Having seen, over the last few days particularly, the number of newly registered (although I’m sure they are often not new to the board) posters simply posting in order to insult various members, I have a suggestion. After registration, your password is emailed to you one week later. Trolls have short attention spans and will have to be pretty dedicated to maintain their pointless abusive posts. I’m sure there are problems that I haven’t thought of, but these incessant personal attacks are tiresome and make the board a less pleasant place to be.
Just a thought.
I think this isn’t a bad idea at all . The week’s wait could be used for lurking and getting to know the board .
It has to be mentioned though that it would probably dissuade some real posters joining aswell .
I see another one has crept out from under the bridge. It’s true you know, for every one you see, there’s hundreds hiding.
It’s a good suggestion. The problem is, what does that do for people who want to Comment on Cecil’s Columns? Or comment upon a Spotted Thread?
The idea for this MB is that it’s an open forum for everyone; people can read Cecil’s columns and comment upon extra supporting info they have, or maybe disagree with what Cecil says. Having a waiting period would most likely ensure that we don’t get many new posters- the guy who looks at a column and goes, “Oh, hey, I saw an article about that which supports Cecil’s position” would also have to wait a week to sign up, and by then he’s on to other, more accessible stuff.
Meanwhile, the trolls sign up early and often, maybe five new names a day. Then, once one name gets banned, they still have a bunch of already-registered-users to fall back into. (Still no posts yet from the false Lynn Bodoni and the false Ed Zotti- someone signed up as them a few days ago and is just waiting for the opportunity to use them.)
Oh, and DavidB and UncleBeer have been notified as to a certain other contributor to this thread.
Great, another one. I’m going home to clean the guns. I’ll be back shortly.
Of course there’s a balance to be struck, which I think leans too heavily in favour of the trolls at the moment. However, I don’t think a weeks wait would have stopped me from beginning to post. Not that my post should be considered important. Would it have stopped you?
It’s a decent plan, andy, but the major problem I see is this: even if the troll forgets about this place in the week’s wait, or gets bored in that time, when the password does show up, they’ll just get their hard-ons back, and come over here to fuck with us.
Sorta along the lines of, “Oh, shit, I’d forgotten all about the SD! Hey, I’ll bet those guys’ll really not beable to figure me out after a week. I can really fuck with them now!”
Nope .
I’ll chime in with my 2¢:
I agree with John Corrado that it might discourage people from posting in “Comments on Cecil’s Columns” or “Comments on Mailbag Items”. And many of the good threads in those fora have been originated by a comment that came from a first-time (and infrequent) poster, whom I guess would not have posted if they had to wait a week.
I also think that it would not discourage trolls. We have people signing up with obviously “trollish” names and not use them right away. The batch of trolls currently afflicting the board registers several names a day! I don’t think a week’s wait would discourage them.
I agree with Arnold (and no, we’re not sock puppets 
). I semi-lurked for a while, until I saw a thread to which I thought I could contribute something-- I believe it was something about poison ivy in comments on mailbag answers. Then, when I saw that thread, I registered and posted. Under the proposed system, I’d have to notice an interesting thread, and then register a week earlier, which is, at the moment, a bit difficult for me (but I’m working on it).
I think a possible solution would be to post IP numbers. Now before you jump down my throat, hear me out.
Once these trolls are outed, regular posters could send complaints to their ISP’s. And I know the argument about them being able to go to another ISP and another. But it could make life a little worse for them.
My question is, for the Mods/Admins, once these pimples are outed and banned, does anyone from SDMB contact their ISP with a complaint? If not, why not?
Or am I missing something?
Well I must be missing something. What exactly would the SD staff say? “Hello, this is the straight dope, Mr Troll has broken our rules, although probably not yours, could you cut him off and award his business to another ISP?”. Sounds unlikely.
Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that ISP’s have rules against you making an ass of yourself out in cyber-land. At least, many of the more responsible ones.
By that, I mean you can’t spam and I think what the troll(s) is/are doing is SPAMMING. Sending prank,annoying,etc messages pretty much fills the bill. But I always stand ready to be corrected and enlightened.
I would complain to the ISP, but I have no way to know, currently, who it is.
