# A Bad Egg **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [January 21, 2006, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950 "2006-01-21T00:56:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/21 "2006-01-21T05:18:16Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > :dubious: Yes, I’d imagine you’re aching to hear it. I added the last sentence to ensure that you realized that I _did_ want to understand your view, and that you did not (understandably) think my question was sarcastic. Thank you for answering the question seriously. ---
**Author:** ![NicePete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee7513/32.png) [@NicePete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NicePete)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/22 "2006-01-21T05:21:48Z")
What is the entire point and motivation of trolling? To cause discord and disruption. By deleting legitimate threads just because one post (which happens to be the first in the thread) is from a banned user you are playing into the troll’s hands. You are disrupting and discording! You are F’ing TT. You’re giving them publicity. The best solution is to delete their ass and don’t say a word about it. You’re just drawing attention to them by doing this. And in the process you’re disrupting legitimate discussions that law-abiding users are engaged in. This is a dumb policy. Punish the violators, not the rest of us. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/23 "2006-01-21T05:35:19Z")
> [@Winston Smith](#): > > Who was Mal Ova in her previous incarnation? I wonder this, as well. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/24 "2006-01-21T05:38:41Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > I wonder this, as well. check your mail. ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/25 "2006-01-21T05:40:25Z")
Couldn’t you get the same end – removing any psychic payoff to the troll – by simply changing the names of each discovered troll to some standard ‘house name’? Something as mundane as ‘anonymous’ or more pointed ‘nobody important’? (Apologies if those are actual user names.) The post can live on, and people can discuss the topic, but where’s the please to any particular troll if their messages just end up mixed together with those of every other troll and sock into a blank morass of “anonymous”? ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/26 "2006-01-21T05:59:29Z")
> [@What Exit?](#): > > check your mail. Thanks. I wouldn’t have made that connection. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/27 "2006-01-21T06:00:33Z")
> [@StarvingButStrong](#): > > Couldn’t you get the same end – removing any psychic payoff to the troll – by simply changing the names of each discovered troll to some standard ‘house name’? Something as mundane as ‘anonymous’ or more pointed ‘nobody important’? (Apologies if those are actual user names.) > > The post can live on, and people can discuss the topic, but where’s the please to any particular troll if their messages just end up mixed together with those of every other troll and sock into a blank morass of “anonymous”? Or “Hosiery”. Or “Hoser”. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/28 "2006-01-21T07:21:40Z")
> [@NicePete](#): > > The best solution is to delete their ass and don’t say a word about it. That’s what normally happens but in this case we had someone with 2000+ posts, which merits a public announcement. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/29 "2006-01-21T07:24:17Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > Again, it’s foolish in the extreme to imagine that trolls are revisiting threads to relive the glory days of their tenure on the SDMB - it’s not as though those types tend towards long attention spans. How would you know? Have you been trolling somewhere? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/30 "2006-01-21T07:25:19Z")
🙂 (Forgot the smilie.) ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/31 "2006-01-21T09:12:14Z")
> [@StarvingButStrong](#): > > Couldn’t you get the same end – removing any psychic payoff to the troll – by simply changing the names of each discovered troll to some standard ‘house name’? Something as mundane as ‘anonymous’ **or more pointed ‘nobody important’**? (Apologies if those are actual user names.) You mean like this? You almost got the handle right 😃 (bolding mine, of course) > [@](#): > > The post can live on, and people can discuss the topic, but where’s the please to any particular troll if their messages just end up mixed together with those of every other troll and sock into a blank morass of “anonymous”? I agree. I think that the disruption caused on the Boards by all deleting of threads and messages – not to mention the extra workload on the Mods and Admins – probably do more to get the Trolls off than leaving their contributions to sink off the front page. If it’s a thread started by a Sock/Troll, or just too egregious to live, lock the sucker and watch it sink. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/32 "2006-01-21T09:59:26Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > If their posts, and the outraged responses thereto, are not visible for them to revisit and chortle over, they tend to lose interest in trolling this board, and go somewhere the pickings are better. Cite? In other words do you have any evidence at all for that statement? (Wishful thinking doesn’t count.) ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/33 "2006-01-21T16:04:39Z")
