I “troll” couple boards (NOT here). Just got banned from a board. I was there 2 weeks, they could’ve banned me immediately if they had just traced the e-mail addy. (I assume that’s how they did it)
No. I guess if your positions aren’t indefensible and you’re not inclined to be a jerk there’s really no need.
Why?
Serious question. Not trying to judge. I Just wonder if you do it for the enjoyment of teasing somebody or if you like the controversy, argument etc.
I derive no pleasure in being an asshole. I don’t say anything online that I wouldn’t in person. So far I haven’t said anything to get banned.
No, I’ve never seen the point of trolling.
I don’t troll, so it hasn’t happened to me.
Why?
No. I have better things to do with my life than go out of my way to be an ass.
You do realize you’ve just put out a neon sign for moderator attention, yes?
Years ago I was banned from a board for asking about a board rule.
You realize that trolling for your own amusement is ruining others’ enjoyment of the board, right?
There’s a word for people who are aware of such a fact and disregard it. Several, actually.
Once. I used to fancy myself a professional troll, and got banned from the official Blizzard forums. For a dumb reason, profanity/personal attack (neither of which are ever permitted and I just got one warning too many). Fortunately, I grew up and left my trolling days behind. Eventually, they installed new forum software and I’ve been able to post since then.
As to “why?” I was bored and miserable in my personal life, had a superiority complex wrt intellect, and one of the only things that made me feel better was to make others feel worse. I gloried in making people look stupid, because it made me feel smarter. I’m not proud of it.
No, but I did get two warnings from a forum with a lot of social justice warriors. I left before I could get another warning. I don’t particularly fancy online communities that play the Oppression Olympics.
Just recently I got banned from a message board called Tomatoville.
A poster PM’ed me, asked how I arrived at my unusual user name, (if you’re curious, it was “TheLoneTomatillo”) and I replied that “I love ridiculously silly names! and besides so-and-so’s name was already taken!” (I chose the name of the head administrator).
I want to point out at this time, there was/is nothing weird or unusual about the head administrators username - which was the point of the weak joke (I thought). I meant no disrespect and was appalled with the reaction. But head administrator quickly discovered my PM comment, called me out on it in a ridiculous way (they were a total arsehole)
Because of what this head administrator wrote, it was so over-the-top snotty, was so ridiculous I felt the only recourse at that time was to not only courteously explain the “joke fail” but also finish my letter by suggesting they eat me like a ripe tomato. And for this I was banned.
They then went as far as deleting all my posts! I had written some very informative posts for the place, including cites. They don’t do that much there, write scholarly posts, as the majority of folks there don’t know jack-shit about horticultural science. I mean this is a board dedicated to tomato growers, yet we have many much better gardeners here at the Straight Dope.
But the administrator deleted all my posts, every single one of them. Which is truly their loss. My posts only helped to dilute the huge ratio of uninformed and incorrect information the site is peppered with. So the heck with you, Tomatoville!
Is this a metapost?
“Forget it, lone cashew. It’s Tomatoville.”
And no, all my stupid opinions are genuine.
I was apparently banned from the Television Without Pity and I don’t know why. I didn’t say anything that was remotely ugly or controversial, didn’t insult anyone, was given no warnings. Just BAM I couldn’t post. It was when those boards were first set up, and I didn’t care enough to inquire about the reason.
StG
I don’t troll, and have never been banned from a board.
Yes.
I don’t know about other trolls, but when I did, it wasn’t with malicious intent. Many people make trolls out to be assholes who want to piss on everyone’s parade. There’s many different kinds of trolling. To me, it was the adult version of playing on the phone or a virtual version of pulling a prank. All goofy fun. Most people eventually started liking me on those boards.
I was also banned on one board for just being a bad fit. The moderators even admitted that I wasn’t a troll. In other words, I was kicked out merely for being disliked. :eek: I found that really creepy, and I’m glad I’ve never experienced anything like that in real life, because that’s just really fucked up.
Oh, and funny thing is that there’s not a huge gap on the drama scale when I’m being myself and when I was trolling. 9 and 6, maybe? 
I don’t fully understand why my life is so controversial.