When Shutting Up isn't Cowardice

I do that all the time; I just don't tell people about it.


<oops>

I've commented on this above, but i think you miss the point altogether with this post. There is no evidence that the troll in question is even aware of this thread. In threads in the past in which i have attempted to directly respond to this individual (Snood's what is fascism thread is a good example), this member was unable to immediately respond to remarks made to it. It would respond to comments two, three, even four or more posts after the comment-response posts made. I seriously doubt if this troll is like other trolls. It may become elated to see someone respond to its drivel, but it think this troll: 1. Thinks we don't necessarily automatically recognize its separate incarnations, as it continues to post as though its current three personalities are separate members, despite people pointing out plainly that these are all manifestations of the same troll; 2. [this troll] Can survive without feeding on responses--it seems more obsessed with posting its long screeds, which it will repeat in a thread, and i stronly suspect this troll will do nicely even if we never take notice of it; 3. [this troll] therefore is a unique phenomenon which will not wither away, give up and go away if it is simply ignored.

Wait... We're not talking about Costal Rat, are we?

A couple of other ideas for the mods to consider:

1. Temporarily locking a user out of the site if a number of complaints are lodged against the user. Much like threads are locked if they get too much traffic.

2. Another take on "stealth banning:" the user cannot view pages on A2K, but gets a variant of the SQL error we see from time to time....

The Abuzz site became a troll haven before it died; it got so filled with trolls, that flame wars were constant, and they fed off one another. Many people simply left and never went back--i was one of them.

There are many reasons why Abuzz self-immolated: staff slashed drastically, no moderation, and consequently no enforcement of the terms of service, lack of interest in cleaning up and policing the site by the new owners . . . but one think that wouldn't necessarily help would be the rating system to which you refer. Prior to September, 2000, Abuzz had a system in which the thread author could award "green text," meaning to select certain posts to highlight as particularly relevant the topic of the thread; and the thread author could select a "best post" of the thread, for which the member so cited would get a star. People were seen as more authoritative because of the number of stars they possessed. Prior to changing the system, many people alleged that members posted sycophantic responses just to get green text, or in the hope of getting "most valuable" post and another star. The system served to fuel some petty jealousies, and cliques, often in competition with other cliques, thrived there.

The system was changed in September, 2000. The change likely had absolutely nothing to do with the membership and any community they might have felt they had. Previous systems and the final system all seem to have been tests of "networking" software for corporate virtual meeting systems. The final system at Abuzz gave each member the opportunity to mark each post as either "valuable" or "not valuable." The trolls ate it up (all puns intended). You could see threads in which absolutely every post had been marked "not valuable" since the last time you had viewed it, and at the end of the thread to that point, a post not yet rated in which the troll spewed venom at every member who had posted there so far.

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This problem may very well be sinsoluble. In the troll wars at Abuzz, people could register with any screen name, including one already in use, and people eventually started editing their screen names to include their member numbers (all registered members were issued a sequential number) so that the screen name could be compared with the member number to verify that the member using that screen name was genuine.

We really don't have any of the horrid and surreal problems with plagued Abuzz before it died--but this joker is the most surreal troll i've ever encountered on line. I've never seen anyone conversing with himself before in three separate identities.

Can I just interrupt for a minute?

It's not just the multiple personality, fly-by-night folk, you know. There is one particular "long standing" member who goes out of his way to be aggravating & crudely insensitive on threads about issues he cares absolutely nought about. Again & again & again. If the thread is about, say, some species of endangered animal he'll continually rush in with inane killing comments. Anything to get attention. Whatever, just to be a nuisance. Kinda pathetic, really. Dealing with this person is akin to dealing with a stroppy 12 year old. So what is the best way to deal with someone like this? Ignoring the person seems not to work.

msolga has just described at least 10 people I can think of. I doubt the one described is any of whom I was thinking of.

I know to whom she refers--knew it right away.

Now you're gonna make me go back and read this thread to find out if y'all are talking about me. Thanks a lot.

No, no, CR . . . it's not about you . . . we were talkin' about . . . uhm . . . uh . . . Tantor ! ! !

Yeah, that's it . . . Tantor . . .

Nothing to see here, CR . . . move along . . .

They aren't talking about you....they're talking about some costal rat...you know, skinny, with ribs sticking out.


If someone fed it it would likely be more pleasant and all.

Or...mebbe they meant "costive"?

In which case it needs more fibre.

Whatever.

But it clearly isn't you.

I can think of a number of folks here that could be euphemistically referred to as costive....

Not excepting myself, on occasion.

me too, but I'm not sure I agree with her assessment of the motivation.

I think the difference in msolga's example is someone advocating their own position on some threads (albeit in a manner known to incite passion) while participating in other discussions in a manner that indicates a desire to be part of the A2K community at large. I have no problem scrolling past posts intending to incite while participating in discussions with the same individual on other threads.

The ideas in discussion through the rest of this topic are on how to deal with a troll who is only ever a troll and has no interest in the discussions being targeted or any other participation on the site. The latest rendition of our current troll who is always a troll seems to have no voice whatsoever and has taken to filling threads with the longest blogs he can find without comment. The insults seem to have stopped (for now, at least) and the pattern of filling threads with repetitious copy and paste posts from multiple accounts of the same user seem to have stopped (we can only hope), so for now we are left with ignoring long posts from someone who we want to ignore. As McG stated, that describes at least 10 people for each of us.

So glad it wasn't me. This clown couldn't stand it if it had been. So I'll just move along now, but I'm keeping my eyes and ears open where Setanta is concerned. I got this strange feeling in my gut when reading his last post. He seems too reassuring to me. Hmmm...

CoastalRat, I was at a party the other day and saw a t-shirt that reminded me of you: "Can't sleep -- the clowns will eat me!" ;-)

That's a shirt I'll have to try to find. Of course, I couldn't wear it when performing. Or could I? Hmmm? Naw, would have to confine that one to wearing around the house. Oh well, still need to find that.

I only go along with that to a certain extent. But, i did not immediately respond to Miss Olga's post precisely because this is a circumstance different from the "over-the-top" troll under discussion in this thread.

However, with regard to the member of whom Miss Olga writes: he is very nearly a one-trick pony, with an obsession about guns as his only focus (the only exception to this is his fixation on Spanish-speaking Americans, and his conviction that each and every one is an illegal immigarnt and probably a criminal--although i suspect that his preferred solution would be to shoot them all); he does intentionally show up in threads with puerile remarks about guns or to post offensive images which, while just making it within the TOS, he hopes will be shocking and offensive--it truly is adolescent behavior.

Finally, not only does this member not act as a member of a community--he has specifically posted in the past that he would never attend a gathering of members of this site because of the contempt he entertains for all of us. I don't think that member shows any indication of wishing to be a part of the community at large, and i see him only as a pimply-faced prepubescent clown who comes here to throw stink bombs.

None of which would justify banning the idiot.

CR ? ! ? ! ?

I'm hurt . . . you can trust me . . . surely you know that . . .

There you go bad-mouthing clowns again Set. I knew I needed to keep my eyes on you. Oh well.

As to the current topic (bet y'all thought I would never get around to that, did ya), I tend to simply ignore anyone who seems to be nothing but a troll. It's hard sometimes, but based on everything suggested here it seems about the only real solution. At least it works for me.

Of course there are members of "our community" who go out of their way to exclude other members in good standing with the community because of their own prejudices. Are they all that much better than the trolls whose enjoyment is kicking sand in everyone's faces?