Every single pit thread on a contentious issue now has someone accusing another poster of being a troll. It only serves as a weak fallback for people who don’t want to put any time in or to just dismiss a poster, and to make things worse, the people who are constantly shouting troll at others are no doubt hoping for some sort of mod intervention. Even if they aren’t, it’s just another layer of noise to deal with.
I have not yet seen a situation where the discussion would suffer because of a prohibition against calling another person a troll. Is there any reason not to put the rule back?
Covered: personal insults are not permitted in this forum, as you well know. Your comment is uncalled for. Whilst you might call someone a troll in the Pit, you may NOT suggest such a thing here. You should receive an Official Warning through PM.
In no other forum than the Pit is it allowed to call a poster a troll. I would suggest that if it bothers you that much, that you go hang out in GD or somewhere.
In fairness to Dex, the PTB have made it really clear that they want ATMB to be civl. As in civilized. As in talk to each other like grownups. And God, I know that’s hard to do. I was starting to sound preachy. Anyway, this forum above all others should be, I think, a sanctuary from personal attacks. Things just come out better that way. Sorry for the way I started this.
That seems a little circular. We can’t change the rule about calling people trolls in the Pit because it’s the Pit where calling people trolls is allowed.
I’m not too sure about this because the rule was already in place before I got here. But I got the sense that the rule allowing people to call each other trolls in the Pit was not instituted much before I got here 3 years ago or so. I remember seeing the large discussion threads about it.
I think much of the reasoning, at that time, was that you can call people pretty much everything else in the Pit, so why not troll? But now, you can’t call people pretty much everything else, so troll might be the default worst thing now.
That said, besides the tediousness of having people called one word for a multitude of behaviors, I’m not very upset about it. Sometimes it would be great if people could have a little creativity with their word choices, but not everyone is all that creative.
Yes, it did. With respect, he implied that the OP was a troll. And it doesn’t take nitpicking or deconstructing or reading penumbras or examining the syntax with a microscope.
He wrote:
Getting tired of being called one [a troll] I see?
The logic is simple. If a person were not a troll, then he would indeed be tired of getting called one. (Notice the subjunctive mood.) But if a person is a troll, then he likes being called one. That’s what trolling is all about. Getting jollies. Posting to provoke. Just generally stirring up shit. A troll is proud of what he does, and gets a kick out of being called one.
Bee attempted to slip through the crack with a badly conceived and constructed “have you stopped beating your wife” question. If the OP is getting tired of being called a troll, then the assumption must be that he is being called a troll. The question, being circular in nature, answers itself.
And thus it is out of bounds. That’s how I see it anyway.
It doesn’t really bother me to be called a troll; I know I am not. It just seems to be the default response. Additionally, trolling is sort of against the rules. If people think someone is an actual troll, report it and move on.
It’s nice that you aren’t a mod any more. That attitude is the opposite of the meaning of moderator. I wonder why you don’t say the same thing to the people who yell “troll”, that if you don’t like to see trolls don’t go into the pit.
And that is also wrong. We need neither troll nor troll spotters. We have those Report buttons, so if someone is really concerned they can hit that instead of posting.
While I appreciate the defense, I’d like to suggest you choose your fights more carefully. There are better (and more winnable) debates to be had around these parts than the intention of my earlier post.
As for the report button, sometimes I wonder if it only exists as a placebo effect type of thing. To lull people into thinking something is going to be done about a post when actually the report just goes down a chute into the furnace.
In any case, I shall continue to make liberal use of the furnace.
Troll is a badly overused insult, it’s true. What happens is that eventually the word loses its sting. It’s a serious charge in that we ban people for trolling once in a while but people take it less and less seriously when another poster calls them a troll in the middle of a Pit argument.
