someone isn’t “trolling” just because they disagree with you and won’t change their mind.
…over at the old Randi forums (now the International Skeptics Forum) they’ve had a long standing policy of not policing trolling. Because the line between trolling and “having a bad opinion” is so incredibly thin, and reliant on the subjective opinion of the moderators.
So to claim that its “true” that the moderators are still “incredibly bad at spotting trolls” is a claim that need a much higher bar of proof than has been offered so far in this thread. I don’t think the moderators do that bad a job here policing trolls.
You’ve offered a definition here:
But the behaviour you describe isn’t trolling. Its behaviour I see all the time from people that I agree with. Trolling requires a couple of specific qualities:
Most accepted definitions of trolling require one specific element: intent. Without intent, it isn’t trolling. How do you determine intent? Well it isn’t easy. Its very easy to spot “trollish behaviour.” But are they doing it with the intent to so discord and provoke emotional responses? The OP doesn’t make a case that the poster he is accusing of trolling has done that at all, and neither has anyone else in the thread.
I would suggest to you that it “isn’t true” the mods are incredibly bad at spotting trolls. I think it is true that there are some posters who want to redefine what a troll actually is. If you are one of those posters: then perhaps you could help us all out by coming up with a more precise definition than the one that I quoted from you earlier in the thread.
Actually the “take a pill” thing was a line that my friends and I use; it’s from an old Peanuts cartoon
Granted, I made an (obviously wrong) assumption that everyone used a phrase my friends and I use from one obscure comic strip from 1964 :)–and I grant that was dumb on my part, but it was not intended as a jab. Any time one of us gets…I’m gonna use the word “pissy” with the statement that I’m applying it only to myself and my friends…pissy, someone else will give that smug Linus gives Lucy and say “Why don’t you take a pill?”
And the stomach churning fury is pretty much his own words
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12463142&postcount=9
Ok, he said chest, not stomach, but same difference and it was the same sort of anti-mod anger he was showing above… I was trying for the same tone as JC.
It was deliberately exaggerated, that being the key component of humor.
I don’t expect (although I’d be pleasantly surprised) to have the warning reversed, but there are assumptions in your warning that are flat-out wrong.
The correct URL for the comic in question is:
FWIW, “take a chill pill” or “take a pill” is something we’ve said for decades when someone was being over the top. We never used it for any deeper meaning than that.
However, probably don’t need to dig up BigT’s past in this thread. May be better for an offline conversation with Colibri.
Which is why I called that behavior pattern threadshitting. It may be trolling or it may be aggravated ignorance. Either way it derails threads, which is the definition of threadshitting.
It is *also *true that the mods let trolls live for far too long. Amazingly, two things can be both be true at the same time. Clothahump and Starving Artist were called out as trolls years before they got banned for reasons other than their political beliefs. I, as many others have also expressed, am of the opinion that they they overstayed because the mods bent over backward to avoid being accused of political favoritism. All that did was annoy virtually everyone else here.
I could bold some of the phrases in your quoted definition of trolls in response, but why bother? You can go off and have a nice rousing meeting with yourself splitting hairs about definitions of trolls to your heart’s content. All that’s really necessary is to recognize that their behavior is jerkish. There’s already a rule about being a jerk. It isn’t applied often enough.
Threadshitting is not derailing a thread.
Threadshitting is posting that the topic of the thread is stupid and why would anyone want to do/watch/discuss etc the topic. Someone can threadshit and not have a single response and it’s still a threadshit.
Jeez. You’re not Seth, are you? I was just reading a piece by him in which he makes that same description.
Who’s Seth and am I now officially old for not recognizing him? 
In any case, no–I just collected the old Peanuts collections and Linus’s incredibly smug expression in the third panel always cracked me up, so I scanned it and printed it on some nice 11x17 cardstock and hung it on my wall for years. Peanuts cartoons are brilliant but rarely laugh-out-loud funny. This is a rare exception
Seth is a cartoonist. Most famous in the 80s and 90s so no, you’re not old. You’re merely weak on alternative comics from 30 years ago.
