Honestly, I don’t know.
I’m really hoping to get an answer to this, as i’s puzzled me for a long time. The overarching goal of the Straight Dope is to fight ignorance. This is why posts that are somewhat crude or offensive are allowed (to a point): the responses are supposed to enlighten the asker AND the numberless masses who may have the same view. And mods have said sometimes a post isn’t mod-able, and they leave it to us laypeople to respond.
How does that square with ignoring troll-ish posters?
IMHO:
Trolls are not asking because they are ignorant. They are asking to provoke a response, for shits, giggles, and attention. Responding to trolls and allowing their behaviors to derail other discussions prevent those discussions from becoming the means of reducing ignorance.
Please note: the ignorance to be reduced is often NOT that of the asker or the numberless masses (and let’s be realistic, they are not numberless and the number is not likely a large one) but mine and yours. My ignorance is reduced daily because I participate here - both by information provided by others and by arguments made by others that catalyze me to research information in response that sometimes confirms their arguments or disputes them but in any case is something that I did not know before and that I would not have known if not for the process.
Trolls and other thread derailers get in the way of that process and prevent the fight against our own ignorance.
Pro-tip: it is nearly impossible to derail a thread when you use threaded mode. Just ignore the branches that you don’t like.
~Max
While I’m usually on HurricaneDitka’s side, I am not when I disagree with him. It doesn’t get much more tautological than that. I don’t blindly follow him around just to lend support - we are two different people and we disagree sometimes.
Like with the whistleblower.
~Max
I guess the answer to my OP is “nothing.” That is, yes, of course, people could ignore almost-trolls, but as I said, it’s not been very effective. I have learned that there are Dopers who disagree that there is a problem, so at least my ignorance was fought.
I thought it was worth a shot. Thanks for the many replies.
As I said, I think it’s a lack of self-control. Nobody is forcing one to turn on the computer, open a browser, navigate to the SDMB, open a thread, or read a post, let alone respond to it.
The solution off course is that everybody just use my ignore list.
It’s especially difficult to hold back from responding to a troll when he/she mentions (and likely misrepresents) you personally, as happened with Northeast Refugee and his sock (or comrade) about a month ago. (He/they did get banned, so that’s good.)
The problem is that HD, Shodan, and a few others have people at this board who don’t read their posts to see what they said. They read specifically so they can contest what** HD** et. al. said. These folks know in advance that there is nothing HD et. al. could say on any topic that they would acknowledge as correct. The solution is for those unfortunate** HD** addicts to just not read his posts. Maybe take a break from this board for a while and meditate on why a guy whose name they don’t know and whom they’ve never even met looms so large in their lives.
Which leaves them up and readable by everyone who is not part of a small, veteran group who has been encountering them long enough to make that judgement. You want the few knowledgeable ones to step aside so that the thousands of infrequent readers and all the new members and guests are exposed to the posts without anyone opposing them factually or saying that their sentiments are wrong in many ways.
Congratulations. If I tried hard to come up with the worst possible solution, I couldn’t have managed this peak of awfulness.
Yes, who would we have to protect us from using our own brains except for that small, veteran group. Indispensable!
Or not. I, for one, am perfectly capable of scrolling past numerous posts and answers-to-posts by and about the usual suspects. I have figured that out for myself. If I were to post in the thread about “what bothers other people but doesn’t bother me” then I would mention the fact that such people post, often in bad faith, on this board.
This is not to say that anyone should take Scumpup’s advice as expressed here. Nevertheless it might be a good idea for some folks to stop and take a breath before they post sometimes. I too have figured this out, after having it pointed out to me. Even if I don’t always follow that advice myself, I always know after the fact that that’s what I should have done.
Oh dear! How dare people respond to those they wish without the blessings of their betters! What a narcissistic point of view.
I do understand. I just don’t care. I can scroll past posts from posters I don’t want to see. Sometimes I might even read a post that I should have scrolled past, and then I roll my eyes to myself and scroll on. It’s not that hard.
To be honest, it’s highly amusing to me how much an anonymous message board poster can affect people.
Are you stuck on “repeat”? You didnt answer the question you quoted whatsoever. ?
And yet the posts do affect people. They affect them so much that they leave.
So which group do we cater to? The bigots, misogynists, and intolerants who spew demeaning messages or the actually valuable posters who provide meaningful and thoughtful insights into the world?
What to do, what to do?
And yet you cared enough about your own highly amused state to go to the trouble of telling us all about it. If you truly don’t care, why post in this thread at all? It’s just an anonymous message board, after all. :rolleyes:
That’s not at all what he said. As I said before either in this thread or another one, I sometimes respond to posts regardless of who made them just because I hate to see bullshit sitting out there unchallenged. Just like I did now. Because if no one does that the bullshit passes as fact, or at least something that no one has an answer to, and it sits there festering a like a piece of dog shit on the living room rug. The reason that sealioning is so damaging is that its whole purpose is to pepper a thread with such posts in order to derail and consume poster resources.
His comments would make a lot more sense if the conservatives on this board weren’t so loudly bothered by other posters that they scream about bias, flounce regularly, and complain every single time they get reined in.
It’s purely Trumpian in their projection: they reflexively accuse their enemies of the crimes they themselves are committing to try to deflect their guilt and persuade the gullible and those not paying attention.
The job of the rest of us is to never not pay attention. That’s one major reason why merely ignoring them is the worst possible response.
I did answer the question. Apparently you don’t get it.
Your Q: Why do you think so many millions of people, many of whom are incredibly smart and accomplished in their own right, seem to lack such basic life tools?
My A: They lack self-control when it comes to the internet.