This seems incredibly arrogant, but maybe there’s a benign explanation, or possibly it was poorly phrased and didn’t mean what it seems to.
The more complete quote is
Seems fine to me, in context–send cites and let the Mods evaluate them.
Yes, my questions referred mostly to this post.
Regards,
Shodan
The facts aren’t always obvious from the cites, and a poster might have something to add in putting the picture together. I can’t think of any legitimate reason for the mods for the mods to just ignore whatever points a poster may have made.
In the phrase “we usually analyze just the facts and leave the poster’s analysis/opinion out of the discussion,” “the poster” refers to the person bringing a suspected troll to the attention of the mods, not the suspected troll.
Understood. So then …
Nice, but that doesn’t answer my question. The question was “If you want to bring the issue before the board and not PM/e-mail the mods, what do you do”.
I also love the “Mods don’t care about your petty little opinions” crack. Very nice customer service there.
This does answer my question. So The Pit is the appropriate place to level charges of trolling. Thanks.
So then, PosterX comes to us and says “I think PosterY is a troll.” We look at PosterY’s posts and see what he or she is saying – what he or she says, how he or she says it, what kind of threads he or she starts, how he or she participates in them. We don’t worry about PosterX’s opinion of the content of that person’s posts, or of that person.
I’m not seeing a problem there.
I think the idea is to avoid reports like “Fotheringay-Phipps is trolling here and here because he knows that twickster is a free-thinker and a neo-splarfist, and that these issues are emotional triggers for anyone outside the oppressive traditional splarfist system.”
ETA: My, I was late!
I’m not clear why you need to make a public accusation, rather than communicate a concern privately.
Which was said where? by whom?
Yes, accuse away in there – but don’t expect the mods to read or act upon those accusations.
Yeah, if all PosterX says is “I think PosterY is a troll”, I’m with you. But if PosterX says something like “PosterY can’t be arguing in good faith in such-and-such thread because he had a different attitude in such-and-such other thread” or similar, it doesn’t make sense to just ignore this type of argument.
IOW, I don’t so much object to your leaving the poster’s opinion out of it, but you said you also left the analysis out as well.
I think that everyone got that.
It would seem then that the best thing to do is to bring it up in the Pit. That way, like in the K6 fiasco, the membership can suss the whole thing out. Once it’s resolved, someone can PM a link to that thread to the Mods who will then parse out the relevant bits and come to a consensus…or not.
We ask for your perspective and your cites. Seems to me that your example would be covered under “perspective and cites.” No?
ETA: Sorry, hajario got in while I was writing – this is in response to Fotheringay-Phipps.
To discuss this further, I can dig up mulitple cites where the SDMB has clearly stated that they don’t care how sincere a belief is–a hypothetical poster barging into and disrupting every religious thread to talk about his experience with the space-alien who pretended to be Jesus is just as much a troll as the one who’s saying the same thing to get a rise out of people per SDMB rules as recently as a month or so ago.
Are you saying that as of now, the policy has changed and you judge the sincerity of the poster, rather than the descriptiveness of the posts?
Also, let’s assume that you do or do-not find the poster guilty of trolling. Either way, what happens then?
Here is the definition of troll from our glossary:
Beginner's Guide to Glossary of Terms on Straight Dope Message Boards - About This Message Board - Straight Dope Message Board The Pit’s definition is a little different, but both focus on the intent of the poster.
So it’s technically possible to troll while sincerely holding a belief, as long as your only purpose is to be confrontational or raise hackles. To be clear, we don’t intend to redefine trolling with the statement quoted by twickster. That particular sentence is meant to respond to the most frequent trolling complaint that we get–“he said something stupid/unpopular/controversial. Therefore, he’s a troll.”
And put those hackles down. 
This is fine. It’s not mandatory, but it will often give us a fine sampling of the alleged trolling. And I’d recommend the follow-up as you describe it. Please PM a mod with a link or report a post in the thread with a note that we ought to check it out.
Hackles? Me??? 
Fair enough. And apologies Twicks–I think I read the worst possible interpretation of that line. Been a long day.
Is it fair to say that using “troll” as a form of insult without the express purpose of having a poster investigated and possibly banned is fine in the Pit, but if you want to make a serious trolling accusation then it should be made direct to the mods?
That is my understanding.
Though slightly off topic, this puts me in the mind of when I got tonnes of shit for pointing out that Desmostylus was on his fifth “final” warning. Though the odour of the snackpit probably got some of the mods not thinking straight and nominally warned for “bringing off board troubles”, I was mostly accused of whipping up a bannination drive.