Seth did Mister X, Palookaville and he’s the guy who did the design for Fantagraphics release of ‘Complete Peanuts’. I was just - yesterday - reading his graphic novel ‘It’s a Good Life If You Don’t Weaken’ (he’s a cheerful sort) and he quoted the exact same Peanuts comic in it.
Mister X? That weird art-decco-ish comic about the bald guy with round sunglasses in that weird city? I loved that book. I do know him and he’s a genius. I didn’t know he was still around
…so on what basis are you claiming that it is true “the mods are incredibly bad at spotting trolls?” Is it that mods aren’t addressing “behavior pattern threadshitting?” Because they are two different things.
I don’t think the mods bent over backwards at all to the motivations you ascribe to them. Outside of political discussion both Clothahump and Starving Artist were pretty ordinary posters. I’m one of the few who could have civil conversations with Starving over political issues. Here was our last interaction.
I disagreed with pretty much every political opinion Starving had. And over the last few months Starving said some things that really upset and dismayed me. I agree that Starving very much crossed the line and deserved his banning. But I don’t think the mods were remiss in the way that they dealt with him in the past.
If you are going to be accusing people of trolling then the definition of trolling is important. And nearly every definition I’ve ever seen used require intent. You concede you aren’t talking about “trolling” but are talking about “behavior pattern threadshitting”. Now you are talking about “being a jerk.” Which of the three are you accusing the mods of “still incredibly bad at spotting?” You seem to be conflating “troll”, “jerk” and “threadshitting.”
Seriously, where are you getting that definition? Threadshitting is usually a one-off post along the lines of “this is a stupid tread and no one should even be discussing it”. And there is no rule against “aggravated ignorance”, so if you think it may be that, then you are already admitting that no rules are broken.
Honestly, what you seem to want is for the mods to force a poster to tap out (to use a combat sport term), but it’s been made explicitly clear that they do not accept that as a proper role for moderators. I’m good with that. If they tried to be arbiters of truth, we’d be in endless ATMB threads about political bias.
What it comes down to is that a few posters are terrified of seeing any opinion that doesn’t 100% agree with their point of view and need to be protected like snowflakes.*
The vast majority of liberal posters here seem to enjoy the challenge of an opposing viewpoint and understand that dialogue is boring in an echo chamber.
I don’t post a lot in the political threads, but I read 'em and a number of my liberal brothers and sisters have made me stop and think.
To whatever degree our votes count, I vote for allowing more opinions, not less.
*Yes, it’s a cliche, but the way those few posters (who may or may not be involved in this thread) whine incessantly about how scary alternate viewpoints are, it’s apt.
The great strength of SDMB is that speech is nearly entirely free. We have a few forbidden topics, and require some minimal manners. But other than that it is free. I don’t understand why anyone would want to restrict this in any way. The fact that the moderators are hesitant and deliberate in labeling a troll is an asset, to be cherished- and by no means a failure.
Also, I am disturbed by the celebration of certain bannings. No matter how justified the banning, I think it’s wrong to celebrate. And I find the calling for banning repugnant. It is a Mod decision after deliberate review to ban or not ban. Calling for it is a little like the lynch mob outside the sherriff’s office wanting to hang the horse thief. Maybe the horse thief needs to hang, but we have a system to determine that. And it isn’t by popular demand.
So why did we ban, to pull one example out of a hat, that guy who had some rather interesting opinions on rape and feminism… Hungry Musician or something was his name? I mean, technically speaking, he never actually broke any rules by arguing that any woman who disagreed with him was brainwashed by victimhood mentality. That’s his opinion, he can have it, why should anyone else care?
And similarly, why should it matter that there are certain posters where you can track a thread going to shit pretty well by the number of posts they make in it? So what if their opinions are painfully stupid and they refuse to have anything resembling an honest debate about it for years at a time? That’s their opinion, and they should have it.
Naw, y’know where you can really find any opinion? /pol/. And there’s a reason I come here instead.
