The rules are changing, we are going to start showing the assholes the door

Well, I accept your apology. I will put you back on ignore because ‘there are none so blind’

Sho nuff.

Anyone who announces publicly that they are putting someone on ignore is being a jerk. You can out someone on ignore silently without acting like you are somehow so superior you are denying them your presence.

I don't know if this behavior is trolling. Publicly announcing you are putting someone "on ignore" is certainly asisine.

That's just a pet peeve of mine. There is no need to be nasty.

Announcing that you are putting someone on ignore is, in the eyes of the announcer, something that proves they're superior.

Ironically, it just proves the exact opposite.

Well said !

My remarks about our allegedly French member were simply to underline the hypocrisy of someone like that taking a holier-than-thou attitude toward those whom he alleges argue in bad faith. Posing as what one is not is starkly in bad faith.

Making personal accusations about other people and presenting it as truth is just plain wrong. The site is littered with posts by him, saying I’m not who I am and all my posts are lies.

If I returned that in kind, what kind of place would this be?

It is targeted personal attack, designed to negate a member’s credibility, effectively undercutting everything the member says. If you can’t refute the foundational facts of an argument, just call them a Russian or a Republican.

If I started using this technique to win arguments, the site would devolve much further, much faster.

This type of behavior should result in a vacation each time, every time. Nobody knows the true motivations of anyone here.

Have you forgotten all the times you dismissed my comments as the ravings of drunk? I haven't. You seem to forget how ugly you can get if someone doesn't agree with you. If I remember correctly, you began hammering at me for the sin of saying I don't hate the Clintons. Did things get heated? Yes they did, but you started it......good enough for you that I said it was not a good idea that Hillary ran. You needed everybody to hate Hillary. .I don't really give much thought about your entanglements here on this forum, and I don't call you out for everything I find to be overly offensive. Thats the reason is I decided a while ago to avoid you at costs. Why? because I really find your arguments and ad hoc insults beyond the pale.

As far as making personal accusations about other people, sweetheart you are the queen of tiny temper tantrums. So lets not tuck ourselves into some virtuous cocoon and just claim its everybody else thats a big meanie. And despite all the whining that goes on when I mention I have certain people on ignore, you and the other two should just grow up. I don't want negative people who can only express negative, pompous bull hockey in my house. That's where I read all this stuff. Feel free to ignore me, I would love for you folks to ignore me

But making up personal accusations about others is your forte, lets not try to be all noble about your postings.

What's remarkable is how obsessed Set is about little me... I take as a compliment.

When Setanta writes a post about me, he does not address it to me. He doesn't even dare to say my name. And when he does, he can't get it right; he calls me "Olive Tree"...

Of course he doesn't speaks to me anymore, afraid as he is that I'd humiliate him thoroughly if he tried again; but he still talks compulsively about me. That's how traumatized I left him.

Now he's into second-guessing my nationality... Because the French can't master English. You see, it's beyond them frogs to be articulate, therefore Olivier cannot be French...

I confess, I'm from Papua New Guinea. Feel better now?

A little bit of provocative writing helps one highlight issues that others would like to put under the carpet, me think. IOW, if one is always consensual and smooth, chances are one is not saying much...

I don't think you need to expect any better.

There is a difference between can't and won't. You grossly overrate your significance--I've only responded to your hypocrisy here, and I otherwise continue to find the drivel you commonly write not worth comment, or even reading for that matter. If your knowledge of French and English were as wonderful as you imply, you'd know why I once (and no longer do) referred to you as olive tree.

You're scared of me and obsessed about me; that much is clear. Otherwise you would realize how ridiculous you are when taking issue with my nationality.

Note that nobody on A2K will ever follow you on this treacherous ground. None of your buddies will come to your rescue. They just can't understand what bee got in your bonnet re. my frenchness.

So what's your nationality now, young man? Peruvian? Greek? Mongolian?

Obviously, I haven’t forgotten that I’ve been guilty of the same thing or I wouldn’t have admitted it, what, yesterday?

