Has trolling really gotten that bad on the SDMB? We have lost so many features! Some may be good losses, some not, that’s a matter of individual preference for all here. However, if things keep going the way they had been, the SDMB seems to be headed for a state of martial law. How unfortunate. I have rarely witnessed the quantity of trollage that others here have. Perhaps because I stick to threads and posters that I know are virtually troll free. I don’t really know what my point is, just making an observation, I guess.
The only features I personally miss are the lack of HTML and the absence of the {img} {/img} tag. But if there is an HTML tag that you really miss, you can always ask the administrators if it is possible to implement in vBulletin.
As an example, our friend manhattan was able to have the techs add the {sup} and {sub} HTML tags to the standard vBulletin tags.
I think that much of the harassment suffered by posters here (your screen name being counterfeited, obnoxious e-mails, etc…) results, as you have pointed out, from their posts responding to the trolls.[sup]†[/sup] I personally adopt as a rigorous policy “Do Not Feed The Trolls.” I never acknowledge them (publicly on the SDMB) in any way, shape or form. In my mind, that is still the best policy (though I’ve had to bite my tongue and sit on my hands on many occasions.)
[sup]†[/sup]By that statement, I am not attempting to “blame” the posters who have responded to the trolls. If a troll harasses you, the troll is the person that is indulging in reprehensible behaviour, and I refuse to give them any justification that they might think they have because “so-and-so was mean to me in a post.”
Yep. It is unfortunate.
I’d just like to point out that the troll didn’t just hurt those who it cloned… It hurt anyone who interacts with those people, too. If I see a thread by Ayesha, say, where she’s really going off the deep end, and ranting and raving about the evil trollhunters, I might start seriously worrying about her, if I didn’t realize that it wasn’t her. As another example, a few days ago, I was rather outraged that SILENT-BOB got banned, when in actuality, of course, he wasn’t. I don’t read threads by known trolls, either, but sometimes, the trolls aren’t known. It is sad that now, everyone has to suffer in other ways, to protect us from this sort of thing. Hopefully, with the software upgrade, automatic protections of various sorts will be put in, so the administrators will be able to safely re-activate certain features. We’ll see come Monday afternoon.
If you guys want a bit of a preview of the upgraded software, you can register at the maker’s site and fool with it a bit.
Why thank you Chronos. I didn’t even know you knew I existed. But don’t worry, if I ever start losing it that badly I promise to check myself into the nearest mental health facility.
Being cloned is no fun at all. Heck they even did me backwards.
It has been noted for some time now that not feeding things will cause them to die or hunt for greener pastures. :: sigh :::: Will always be some that will be unable to resist. Why not, if the ------- nah ----- “World is round, not fair, just round.” And that is just a ‘sorta’ but I do get tired of those who pass judgement on and mess up things for those who care when ‘they’ really don’t. Argggg — civilization is falling…
Well, Ayesha, I know enough about you to know that you’re a sensible and respected poster, and that you were one of the targets. And, of course, that you’re the official Biggest Flirt and Least Shy. It helps to know a little about one’s fellow posters.
What are you smoking?
Time get some air into the old lungs.
Gnarly, do NOT mess with Catbiker. He’s been struck by lightning at least twice (and survived!) and he’s capable of tying a crowbar into knots without breaking a sweat. He’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met…but I wouldn’t want to cross him.
You think you get a little break . . . but eternal vigilance is apparently our lot in life.
your humble TubaDiva
Adminstrator
Back on alert.
What did I do?
How is what I said picking on him.
He just seemed a little spacy.
Did you really make any sense of this?
Unless he’s quoting James Joyce or something, I don’t see any sentences or even a subject.
I’d be pleased if you could tell me why that’s an OK thing to post, but mine wasn’t.
A bit oblique, but I understood it. I think the short version might be, “DNFT… ah, what’s the use?”
Arnold, if you would be so kind: what are the {sup} and {sub} HTML tags? I assume they are for subscripts and superscripts. How do you make them?
And while I’m at it, could someone explain the “code” tags? Are they only for displaying lines of code? Are they useful for anything else? Do you have to know HTML to use them?
Thanks in advance.
The sub and sup are shown in this thread. To see the workings, click on Quote under the post in question.
Don’t forget the link. Here’s how to post one, Part Next
vBulletin tags are generally done like html tags, except with brackets [like these] instead of <these>. Usually, when people write them, they will use curly braces {these} in place of brackets, so that they don’t parse. For example to bold a word, it would look like {b}bold{/b}, except with instead of {}. The link where it says vB code is on explains all this, except {sub} and {sup}, which were added by us, not the vB people (if you can call them that 
).
Thank you much. 
I shall study that link assiduously.
Now, [sup]what[/sup] about [sub]the[/sub] “code” tags? 
Heeheehee
Quoting from the FAQ:
Code Tag
Similar to the Quote tag, the Code tag adds some <PRE> tags to preserve formatting. This useful for displaying programming code, for instance:
#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Content-type: text/html";
print "Hello World!";
In the example above, the vB Code automatically indents the text you reference and preserves the formatting of the coded text.
Where did I get that? From the FAQ: vB Codes Explained
NOTE: The FAQ is not 100% correct; it’s vB boilerplate and is not custom tailored for us. We’ll get around to it one of these days.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Yes, I’ve read the FAQ several times. The reason I’m posting here is because I didn’t understand it. It says that the code tags are useful for displaying code. Are there other uses as well? I believe I’ve seen people use it in the past, but never for showing code.
The FAQ also says that the code tags preserve formatting. Does that mean HTML formatting or will it preserve the formatting of something I edit in MSWord?
Thanks again.