The "no calling anyone a troll" rule is dumb

I dunno. Maybe because it’s a fuckin’ debate board?

Are you new here, or something? This is such an stunningly naive statement, I’m almost at a loss in how to reply to it.

Almost.

  1. How often can you get everyone on this board to agree to anything? All your doing is inviting an endless succession of “Is Poster X a troll or not?” hijacks. We’ve already tried that on this board, and it sucked. Do you think things are going to be different this time around, or do you think there’s some actual value in such discussions?

  2. How often does anyone on this board change their mind just because they’re getting a lot of disagreement? Most of us aren’t teenagers, here. Peer pressure only works if you consider the people disagreeing with you to be your peers. Jesus, you’ve just admitted that even discussing this subject with you is “futile,” so (one assumes) no amount of disagreement is going to change your mind. Why do you think the other people who post here are going to be so much more malleable than you?

  3. Trolls, by definition, are trying to piss off as many people as possible. Assuming you can get a broad consensus that a given poster is really a troll, all you’ve done is given the troll exactly what he wants.

No I said some of the rules were silly. Unfortunately, trying to create a utopian ideal with a lot of dystopian citizens results in the occasional overreaction or the “good” rule with limited applicability that must be universally enforced to reduce the number of whining posts about capricious enforcement. Seen from the perspective of a wholly objective outsider, I am sure that many rules can be deemed silly. Such is life.

No. It isn’t. It’s a rants forum. No one is beholden to try to change anyone else’s mind here, the primary purpose is to rant. Or bitch about board administration. Or both. Amazing how that works; this thread seems to do both.

Honestly, Miller, what’d I do to piss in your cheerios?

It isn’t naive, it’s a statement of fact. Peer pressure works in the office, in sales, in just about every area of life. What the fuck do you think “keeping up with the Joneses” is all about? You really think peer pressure ends after high school? I don’t believe anyone here is either more orless malleable than I am. But if someone tells me their opinion, that they agree to disagree with me on the subject and they aren’t going to change their minds, I probably won’t keep yammering at them expecting a different result. Please see the definition of insanity. OTOH, if I’m discussing something with someone I know in the past has been amenable to changing their mind, I’ll argue a little longer.

oh, and I apologize for changing your quote, the “ad nauseum” was supposed to be outside the
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tag.

Maureen peer pressure is remarkably ineffective when the object of said pressure doesn’t give a shit and is only there to stir up trouble (IOW, a real troll). and if, of course the object of said peer pressure does indeed give a shit, they’d likely not be a troll, and would also then respond (in your preferred way) to other forms of verbal chiding.

wring, I will concede the point and quit the conversation. I believe we’ve gotten off the main topic, which is that not being able to call someone a troll is stupid, but I appear to be pissing off Miller, and as I ordinarily value his opinion and don’t care to get into a pissing match with him, I’ll withhold any further comment.

ok.

(but for the record, I wasn’t getting pissed )

It’s not particularly urgent. As for why, I have this thing about responding to poor logic and attempting to use reason. Call me crazy, but hey, sometimes it works. Other than that, I don’t really care one way or the other.

I was talking about the board as a whole, actually, but if you want to be pit-specific, you left out “tell other posters when they’re being idiots” as one of this forum’s functions.

You posted stuff that I found frankly stupid and ill-considered in a forum that doesn’t require me to be nice about it.

No, what’s naive is your understanding of how peer pressure actually works, particularly in regards to internet trolls. So, care to adress the actual points in my last post? On preview, I see that you don’t. Oh, well. Small loss.

One sign of crazy is mistaking opinions for logical proofs.

Ah, hell. That last post was going a little too far. Sorry, Maureen, assuming you come back and read this. Strike the whole thing and replace with, “I disagree strenuously.”