I respond to bad behavior with bad behavior.

I’m pointing out the behavior that I think hurts the site on this thread when I see it in hopes that the mods might notice the kind of personal attack I’m talking about. If the moderators would react to this 100% personal attack-type of post with uniformity, I’d much prefer never to take part in that low form of communication. Of course, I’d be happy to submit myself to the same judgment for the same infraction.

Some people enjoy attacking other people in this way. I don’t.

I have been appreciative to you for ignoring my account. It’s been a breath of fresh air for me. I’m not sure how you popped up on my radar, but I’m grateful you’ve promised to disappear again. You’ve been on my ignore for a long time, and I think that works best for both of us and the site.

I don't understand all the mutual anger being expressed here on this thread. It is supremely ironic that this immediately follows an over-long, tedious, and pedantically abstract examination of just what constitutes a troll. It appears that there has been a sudden abandonment of that overly abstract argument, and a mass movement to provide multiple examples of obnoxious trolling behavior itself here.

I have enjoyed exchanging commentary with most of you here - even though we often see things differently. I like Setanta and have enjoyed previous discussions with him, and in particular, his knowledge of history. I don't understand the source of his recent anger towards me, and, it appears, others as well. I don't give a damn whether Oliver is a real or pseudo Frenchman or Italian. All I know is what he writes here. Mostly we disagree, but I often find his views interesting and I occasionally enjoy reading them. Likewise,Glitterbag was informative and interesting before her commentary degenerated into vitriol and anger.

Sadly all of this BS damages the one who expresses it far more than those it is aimed at. It is stupid and it spoils the dialogue here for everyone.

We are much more likely to disagree here about the many issues discussed than agree. In addition I have seen very few examples of posters converted to another view by arguments offered here That means we should approach these things with a sense of irony, whimsey, and, if we can, a balanced search for the complexity usually behind the conflicting viewpoints offered here.

In my reading, that "abstract examination of just what constitutes a troll" was in actual fact not a theoretical discussion at all, but an attempt to frame certain specific posters as trolls. Phase 2 is just cranking up the volume a bit.

Anyway. At least this kind of argument deals with the actual issues when it comes to identifying trolling. This doesn't:


This is just a more ponderous way of arguing, like you did earlier Max, that trolling is nothing but "a subjective label put on someone who expresses ideas you find offensive". But at least you raised that as just one possible way in which it's used; for Georgeob1 it's apparently the only thing he took away from the whole discussion.

Clearly posting an offensive opinion in itself does not make someone a troll. I'm sure there are people who use the word that way, but it's hardly been the thrust of the argument here, has it? And it's definitely not reflected in this site's moderation. There are people here who post a lot of opinions that most mods and users probably find offensive. And, you know, they're still here. At least several thousand of their posts are, left up by mods and admins. You've posted a bunch of stuff that offended people, Max, and didn't most of that stuff stay up?

Take Oralloy (sorry, Oralloy). I'm sure he's had the occasional post pulled (most of us have), but by and large they're left alone. I'm pretty sure most people here find his opinions offensive, but my guess (maybe naive) is that most people would also agree he's not a troll. Which in my view he pretty clearly isn't. He just earnestly, obsessively even, advocates for causes and opinions that (in my personal view) are fairly insane and often offensive.

George himself posts a lot of stuff that people will disagree with quite strongly, but he's generally not called a troll, is he, let alone suspended as one? Or, I dunno, Baldimo?

So I don't know if this is being dense, or an argument in bad faith, or what. Not bad faith this time, I'm sure. But a lot of the time it is. Someone goes somewhere because they're bored and just like to stir up some **** (sometimes explicitly saying so), calls a bunch of people names, keeps the mods busy with stuff that borders on hate speech, inevitably gets their posts pulled or suspended eventually, then throws up their arms and says "it's just because they find my views offensive". Don't need a bunch of quantifiable, peer-researched criteria to see through that.

I'm OK with whatever you want to call it. In any event the "framers" or "theoreticians" quickly revealed their own qualifications.