Perhaps some sort of device could be useful here, an interactive method for those of us who read and enjoy the forum to identify potential spammers or trolls and bring them to the attention of the moderating staff. I’d picture it as a symbol located somewhere on the page, perhaps even within the offender’s own posts, which can be activated somehow to fire off a signal to the forum police (Think Bat-signal, only more triangular… and exciting) which can be seen as a request for help in eradicating the trollish presence.
My humble suggestion for the design would be perhaps some kind of cursor-based system of locating objects within a window, perhaps of the point-and-click variety, which can be activated by a simple pressing of the left mouse button (or right mouse button, for left-handed persons).
Color scheme: Something eye-catching. Red, perhaps. But we need contrast to help it stand out. Let’s toss some black and white in there. Can’t miss.
Now let us propose that if enough of these troll signals are activated at once, the staff might seriously consider there to be an actual troll on the loose, and come armed with their warning pitchforks and their mighty banhammers and slay the troll, earning them XP for the party. And all the forum-goers who witnessed the epic battle might shower them in something golden (I’m talking cold, hard currency, you pervs) as a reward for their mighty heroism. “No, simple forum folk,” they would say, “a job well done is its own reward”. And then the forum folk will ooh and aah at how brave and yet incorruptible the mighty warriors are, earning them a place in the stories of legend, the threads of yore, passed down from generation to generation, until resurrected by random thread necromancers, which will then also be slain by the mods of legend.
Eventually this is all made into a film trilogy, which is embraced by all, and then a prequel trilogy will come out much later, and it will be markedly less popular and entertaining, but some will still insist that the prequels were awesome, and they will be considered tasteless, like a child who believes the finest chicken comes in the form of a McNugget. And they will be ridiculed and scorned, and eventually come to realize that the new trilogy is simply a money grab by film makers who have long ago given up on trying to make good movies, but are now in the business of selling out and cashing in on popular film franchises. And upon realizing this, they will achieve a state of wise cynicism commonly mistaken for crotchety middle-age, where the body is not quite as spry as it once was, but the mind is far more enriched.
Insert punchline here, end shaggy dog story.