We may have to invoke the ultimate punishment that a troll can face.
I recommend we contact his mother and have his online privileges revoked.
What if the troll turns out to be your mother?
When both of you get bounced for having the same IP, you’re going to need both hands cushioning your rear to sit down.
Then we’ll fuck you and your mother. OK?
This board, despite it’s presumed intelligence, certainly gets its share of android209s.
Did you flunk out entirely, or just miss the lecture every year from grade 2 on about precedence in grammatical constructs?
Review: "Then we’ll fuck you and your mother. OK?” This implies that I was referring to myself, which would be pointless in a remark made to Little Nemo, the child in the bed in the comic strips. Or did that escape your notice, too?
When I use the words “your mother” when addressing Little Nemo, they refer to his mother.
To use your inference would mean that you as well were speaking of your own mother.
(Oh wait, that’s exactly what it must mean! You want to fuck your own mother. Run Mrs.209! Run! Little andy has a little boner!)
Lost in Space-Time/Sangler.
My sincere apologies. If you take a look at this thread, it may go some way to explaining, but not excusing, my pointless profanity. I’m sure there was some kind of twisted logic to it at the time, but it completely escapes me now. Again, my apologies.
Sangler, I’m assuming you arrived at your conclusion from just this single post?
Dear Mrs Troll,
We realize how difficult being a single mother can be. Especially when you’re raising a child with emotional difficulties like Junior Troll.
No doubt, you’ve been relieved with all the time Junior has been spending online recently. “At last,” you thought, “he’s making some friends with real people and has stopped trying to play Dungeons & Dragons with his GI Joe. And if he’s visiting those online porn sites; well, it’s not like he’s going to get a real girlfriend what with his skin condition.” And undoubtedly, you were relieved to stop receiving all those notes from the school psychiatrist.
But sadly, Mrs Troll, all is not well with your son. He has become a hacker. Not one of those cool hackers who breaks in corporate or defense computers and steals millions of dollars or nuclear secrets. No, Junior’s become one of those Columbine type hackers, the kind who’s had his lunch money stolen from him one too many times and is now angry at the world. No doubt, you’ve already noticed the tortured remains of neighborhood pets have started turning up. At the rate he’s moving, we’re sure a murder-suicide spree is only a few months away. And I’m sure none of us want to see “Terror at the Trailer Park” appearing on the cover of Time and Newsweek.
Now Mrs Troll, we don’t blame you for Junior’s actions. No doubt you’ve tried to raise him right, beating him whenever he needed it and locking him in the closet when he cried. And we can’t blame his father, because with seventeen suspects in the bar that night we can’t be sure who that was. And we don’t even blame Junior. We can only imagine how difficult his life has been, growing up in a rural setting and being regularly molested by farm animals. No, we place the blame squarely where it belongs; on comic books and cable television.
But enough about you, let’s talk about us. Like the majority of people on this world, we’re all smarter, happier, and better looking than Junior. So we have been trying to ignore his little annoyances. But he doesn’t seem to be taking a hint and we’re starting to consider taking more direct action to curtail his activities. Regrettably, as a potential witness, you would have to “curtailed” as well. So a word to the wise, Mrs Troll, unplug Junior’s computer and give him a Nintendo. In the long run, it will be a happier world for all of us.
Thank you,
All the gang at The Straight Dope
Hilarious post, Nemo, but I’d like to clarify one point: Our problem child isn’t a hacker, by any stretch. A hacker is a person who is skilled in the creative use of computers, and enjoys such use-- the term implies nothing about the ethics or motivation of a person. The proper term for a person who uses a computer in a malicious attempt to compromise security of a piece of software or another computer is a cracker. I would hesitate to even apply the second designation to Problem Child, but I suppose that the little trick of spaces in usernames qualifies as an attempt to compromise security. Admittedly, there is some overlap between hackers and crackers, but not nearly as much as most folks think. Most crackers simply run programs sent to them by other crackers (with instructions), but would have no clue as to how to write such programs, or often even how they work. Calling Problem Child a hacker is giving him/her/it far too much credit.
Sorry to spoil the mood, but it’s a subject on which I’m a bit sensitive.