Yeah, I suspect Silent-Bob Classic of sock-puppethood, too, but he’s so adorable you just want to pinch his cheek!
Lil Kiffy, I’m sorry for suspecting you. If it’s any comfort some people accused me of being a troll when I started, lo these many years, um, months, uh, DAYS ago. They didn’t realize I just have an annoying streak.
Myself, I never believed that posting “DNFTT” was an effective deterrent. Attention is attention. DNFTT = FTT. You’ll note that someone just registered under the name “D N F T T”, so it appears we’re about to have that thrown back in our faces. Myself, either I ignore them, or I flame the little bastards into the middle of next week, depending on what kind of mood I’m in. It really doesn’t seem to make a difference either way. If they didn’t get the attention they want by posting stupid messages or imitating members in good standing, then they’d do something even worse, like dragging up old threads in the manner of the second phony SILENT-BOB. Have you been in ATMB recently? And I’ve already stated this hypothesis, but I’m fairly certain that we’re dealing with an unholy alliance of dippymonger and xfiles. dippymonger is the one being willfully idiotic under such names as Balzac, and xfiles is the one imitating everyone else. They appeared to run into each other while they were both trolling ATMB. This doesn’t bode well, but whatever happens, I’m sure we can deal with it, whether we feed them or not.
Nodule B said:
Ah, great. Yet another martyr here to accuse someone of getting someone else banned (as if we evil regs were calling up the moderators and shouting “Look in this thread! No, don’t bother looking at anything else this person has written! Look at how this person insulted me! Ban them! I demand it!”) and then picking up the torch of ‘those who decry trolls are evil’. Funny, that.
Nod- go fuck a sock and tell yourself you have a girlfriend.
The people on this board are smart enough to rarely overreact to silly questions that are posted merely to inflame. The intelligent and thoughtful comments the regular Dopers provide are more than enough to make any troll leave in a huff. Albeit, there is rarely any real debate, (usually, a troll will post a question with only one serious answer) but there is often a reply containing some interesting fact or tidbit of information. So the question becomes, why ignore a question merely because it was posted by a troll?
We (the staff) prefer to be able to close or delete troll-initiated threads, in order to starve the trolls. If there are good replies, we’re more reluctant to do that. Sometimes we do it anyway.
Lynn
Administrator
Lil’ Kiffy
After an email exchange with Lil’ Kiffy, I think that he’s probably NOT a troll, just a little too enthusiastic about joining in the spirit of the Pit. I hope that he’ll stay and become a good poster. After we get to know him better, THEN he can join in with good-natured jabs.
Lynn
Lynn, can we still beat up on him? Just outta principle?