I like the idea of simply changing the name to a standard one, but I’m not so sure it’s actually simple. I don’t believe that you can have duplicate usernames and I’d guess that merging the posts from two names is a bit of work. And renaming them **Banned user #123456** , **Banned user #123457** , etc doesn’t seem quite right. But I do think CKDH has done the right thing by telling us all in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/34 "2006-01-21T16:24:09Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > renaming them **Banned user #123456** , **Banned user #123457** , etc doesn’t seem quite right. That’s too _nice_: **tehsuxxorbbc** , **tehsuxxorbbd** , **tehsuxxorbbe** … ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/35 "2006-01-21T16:57:22Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Cite? > > In other words do you have any evidence at all for that statement? (Wishful thinking doesn’t count.) Yep. Past experience with a variety of trolls. No one method is best for dealing with all trolls, but in our experience, trolls love to come back and sniff their little…droppings. We have logs of who visits, when, and what they did, though generally we don’t read them. Obviously, this isn’t something I can link to. > [@Quartz](#): > > I like the idea of simply changing the name to a standard one, but I’m not so sure it’s actually simple. I don’t believe that you can have duplicate usernames and I’d guess that merging the posts from two names is a bit of work. And renaming them **Banned user #123456** , **Banned user #123457** , etc doesn’t seem quite right. > > But I do think CKDH has done the right thing by telling us all in the first place. We’d have to merge users in order to give them all the same name. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/36 "2006-01-21T17:10:27Z")
Normally, the amount of disruption caused by the disappearance of a troll’s posts is minimal. We usually catch them fairly quickly. And we try to be careful in our disappearing process. We are certainly aware of the general membership, and we can be selective in what disappears and how. For instance, sometimes retaining the thread title but eliminating the initiating post accomplishes the goal without disturbing the thread itself. And our experience has been that this does serve to discourage most of our repeat offenders. Some of them value the friendships that they think they are making on our boards, and we trust that those friends are annoyed at them when their identities are exposed: basically, it was based on fraud, which isn’t a great basis for online friendships, one would suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Library\_Boy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cab0a1/32.png) [@Library\_Boy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Library_Boy)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/37 "2006-01-21T17:30:51Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > ::snip:: > > What we have here is an innocuous, bland, and inconspicuous sock. > > ::snip:: I do hope this was intentional on your part. As to the policy, I guess I am confused as to what that means when she was the OP. How do you delete a thread but leave other poster’s posts, as Dex said was the plan? Also, I’m not sure that the rules for trolls necessarily fit this one. There can be, and in this case there certainly seems to be, a difference between the motivations of a sock and a troll. While a sock is against the rules, why damage threads by applying a rule to thwart motivation that was not there? ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/38 "2006-01-21T17:52:31Z")
> [@Lynn Bodoni](#): > > Yep. Past experience with a variety of trolls. No one method is best for dealing with all trolls, but in our experience, trolls love to come back and sniff their little…droppings. We have logs of who visits, when, and what they did, though generally we don’t read them. Obviously, this isn’t something I can link to. Fair enough. In that case the present policy is understandable. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/39 "2006-01-21T18:41:47Z")
> [@Library Boy](#): > > As to the policy, I guess I am confused as to what that means when she was the OP. How do you delete a thread but leave other poster’s posts, as Dex said was the plan? Well, try: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=316836](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=316836) … tell me that you feel all disrupted and disoriented because the initial post ain’t there? I’d say that you wouldn’t have noticed. Or: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=329364](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=329364) ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950/40 "2006-01-21T19:38:01Z")
I would like to know who her previous incarnation was, too, if I’ve been around long enough to know that incarn. > [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > How would you know? Have you been trolling somewhere? Even if you did “forget the smiley”, this statement elicits eight-thousand rolleyes here. That’s a terribly backwards argument. You’d know that trolls don’t tend towards long attention spans because trolls have the Ritalin nature, period, whether or not you’ve ever trolled. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bad-egg/340950.md?page=3)