I vote T and A…but then, that’s my standard vote, regardless of the question asked.
(I’m sure the mods are taking note of ivan’s attitude and predilections, and will be watching him like a hawk in the future. All he’s really managed to do with his blow out thread is paint a target on his own sloping forehead, and also bring himself up on the 'doper communities radar, if he wasn’t there already, as someone who it is a waste of time to engage in. I used to think he was basically a smarter version of gonzomax, but say what you will about The Gonz, he ain’t no troll).
I’m going to have to go with E.
I’ve been calling him a troll for years.
I first became aware of Ivan when he started his first pit thread in 2008. In that thread he was disagreed with by most everyone too. Reading over the thread back then, I became convinced he was a troll.
The topic even had to be shut down eventually as Ivan would not stop posting in it, keeping it at the top of the forum.
Later, still, I made this post pointing that fact out to Giraffe (he was still a mod then).
After that last one, Ivan’s troll side seemed to go into reclusion, which, I suppose, could be a point for the fact that he may just really be a nutcase who believes what he’s saying…
…but in the end, and since there’s all of a topic talking about it now (this one), I figured I’d throw my vote in for troll again.
So, an inconsistent troll, is it? Even if you are right, it still suggests that the bigger problem is with all those posters who gave me something to respond to.
No, I notice you. I notice the way the collective intelligence of this place goes down a notch every time you hit “Submit Reply”.
I don’t vote “troll”. I think that is a lameass accusation that is losing meaning and relevance as a consequence of reflexive overuse.
Ivan is just one of those people who has boundless confidence combined with a certain dim-ness, which means he confidently states silly things and can’t recognise when he’s been thoroughly rebutted. It can be irritating but that’s the way some people are.
I have no idea whether he’s a troll, and see no reason to decide. I find “full of shit” to be so ill-defined a description that I can’t vote one way or the other.
All I know is that I hate him very much, and want him to go away. As for you people who think he’s “fun,” and “livens up the place,” the board could very profitably do without you, too.
Yeah, I agree that the poll options are too ambiguous. To say he’s “full of shit” can range from he believes every word he says yet it’s all bullshit to he’s just spouting stuff he knows to be bullshit. Hence all of the split “A and E, idiot and troll” type votes.
I think the important thing here is that Ivan was trying to portray himself as being D - or at least B or C, talking about how he was skillfully outdebating us and how all the unnamed neutral masses reading the thread could plainly see it. But no one who has posted in this thread has come close to identify him as B-D.
And for those of you who impotently declare which posters the board can and cannot profitably do without, the board could probably profitably do without you, too.
A. I might have said ‘troll’ as well, but his antics in the 9/11 conspiracy threads showed he not only was stupid, bought loads of bullshit, but was also a coward about it and not clever at all.
A troll has to show signs of being somewhat clever. Ivan’s pathetic attempts to do so in this thread are all he can muster in that direction.
Never thought any such thing; that was you. I had no pretentions of outdebating anybody - that was also you! - my main intention was to give as good as I got in a Pit thread, and maybe have a little side discussion about ufo’s and national security.
It’s painful to read the xtisme/muppet thread. Although I think Ivan is probably a regular guy in real life, I just want to take him by the shoulders and shake the shit out of him after reading that nonsense.
Are you another one who thinks I am the only one at fault in that thread, or are you going to concede that there are a few jerks who came to join the fray?
There is a lot of blame to go around, and plenty of people were jerks. But you were the only person I was actually frustrated by. A dozen people told you the argumentative fallacies you were presenting, but you charged forward with bull-headed determination. You need to slow down, look around, think, and then speak (or type). When presenting an argument, you can’t point to a 500 page book nobody has ever heard of and say “prove this wrong, or I’m right by default.” I didn’t even know what your position was until halfway through the goddamned thread.