell the truth, I'm not exactly familiar with any of the "suspects" either.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

dlowan wrote:
Wanna try actual rational discussion? Instead of sneering and contempt and all?

To be perfectly honest, I'd really rather just talk to someone else right now. I'm not going to respond to this any further.

Fabulous. Your responses are just arrogant and nasty crap. Please stop.

Rolling Eyes

But try less sneering and contempt for no ******* reason when people start threads that make sense to anyone not able to check internet addresses and act like tin gods.

0 Replies

@msolga,

msolga wrote:

Hey I was just trying to be helpful. (Actually, I'm having trouble finding much here to interest me here tonight. )

To tell the truth, I'm not exactly familiar with any of the "suspects" either.

Nothing to do with you Msolga.

Forget it.

1 Reply

@dlowan,

OK. No worries, Deb.

0 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

What's up with you tonight? You see all my posts as having some special contempt for you, when at this point all I can cop to is being acutely annoyed by all this.

On my RSS thread you said the observationalism blog feed doesn't work with Google Reader and I try to tell you that it works for me. That's usually useful information itself because I don't know any more than you seem to as to why it doesn't work for you, but that the same thing works for me indicates that it's possible and you might want to keep trying. That's all I had intended, I didn't want you to give up on their feed because I know it does work.

You go off on me for merely saying "you must be doing something wrong, it works for me" imagining that I'm insulting you by saying it "must" be you. I don't know what the hell that's all about and would rather not spoil a good evening so I ignore it and now you continue this imagined contempt here.

I'm having a nice night, and don't want any part in this. If I'm bothering you so much why not just ignore me?

Oh go get a life. And stop imagining you to be the centre of the universe.

You imgine all kinds of crap that doesn't exist...as ever.

For me the Observationalist url DOESN't work.....but, far from moaning about it, I thanked you greatly for the RSS stuff and commented that, while I can't get the Observationalist blog on the feeds you mentioned, I CAN get it on the Opera feed, so no problem and hooray.

Yes, I was mildly peeved re the "you must be doing something wrong".....yes, well, hooray ****, that was hard to work out. Not.

I didn't "go off on you" .... Rolling Eyes

but, just as you are ridiculously misreading my comments, I thought that was a dumb comment, as I was clearly doing something wrong, no duh.

0 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Back to the subject:

Here's why I find this odd and why I think this is more common in this group than any other forum I know of.

On Abuzz you could use any username and change it anytime. So there was a legitimate identity crisis where people could spoof the identities of others and trick people into thinking they were someone they were not. Additionally they had no security at all and it was child's play to make people even post what you wanted under their real name.

So with all the rampant identity games it made sense that people spent a lot of time tracking the trolls. The users started putting their usernumbers in their names and finding ways to develop more control over their identity and who was behind what accounts.

What I've always found odd is how much of that carried over to here. I mentioned the liberals in this particular example not to condescend to liberals (I don't think that's a dirty word!) but rather because there are a lot of other examples of troll folklore but the Massagato one is a subset of it for the lefties (is that a more politically correct word for liberals?).

I've talked about the outings negatively in the past mainly because they were cases where the lynching was just plain wrong and an innocent newbie was being caught up in the witch hunt. But this kind of connect the dot game with a troll that is using a bunch of identities isn't something I care about. What I find curious is why others still care so much about outing the trolls when they can't do what they used to be able to do to abuzz unless everyone lets them.

Thin skin and lots of attention is honey to a troll, and given that the trolls can't hijack identities like they did on abuzz, or that users can ignore them so easily, I don't get why they get the chance to be so disruptive.

Some thoughts I've had on that led me to believe it's because trolls are relatively rare here (in comparison to the wider internet). I guess if the people here had spent more time on places like youtube comments the curiosity (and energy spent on it) would likely diminish. But while it's rare enough it's entertainment.

I have no particular qualm with that, it's just feels uniquely odd to me how the trolls develop legendary folklore here. On any other forum I use the trolls are just nuisances like spam. I suppose getting entertainment out of them is better than irritation though.

4 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

I remembered some examples I find a lot weirder than the political trolls who are quite disruptive now. The ones I really find odd are the ones that were never an issue here at all.

For years I ran into bobsal speculation, when he only posted a couple of times for a few days when the site was created and never returned. I still see the KAK outings 6 years after any of it was actually impacting the site in any way.

So when another Abuzz user was brought up in this context that's what I find odd about it. In internet years that was like 60 years ago!

Edit: in the past I've considered allowing all users to be able to search by IP. Many sites and forums put the user's IP out in the open, I thought that was a bit much but considered putting an encrypted version of it there that could be searched on, that way you wouldn't know what the person's IP is, but you could see who's using multiple accounts.

