What is the standard for determining that a poster is a troll, and how has it not been met by copperwindow here ?
Especially given this post:
Every single line is clearly crafted to troll. Indeed, if I wanted to craft the ultimate post to troll the SDMB, it would likely involve race, customer service, prescriptivism, de-clawing, and making fun of one of the usual targets (i.e. Sampiro, QED, et al.). 4/5 ain’t bad.
I bet de-clawing is going to come in somehow, soon enough. ETA: And shoe etiquette.
Are you fat, OP? I’m just curious because I’ve noticed fat people are more likely to start threads about trolls. Must be all the screwed up blood sugar levels making them paranoid.
It boggles my mind that the referenced thread is still active. The mods must have started x-mas break.
Making it more odd to me is that this is troll season - different family IPs, free time, and all that. My guess is that it’s being discussed, but RL is slowing the process.
Personally I enjoy it when they stay open but relatively on-point. (Best in show for me: “I changed the title for you.”) Once they drift into other sniping, I drift away.
Or have given the Pit denizens copperwindow as an early x-mas present to play with…
If you are genuinely and truly a racist and/or really don’t like people of other races waiting on you, then the quote in the OP isn’t a troll. A troll says things he doesn’t believe to get a rise out of people.
Racist do tend to get banned but that’s because being a jerk is a bannable offense and most racists are jerks.
P.S. I did not read the thread in question, I’m only throwing in my opinion on the OP of this thread.
Myself, I’ve been seeing a lot of (ostensibly) banned socks.
Why do we continue to prosecute victimless crimes like baby-raping?
Troll: someone who generates more complaints than pageviews.
That thread keeps people visiting and puffing the site metrics. It helps the site. If the numbers of complaints makes it seems like it is not worth the hassle of fielding them, it will be closed. Until then, it is good.
The thread in question and its ilk are one of the best things about the board- always good for several laughs per page. And since the number of views on them are generally triple any other current thread, obviously lots of people enjoy them as well, so why ban them or close them? Hell, I say encourage more of them!
Why ban trolls? Fair question. Partly because this board is about information, and trolling takes up bandwidth by, at best, being neutral and at worst spreading ignorance. I would think that if you’ve ever complained about board speed or spam threads, you’d want to reserve all the resources for actual posters.
Plus, why reward jerks? Seems like punishing jerks is an end unto itself.
Well, I think we ought not ban sincere racists. Web interaction is probably our only hope of reaching such people and planting seeds of tolerance. But it seems clear beyond reasonable doubt to me that **copperwindow **is not sincere, but is instead trolling.
Yes, the only reason I would look at a thread I’m subscribed to is because of the sheer Christmas joy it brings. :rolleyes: Nice work, Sherlock.
I thought picky eaters, with their child-like chicken finger-based diet, were more likely to start such threads, because they lack the sophistication to discuss worthwhile topics. Macs rule.
No, my faith in the lord keeps me quite svelte, as god designed me to be. That’s why muslims are all so fat. Also did you hear that Hillary Clinton gave a blowjob to an elementary school dodge ball bully? That’s sodomy, right? Global warming.
copperwindow is the standard member of another message board I visit from time to time. (It’s tied to a certain online policial simulator). The site is full of em. They think they’re being insightful but their pseudo logic just misses the point.
So he may be an asshole, but it’s not proof of a troll IMHO.
I just closed that thread and warned copperwindow. While we suspected trolling from the get-go, I didn’t see a problem with letting him argue his position (and get chewed on by the TM for it). Saying stupid, unpopular things is not necessarily trolling and there was always an outside chance he is a racist who wanted to try to defend it. At the end, however, it became painfully obvious he was simply playing dumb to get responses, at which point he was just wasting everyone’s time.
Just a warning, though, unless it happens again. The standards for banning paid members are quite a bit higher than banning guests.
I’m not understanding. Are you not being sarcastic and the thread actually does bring you Christmas joy and that’s why you subscribed? Then the roll eyes are throwing me off.
Or you are being sarcastic and you subscribed to the thread for some mysterious, masochistic reason?
I subscribed to the thread because I posted to it. When I saw new posts and checked it again, it was to see if copperwindow had responded. Believe me, there was no joy in checking that thread, and I’m glad it’s finally been closed.
Instead of banning trolls, we should just remove their source of fuel by declaring certain topics off-limits. Many of these so-called “controversial” questions have been definitively resolved anyway, and only someone who’s trying to be facetious would argue them.
For example, there’s no longer any question that all women who breastfeed are lesbians; that black people are bad tippers not because they’re cheap, but because their brains are unable to calculate percentages; and that having a cat’s paws amputated is a perfectly acceptable way to protect your expensive furniture.