The OP is gibberish. I have decided to ignore it.
I think far too many people refer to Shodan as a troll in the same manner that they call someone a liar simply because they disagree with what the other person says. I’ve never seen Shodan troll anyone on this board.
If someone says something stupid, they should be called on it. Maybe not for the benefit of anyone posting in the thread, but anyone idly reading it and hoping to learn from it. Something that’s obviously ridiculous to you may not be so for others.
Shodan is an interesting case. He seems to genuinely be an ideologue who refuses to even examine things away from his point of view. His posting style is about as grating as Der Trihs’ and I like him, so I guess I don’t really have any place to call Shodan a troll. He does however post things purely to piss people off and that does fall within the gamut of what people consider trollish behavior.
Now that Clothahump guy, don’t get me started on him.
This post doesn’t count because you didn’t sign it correctly.
Now my head hurts. Thanks a lot.
Every few months we have a discussion about the composition of the SDMB and how it is so liberal. I think your post should be the final word on the matter.
So yeah, it was a rather lengthy way of saying, “People, don’t waste your breath!” I could almost have left him out of it because, like I said, he isn’t alone in it, and it isn’t just one quoted example. (And no I don’t bookmark all the stupid things people say. That one just seemed like a good one to start the morning.)
What I originally linked to, I see like this … Shodan claims something says A & B, somebody clearly points out that it actually says A, B, and C. He responds, “duh! A and B like I said! gahd!” To me this passes beyond simply bad debating or differing opinions … and into the realm of not taking the conversation seriously.
I do ignore him. But what I am pitting (or maybe pitying) is people making post after post trying to reason with someone who just isn’t looking for reason. Someone who pretends to be debating but is really just arguing for the sake of arguing. Being contentious just to get you fired up. That’s trolling in my book. And it’s annoying to watch people fall for it. Not to mention having to read between the posts for content vs. people entertaining them.
And I’ve always thought the internet slang “Troll” was lame. But it’s there, so shit.
Actually, having thoughtful conservatives who cite their sources and argue their point of view well is necessary to keep the board from becoming an echo chamber. Can’t fight ignorance without some contrasting views and intellectual challenges.
I understand it’s going to be frictional to post in an environment where so many of the other posters disagree with you and aren’t often gentle in their expression thereof. Occasionally it is hard to parse the difference between an assertive, sometimes abrasive, often mocking conservative poster who does find opponents’ tempers amusing, on the one hand, and someone whose rason d’etre is, or has become, the riling thereof and nothing but.
I had some good exchanges with december in the day but he had gotten to the point he wasn’t adding value to the board by the time he was escorted to the door.
I am not responding to this post.
But there are plenty of liberal posters who fit this part of your description: assertive, sometimes abrasive, often mocking posters who do find opponents’ tempers amusing.
But they don’t seem to be accused of the second part: that their rason d’etre becomes the riling thereof and nothing but.
The only difference there is whether the person happens to be in the majority. Deciding who is a troll based on that is pretty contrary to what this board is supposed to be about, IMO.
Thanks? I think?
Do the math. When 70% of the people who respond to you are saying less abrasive things to you, chances are good that a decently high percentage of your own subsequent posts will not be abrasive, mocking, baiting, etc… that does not mean you aren’t doing some of those, it’s just that they end up being a smaller portion of your posting activity.
I am not disagreeing with your observation, I’m elaborating on it.
This board is admittedly a ‘hostile work environment’ for a conservative poster. It is much more likely that a conservative poster is going to end up posting a lot of abrasive, mocking, etc posts, in reply to such from liberal folk arguing with them. The abrasive etc post-percentage of those same liberal posters however stays low because 70% of the posters responding to them are not responding in a fashion that elicits that from them.
End result is that the conservative person in here ends up looking more abrasive, more argumentative, more hostile, perhaps more trollish.
So what you’re saying is that your OP could have been “DNFTT.” 
Ah, I see what you’re saying. Can’t disagree with you!
This actually could pass for a working definition of trollish behavior. Certainly, I’ve been accused by numerous posters of doing nothing more than this (which I deny, btw, and which **Shodan **admits openly) in threads about religion which is then cited as evidence that I’m trolling. Shodan isn’t even claiming that he actually believes the stuff that he posts to induce meltdowns–how come that isn’t trolling? The word “sheer” still means something in English, doesn’t it?
I would say i’ve never considered Shodan to be trolling before, but this would to my eyes appear to be an admission to trolling. The column’s view would appear to support that, at least to me yes. Might I ask of Shodan how he would define trolling?
I surely was not insulting you. What it is is indicative of a change that’s happened around here over the years such that you have to defend Shodan from troll accusations, unthinkable when I started here, and that you intimated, perhaps unintentionally, that conservatives don’t fit in a “place like this”.
I’d say that encapsulates the liberal nature of this board. Which is OK. But it certainly drives a stake into the argument that the SDMB is politically neutral.
See my previous link. There is a distinction between posting knowing that it will cause idiots to go berserk, and posting in order to cause trouble in general.
Please notice that well-known troll pseudo whatever-the-fuck-it-is accuses me, without evidence, of posting things I don’t believe. That’s fine - he’s an idiot, and one of the people I can count on to post nonsense in threads in which I participate.
So as long as I consider you to be an idiot, then it’s okay to post shit that makes you go berserk, like pretending you don’t know my user name or claiming I have no evidence for posting things you don’t believe? I hate to belabor the point with so profound an ignoramus as you, because you won’t get the point no matter how heavily I hammer it into your forehead, but you did claim a few posts up that you post things that cause certain Dopers to go berserk for the “sheer” entertainment value of watching them react. Now “sheer” as I read it means that, even if there is no earthly value to it other than your entertainment, not the value of representing your sincere beliefs, or any other value, you would and will still post these things. The use of the word “sheer” clearly implies that you will post provocative things whether or not you actually believe them to be true or even plausible. Tell me how that is to be distinguished from “trolling.”
Now, argue your way out of that, Regards.