# Trolls R Us Resurrections (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 11, 2021, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518 "2021-09-11T17:26:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 209
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2023, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8640 "2023-02-24T23:21:38Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I really want to reply something to a particular post, except that I can’t think of any way to word the reply so it doesn’t look way too much like I’m trying to bait her into violating the topic ban. You could ask for help drafting your response, or if it’s a problem where she might interpret you the wrong way, you could just explicitly acknowledge her topic ban and point out that you’re trying not to bait her. If the problem is that you really _do_ want to discuss something with her that would violate her topic ban, you could send a private message; to the best of my knowledge topic bans do not apply to solicited PMs, but if that’s not the case you could always PM to offer off-site correspondence (i.e. email). Moderators, feel free to correct me. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2023, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8641 "2023-02-24T23:29:19Z")
I really don’t want to get tangled up into a private-message discussion of this, let alone one on email. I very much doubt there’s any way for me to budge the position of YWTF; the only sense in answering her in the thread is that someone else reading the thread might be more convinced, or more encouraged, by my post than by hers. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2023, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8642 "2023-02-24T23:33:13Z")
In which case I would PM a moderator your draft reply. If it’s a problem where you can’t make a valid point for the masses because it would encourage her to violate her topic ban, that’s a tangible problem for the mods to resolve (or perhaps defuse by suggesting alternate wording). ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2023, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8643 "2023-02-24T23:33:33Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I very much doubt there’s any way for me to budge the position of YWTF; the only sense in answering her in the thread is that someone else reading the thread might be more convinced, or more encouraged, by my post than by hers. I do that often, where I’m in a thread where I know damn well that I’m not going to convince the person I’m talking to, but I’m hoping that if someone else is reading the thread that they might be convinced. Especially if I’m correcting something that is wrong but a person is convinced (and will always be convinced) is right. I may be replying to them, but they’re not the person I’m really trying to communicate with. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2023, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8644 "2023-02-24T23:52:37Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > I would report them for baiting you into baiting them. To paraphrase myself from above, She is baiting the thread. Also, when did we replace the Bat-signal with a JK Rowling signal? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2023, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8645 "2023-02-24T23:53:04Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > In which case I would PM a moderator your draft reply. If it’s a problem where you can’t make a valid point for the masses because it would encourage her to violate her topic ban, that’s a tangible problem for the mods to resolve (or perhaps defuse by suggesting alternate wording). Not going to bother. > [@Atamasama](#): > > I do that often, where I’m in a thread where I know damn well that I’m not going to convince the person I’m talking to, but I’m hoping that if someone else is reading the thread that they might be convinced. Especially if I’m correcting something that is wrong but a person is convinced (and will always be convinced) is right. I may be replying to them, but they’re not the person I’m really trying to communicate with Me too. But there’s always the question of just how long I’m going to keep that up. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2023, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8646 "2023-02-24T23:54:54Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > But there’s always the question of just how long I’m going to keep that up. Of course! If they keep repeating themselves there’s no point in replying anymore. You’ve already said all that needed to be said. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2023, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8647 "2023-02-25T02:18:49Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I actually could use some guidance on allowable discussion in that thread. I mean, the thread is specifically inspired by a criticism from a trans-rights activist about the self-professed “allyship” of people who purchase the Hogwarts video game which indirectly supports the transphobic activism of JK Rowling. So I am discussing the issues in that context, including with YWTF. _That_ thread? Yeah, trans issues are inherently part of that topic. The OP criticizes a trans person for choosing to dissociate with people who financially support transphobes. The underlying topic will inherently be about trans issues. I honestly don’t get why she’s even allowed to participate in that thread. Maybe if she had been faithfully upholding her topic ban, you might give her the benefit of the doubt. But she hasn’t. And she’s supposedly on her last rope. She’s clearly trying to edge up as close to the line as she can, and that’s supposed to not be allowed here. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2023, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8648 "2023-02-25T03:07:01Z")
Maybe so. I definitely get the impression that the subtext is “you should all be so indignant that this activist is daring to hold the opinion that somebody who buys the Hogwarts game doesn’t count as a trans ally that you should rush out and buy the game and encourage all your friends to buy it”. Because ultimately, ISTM, the chief transphobic-activism goal is to decrease support for transgender-rights advocacy and activism and increase support for transphobic ones. A lot of transphobia advocates have figured out that pursuing that goal openly is a hard sell to strongly liberal audiences, so they reframe it as “resistance to woke extremism” and “standing up for women and girls” and similar superficially positive-sounding positions. Still, the Board doesn’t litigate posts on the basis of subtext, nor should it, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2023, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8649 "2023-02-25T17:42:09Z")