Care to bring up some specific examples? Because I have yet to see a single case of this. I’ve seen complaints about posters whose opinions run just shy of hate speech. I’ve seen complaints about posters who are indistinguishable from actual trolls in most regards*. I’ve seen complaints about the general tone of the board, because people (mostly women) look at these “alternate viewpoints” (read: extreme casual misogyny) and feel uncomfortable, unsafe, or unwelcome in an environment where they’re tolerated. I have yet to see anyone whine about “alternate viewpoints”.
*(Seriously, if you think my problem with, say, Clothahump was that he held “alternate viewpoints”… No, that’s not my problem with him. Rather, the problem was that in any given thread, if he shows up, the best case scenario was that people ignored what he said, rather than trying to start a discussion with someone who, as Not Carlson showed quite conclusively, is unwilling or unable to actually discuss.)
The “usual suspects” are not a problem because their opinions, as wrong I think they are. The problem is the shear volume.
They see every thread they participate in as a discussion with them personally. (SA was especially so, he felt the need to report he was going to bed and shit like that)
I would support a limit to how much a poster can post in a thread (2.5% or once every page sounds about right)
Would that apply to only “trollish” posts? 
[quote=“Bone, post:49, topic:823882”]
No. This practice you engage in of saying, ‘when you say X, you are saying Y’ doesn’t work. The reason it doesn’t work is because your interpretation is whack. Saying calm down is not equivalent to ignoring what someone is saying. Saying calm down doesn’t invalidate anything. There is no accusation of someone being a bad person. There is no implication that anyone is lying or being deceitful. All of these are conclusions you have drawn, that saying X means saying Y - they are completely unsupported and make no sense./QUOTE]
I am simply stating things that are true. If he is saying someone is trolling, but really thinks the problem is merely that they disagree, then he is lying. And if you accuse him of saying one thing while meaning another, then you are accusing him of lying.
BPC was not merely accused of making a mistake on who is a troll. He was flat out accused of, in Jonathan Chance’s own words “You’re also in the habit of telling us - via reports - we should ban posters with whom you disagree as trolls”
So I have Jonathan Chance’s exact words accusing BPC saying people should be banned as trolls for disagreeing with him.
As for “calm down,” you are doing it in this very thread. In this thread, the purpose of telling him to calm down is to tell him that the trolling issue he brought up is no big deal, and that he should not worry about it so much. That is exactly what I said “calm down” means, that one is dismissing someone’s concerns.
Instead, what you could have done is ask him “Can you post exactly what part you think is trolling and why?” Then, when he brings up the issue, you could explain why that issue doesn’t count as trolling.
But, no, he is told to calm down, having his concerns about trolling dismissed as him merely being upset over the election. Rather than take his claim seriously that a poster is trolling and dealing with that by explaining why he is not, he is accused of simply saying they are trolling because he disagrees.
And I’ll even add one more. He says he’s concerned about his health over his actions. Why would someone say that in public if they are truly concerned? When I was concerned about the mental health of a now banned poster, I wrote them in private, saying I was concerned. When I freaked out a few years ago, people PM’d me in private. Many I now I now consider (online) friends. So clearly this isn’t some social rule that only I know. If you are actually concerned about someone’s health from their actions, you discuss it in private, because health is a private issue.
What I am saying is fully backed up by premise, evidence, then conclusion. You may have a counterargument, that breaks one of my premises. You have, however not provided them. You are the one who did not back up your claim.
However, I will not accuse you of saying “nonsense.” Just of having unstated premises that countered mine. However, such make for weak arguments.
And lest you think the idea that telling someone to calm down doesn’t help is my invention, here are just a few sources:
Wall Street Journal.
Metro talks to an actual psychologist.
A Harvard medical instructor
And I didn’t have to hunt for those. They were all the top results of looking it up on Google. This is extremely commonly well known, and accepted by professionals. It’s something my own psychologist told my parents to help me deal.
And lest you think it’s only known by experts, here is a google search for the meme that has spread in multiple forms.
Like I said, this is something that is widely known.