Maybe I’ll re-subscribe cricetus myself. Just because I’m bored. 
How about “twit”?
If they’re a troll, no, it isn’t.
That’s why, if you think somebody’s a troll, you don’t call them anything. Calling them a troll isn’t going to make them step back and say ‘Oh, I’m sorry, you caught me. I’ll be good.’ Calling them a troll is going to have exactly the same effect as calling them an asshole - it’ll encourage them to continue trolling because they know they’ve gotten a bad reaction.
So you don’t call them a troll, you don’t call them an asshole, you don’t call them a ‘knuckle dragging ass munch’. You don’t call them anything.
You ignore them.
And if they’re not a troll, you’ve just publicly accused an innocent - if dumb, abrassive, or assholish - poster of an bannable offense, which isn’t what a normal person would consider a good thing.
And, if you call a non-troll on their dumb, abrassive, or assholish tendencies, they might stop. Or they might not. Of course, after the latter is shown to be the case, you should ignore them, too, since the effect will more or less be the same thing.
So, nothing good can come of posting an accusation of trolling, whereas there is a slight chance that something good might come of calling someone on their negative tendencies.
Because the point is, if you think another poster is a troll, you don’t say anything to them. You report them to the mods and they get warned or banned. Calling a troll a knuckle dragging ass munch is exactly what a troll wants you to do: he exsists solely to start fights. When you flame a troll, you’re playing right into his hands and facilitating his trolling. Which the mods have said, repeatedly and explicitly for years, not to do. Do not feed the trolls. Calling a troll a troll, is feeding it. If you don’t think another poster is a troll, then calling him a troll anyway is, itself, trolling. Which you’re not supposed to do on these boards. So calling another poster a troll is either a) false, and violative of a board rule (do not troll) or b) true, and violative of a board rule (do not feed the trolls).
Is this clear yet?
As clear as the other two posters who said it before you. And to me, it’s still clearly stupid. Telling people they can’t use a word because it describes verboten behavior is just silly. If I want to say “that asshole is a troll” I should be able to. If someone derails one of my threads and trolls it, I should be able to call their ass out in the Pit. I’ll probably report the trolling prick to the mods as well.
As I said earlier to Harborwolf, I understand the reasoning. I just don’t happen to agree with it. And obviously I’m not the only one; people have been tiptoeing around using “troll” ever since the rule went into effect. Obviously, you are capable of exhibiting exemplary behavior in each and every situation. I admit to not being able to occasionally. Oh, well.
But there really is no reason to tiptoe around it. You simply report it to the mods and let them make the decision. They like this sort of thing. It makes 'em feel needed.
What I’ve never understood is why we need to be able to use the word. What’s the attraction. We don’t have enough insults to hurl at each other? What’s the allure of this one little word?
Oh, probably forbidden fruit syndrome.
Has anyone made an Orwellian reference yet?
Just checking…
Oh now. None of that short answer bit. It’s an honest question.
Personally, if I think someone is trolling I hit the report button and let the mods sort it out. No need to bring the court of doper opinion into the equation.
Why is it so important that we be able to use the word troll? What purpose will it serve that isn’t already being taken care of?
We have always had the rule against calling someone a troll. The rule is a double-plus good.
I was being entirely sincere. I know myself well enough to recognize when I’m saying yes just because someone in authority is telling me “no.”
This place has a lot of intelligent people. As a general rule, intelligent people tend to resent being forbidden to do anything. They question the reasoning behind it, they argue against it, they find reasons to get around it. Forbidden fruit is a very real motivator.
Pretty good! ;j
I was going the New Speak angle myself. Remove the word and the thought vanishes.
Well then, that I understand completely. 
To everyone else then, I’ll rephrase. How would the possible new rule (no troll prohibition) be an improvement over the old rule?
Well I’ll reiterate my single objection. With the rule in place, once someone’s insinuated that somebody’s a troll and gotten away with it (*ahem * Excalibre) nobody gets the chance to insist they back it up or explain their reasoning. It just hangs over the victim like a giant question mark. You think, maybe I shouldn’t respond to this person, maybe I’m missing something. I think that’s worse than if it were brought up openly and aired out fully.
The new rule would be no prohibition against calling out trolls, asking people if they’re trolls, or whatever.
Frankly, there’s a bit of an excluded middle there anyway. People can wind each other up a bit without really “trolling” in the sense that they are lying and trying to cause train wrecks.
But the question is answered when the person isn’t banned. Once it’s out there, people are going to report it and mods are going to take a look. If they aren’t banned, then no trollage.
Cricetus, I wasn’t trying to say that trolls would be permitted, just the word. I figured everyone would be up to speed on it already so I shortened it up a bit.
I still don’t understand the logic of insulting an obvious troll as opposed to just calling them a troll and be done with it. An “insult-fest” could continue for several screens whereas once a troll has been designated, the moderators wouldn’t even have to be bothered with shutting a thread down and it would just die because of apathy.
So it’s not your fault for not saying what you meant, it’s my fault for not being smart enough to know what you really meant. :wally
I thought the basic rule of the boards was “don’t be a jerk.” And yet, I can open a pit threat titled DoperX Is A Jerk and my OP can go on at length at about how much of a jerk that Doper is, with specific instances where I think they are being a jerk. So, the argument that being a troll is against the rules doesn’t sell me.
What I wonder is whether I could start a pit thread titled “DoperX is Not A Troll,” and fill my OP with a fair, reasoned and logical argument that DoperX is clearly mentally ill and should seek psychiatric assistance immediately, and that their apparently trollish behavior is actually a symptom of paranoid schizophrenia. Is it OK to call someone a not-troll?
Based on some of the early posts in this thread and some of the others where GW figures prominently, it’s obvious that there are no consequences for declaring another Doper to be mentally ill.
I suppose it might be hard to tell the difference between a troll and a mentally ill person. I don’t think anyone here, medical personnel included, is qualified to make that judgement based on someone’s posts on a messageboard.
Pretty much.