That’s why I haven’t reported the thread itself or anything. I only participated to point out that the OP’s question is a strawman, reframing an issue about bigotry into one about personal dislike and disagreement. And that this strawman is exactly transphobes are using to justify their attacks on trans people. But even though I find the thread ill-conceived and problematic doesn’t mean it violates the rules. But still it is a trans-related thread. And YWTF has a trans-related topic ban. So it seems to me she shouldn’t be able to participate, even if she carefully words everything to not specifically mention trans-related stuff. Anything she says will have relevance to trans-related stuff, due to such being mentioned in the OP. But, under the rules of topic ban, we’re not allowed to address that trans related stuff to her, since that would be “baiting.” So you wind up with others in the thread being restricted because of her participation. This is why I advocate that either she not be allowed to participate, or that these “baiting” rules be relaxed or eliminated and put the onus on her to keep up her topic ban. I personally think the former is less problematic. Letting people push the boundaries of what they are allowed to do isn’t great, and is usually discouraged by the mods. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2023, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8650 "2023-02-25T17:51:26Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > This is why I advocate that either she not be allowed to participate, or that these “baiting” rules be relaxed or eliminated and put the onus on her to keep up her topic ban. Bit late on that. She was already thread banned 3 hours ago. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2023, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8651 "2023-02-25T17:59:57Z")
Thread ban, a restatement of the old topic ban, and (IIUC) a brand new topic ban _J.K. Rowling_. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2023, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8652 "2023-02-25T18:42:15Z")
W\_E? also helpfully pointed out that since the thread touched on trans issues (and Rowling) literally from the OP, that nobody could be considered baiting because YWTF made the choice to participate in the thread and knew what it was about. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2023, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8653 "2023-02-25T22:34:00Z")
Yeah, I appreciate that note. Her participation in that thread was ruining it, and making it difficult for me (and apparently others) to know what could be said without looking like baiting her. I was worried she was going to get a third thread closed down. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8654 "2023-02-27T03:36:24Z")
So… anyone getting a trollsense tingle from new poster **fordgt100**? 2 day join, and while no topics created, jumped riiiight in to the board with seeming complete familiarity. In the Lecturing others on Issues thread (this is literally their second post), said the following: > The more “liberal” the city the worse it was too. Down here, people won’t put up w/ it. It’s like the signs I saw all over businesses in Memphis that said “Be Nice, Or Leave”. I fully support that sort of mentality. > > We do occasionally get something similar from The Southern Baptist Taliban members here, but if you just walk away when they start that sort of thing they won’t ever bother you again. Not so the PC zealot, their God given reason to exist on this earth is to tell us all what words we should use, how we should think, etc. It’s impossible to argue with them too, it just makes things worse. > > Actually, this is the number one reason why I moved back to the South. I’m a liberal, which seems to be a dying breed now, and those people were /are insufferable. If it wasn’t for The Guardian, NPR or PBS, they probably wouldn’t be able to utter a single sentence. Which, well, seems to be someone claiming to be a “liberal” in their setting, but otherwise is painting with the wide sort of brush that a Fox news user would recognize. In the Convention Food thread ignored all the prior posts and the OP to say just give them pizza and donuts, and they’ll be fine! They were also the one who broke the Jesus is White? thread out of a two week coma for a near threadshit, only for the mods to shut it down before it went out of control. I don’t want to dig into the rest of their post history, but … this feels a lot like some of our returning trocks before they start getting blatant. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8655 "2023-02-27T03:54:38Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > So… anyone getting a trollsense tingle from new poster **fordgt100**? I noticed it when the account was 2 hours old and had almost 20 posts. But I didn’t want to jinx it and say something here, I was really hoping we actually had a new poster. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8656 "2023-02-27T04:07:47Z")
63 posts created in 4 days (as of this posting), and many of them are on different topics – some topics have multiple posts but I’d guess about 50 different topics, on a wide variety of subjects. Not, I think, typical behavior of a trock. Just possibly someone who has been lurking for a while and finally decided that we are in desperate need of their opinions. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8657 "2023-02-27T04:14:55Z")
Not passing judgement but a few of our Trocks do exactly that. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8658 "2023-02-27T04:17:38Z")
I mean, he literally walked around with socks in his briefcase (if we are to believe the yarn he spun in your thread about retirement. Spun… like into… socks? Ah ha! That’s the give away!). ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518/8659 "2023-02-27T09:52:25Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > So… anyone getting a trollsense tingle from new poster **fordgt100**? Mos def. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518.md?page=208) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections-part-1/950518.md?page=210)