We really need clarify this rule, Idle Thoughts. I never accused Sicks Ate of being a troll, I accused him of trolling. There is a difference,
In this threadSicks Ate posted about a gay Republican who came out against a gay bill. In his OP, he said it was good “fodder”. After 36 minutes he didn’t have a bite so he posted this:
After telling him that farming doesn’t have jack shit to do with being gay I posted these two, which is what I was warned for.
I got warned by Idle Thoughts for that. Has “trolling” become such a word that we get warned for even using it? Hell, it’s origin is a fishing term. The guy even said “bait the hook”. I don’t think Sicks Ate did anything necessarily improper in that thread. But he did do what “trolling” is originally named after. i.e. fish for a fight.
And let me remind everybody there is a difference between “A Troll” and a poster who is “trolling”. Both are bad, but it’s the difference between “an asshole” and “being an asshole”.
And no, I don’t think Sicks Ate is either an asshole or a troll. But I do think he was fishing in a way I don’t like.
As I said in PM (and the thread itself), it’s also against the rules to accuse someone of trolling (outside of the Pit).
If you think another person is trolling (or a troll), you should just report the post rather than resorting to calling them out on it in the thread (which may lead to further heated words or arguments). You can also start a Pit thread about them.
I’m not crazy about you telling me to stop hijacking a thread where I was replying to posters who were replying to me. I haven’t figured out how to quote multiple posters in one reply post yet, so I reply individually. If you have an issue with my behavior in a thread, kindly reply to me in a PM or report it. But to say “You’re hijacking. Stop” makes you sound like a bossy pants hall monitor to me.
I’m guessing that you will probably say I’m hijacking this thread, but it seemed like as good a place as any to address your policing.
There’s no difference as far as the rule is concerned. As Idle Thoughts said, accusing someone of trolling is explicitly against the rules in itself, not just calling them a troll.
It seems you are just being disingenuous here. You weren’t accusing him of fishing by trolling, you were clearly accusing him of the internet behavior that’s named after it. You might have thought you could skirt the rules by phrasing it the way you did, but that’s not going to work.
Seriously, why? Must I come to you every time I think somebody is close to fishing for a reaction, but maybe not actually meaning it?
On preview, living_in_hell, I have nothing against you. That’s a different thread.
Er, sorry. I meant it was a stretch that you were calling someone a troll. Being a troll and trolling really don’t mean the same thing anymore, if they ever did. Whew.
I wonder if you would have been warned for saying “you’re fishing” which could be interpreted as an accusation of trolling.
I’m not sure exactly what you’re “protesting.” In the OP, you suggested that the rule “needed to be clarified.” We have pointed out that the rule didn’t need to be clarified, since it quite explicitly prohibits exactly what you said.
But see, that’s what I don’t get. Y’all have such a zero tolerance policy when it comes to trolls that it loses rationality. “Trolling” isn’t always a character trait, it can be a behavior. You know that.
Why would this be relevant? The point is that accusing someone of that behavior trait is against the rules. It has nothing to do with the desire to stop trolls. It has to do with the fact that it’s incendiary. Trolling even once is a horribly disliked behavior, and thus eve accusing someone of doing it once is considered an attack.
Trolling is not something you can do accidentally. You might not call it that, or realize it’s wrong, but you must have a fundamental desire to try and stir up needless confrontation. That desire is what is considered wrong. It’s so wrong that accusing someone of having that desire is itself considered wrong.
To accuse someone of trolling is to say something fundamental about who they are as a person. It doesn’t matter whether they do it once or make a habit of it. It’s still an attack on their character. The acceptable way of voicing your opinion would have been to say that it “sounded like trolling, but you knew it wasn’t due to his character.” Or to have just done what you said you wanted to do, and opened a thread in the Pit about it.
Wait, seriously? If someone posts that they are “baiting the hook” and someone points out that that is, by definition, trolling, they can get warned? That’s not an insult, it’s a definition! And could the other poster get warned simply for saying that they are “baiting the hook”? After all, they are literally admitting to trolling!