It's not going to happen, because I think some people legitimately used multiple accounts with the expectation of privacy (e.g. a very personal question they didn't want on their normal account) but the amount it seems to matter to the users to know who's doing it even made me consider making features for it.

0 Replies

I don't have a problem with trolls, I use the ignore button.

0 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

What's up with you tonight? You see all my posts as having some special contempt for you, when at this point all I can cop to is being acutely annoyed by all this.

On my RSS thread you said the observationalism blog feed doesn't work with Google Reader and I try to tell you that it works for me. That's usually useful information itself because I don't know any more than you seem to as to why it doesn't work for you, but that the same thing works for me indicates that it's possible and you might want to keep trying. That's all I had intended, I didn't want you to give up on their feed because I know it does work.

You go off on me for merely saying "you must be doing something wrong, it works for me" imagining that I'm insulting you by saying it "must" be you. I don't know what the hell that's all about and would rather not spoil a good evening so I ignore it and now you continue this imagined contempt here.

I'm having a nice night, and don't want any part in this. If I'm bothering you so much why not just ignore me?

I might also add that your belief that I am seeing all your posts as having some special contempt for me is utter nonsense.

I was having a perfectly nice day too, as it happens.

I think your earlier posts here, as I would have thought I made utterly and unmistakably plain, showed contempt for all members posting here, I did not see you as picking me out for special contempt at all.

This is your normal attitude (at least as it reads to most members) to such discussions. I occasionally become acutely annoyed at this attitude....normally it slides off. Today I got sick of it, for the reasons I gave. You have chosen to read all kinds of drama into simple but intense irritation.

I didn't find your "It must be you" especially personally insulting, just normally abrupt and seemingly rude.

You have explained that you did not intend to be rude....great.

I had no intention of "giving up on their feed" because one blog didn't work, but thank you for your concern.

If you are going to have a fit about how you interpret my posts, especially when I happen to be pissed off, I think you ought to at least take into account how yours frequently appear.

1 Reply

@dlowan,

Hmmm, though, to be fair to you, I WAS excessively irritated.

I always greatly regret using those cretinous rolly eyes.

0 Replies

@nimh,

nimh wrote:

ossobuco wrote:

Isn't bruce kolstad one too?

Hmm.. Bruce has only made four posts so far, bit hard to tell still. Wait and see! Half a bonus point extra for you for promising suspicion.

Ah, it was just a hunch and one I may end up embarrassed about. Frowns at self.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Methinks thou doest protest too much, Robert. While it's true that this site never had the unfortunate capability that Abuzz did of being able to post under any sobriquet one wished to adopt, there have been plenty of posters who've left (either voluntarily or under duress) and come back as somebody else. KAK is one example. She's here now under another name (you and I know what it is) and has been here before under at least one other name that I know of. Massagato and Italgato and Parthian and Chiczaira were certainly the same person. Whether nimh's list is completely accurate or not, I have no way of knowing, nor do I know for sure that Synbot is the latest incarnation of the same person, but I'd say it's a fairly safe bet given the style of arguing. There are at least a couple of others I know of who have been here before under another nom-de-net. I doubt that there's anything unusual or puzzling about "liberals" or anyone else trying to figure out who's who under those circumstances. You yourself weren't always 'Robert Gentel', although there's no mystery or secret about that.

2 Replies

@ossobuco,

Hadn't read Robert's comment on some speculations being re an innocent newbie when I wrote that. But, yeah.

I obviously don't mind the community interest in trolls when they show up - this thread being an example: I cheerfully respond to it - but I agree that they're pretty rare here and agree re just putting them on ignore instead of troll feeding.

0 Replies

@Merry Andrew,

Merry Andrew wrote:

Methinks thou doest protest too much, Robert.

I'm not protesting, Merry Andrew. I just find the level of suspicion oddly unique to this group.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Roberto, I think it would be a good idea if those who have two or more personas would come right out and admit it. There are reasons for the dual identities. I was Molly and LettyII on Abuzz because I couldn't recall my password. I did, however, put it in my profile.

Here's a confession:

http://able2know.org/topic/123519-1

0 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

this kind of connect the dot game with a troll that is using a bunch of identities isn't something I care about. What I find curious is why others still care so much about outing the trolls when they can't do what they used to be able to do to abuzz unless everyone lets them.

We have to expend quite a bit of mental effort to determine if someone is being above-board. Those of us who post in the relationship threads, for example, don't want to read through some nasty scenario and provide advice to some attention whore. Those of us who enjoy discussions/arguments in the politics threads don't want to have the same argument over and over again with eight fictitious personas.

It would be nice to take everyone at face value, but that's not how people work in the real world. We make judgements.

And dlowan is right to some degree; if you grow curious about someone, you can just dig into the server log. It might not always be definitive, but it's not an option available to the rest of us.

2 Replies

In the A2K playground: Play the Synbot game today!

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know