The people on this board are smart enough to rarely overreact to silly questions that are posted merely to inflame. Why ignore a question merely because it was posted by a troll? 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.
IMO, the shear number of people admonishing everyone else to not reply to trolls just gives them the attention they are craving. There is entirely too much bandwidth devoted to them. Just let them ask their silly questions. If a doper then posts a reply that imparts some tidbit of information, then the Dopers have won, and the troll has lost.
P.S., for those who don’t know, “DNFTT=Do Not Feed The Trolls”
the link is here. I posted this after writing a reply to a troll’s question in great debates. Didn’t even look through the Pit to see if there was a related thread. Sorry, my bad.
Lynn Bodoni or Alphagene: Please close this thread. I will repost the substance in the above thread.
And since the thread isn’t closed yet, I’d like to agree with you.
If threads that just seek a reaction are “trolling”, then a good portion of everyone’s threads are that way.
A lot of time you can tell the original poster wants to make a point and doesn’t care about feedback or arguing. He’s said his piece and isn’t returning. So what?
And if the person is outrageous, but gets a bunch of people talking, that OK too. If you say “Kennedy was killed by Martians” and people jump on to reprimand you, that’s their lack of perspective. A serious person will simply skip the thread. Why talk back to someone who won’t read your answer anyway? That’s just stupid. An DNFTT is saying “I’m smarter than the next poster”, but don’t count on it.