I don’t have any trolls to report but we’ve completely lost our last troll thread, so I’m hoping we can start again with a new one while the old one devolves into the same group of people bickering.
If you see any actual trolling going on, this is where to discuss it.
What’s best practice for specifying a troll’s post without summoning then here?
I think “Check out ObviousTroll’s performance in the XYZ thread in IMHO” works to point folks in the right direction.
Thanks, OP!
Oh thank og. Good call.
Yeah, I shy away from referencing a poster using the “at” symbol, eg @AT-AT.
Because many members get alerts, and watch for those so they can swoop into any thread to defend themselves. Then, like so many “I pit Jimboboyo” threads, it can turn into “Jimboboyo attacks his attackers and feels like, if he can ‘win’ against them, he’s ipso facto lameo, innocent of trolling.”
I don’t find it unwelcome, but I’m a bit surprised it was this time that resulted in a new thread, and not all the other times.
Agreed, as long as XYZ is specific enough that a search could find the thread. That said, you can also just always put a bare URL in the thread surrounded by ` marks, like this
https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-resurrections/950518
Thanks, OP. I was going to make a post (just one) back in the original thread expressing my disappointment that the entire thread had totally gone to shit, but it just would have gotten lost in all the noise. That was a truly historic derailing. Never seen anything like it.
Love the change to the original thread title over there, BTW. 
We’ve had some long derailments before, but I think just throwing in the towel was the right choice.
I’m glad people aren’t pissed at me for having the cajones to open a new thread.
I was going to report the hijack but I thought, fuck it, this is the Pit, not GD or anything. And people are blowing off steam and bickering in the right forum at least.
That one was brutal. The wall of words should probably be a 1 day suspension offense*.
*(I kid, but just barely)
I don’t believe I’ve ever scrolled through a thread muttering “tl:dr, tl:dr, tl:dr” before. I get here today and there’s 94 more posts in that thread! Jesus. I’ll pass.
What gets me is that they were essentially hairsplitting an extreme hypothetical that has all 7 billion people on Earth ceasing to exist except for one last male and female. You gotta draw the line somewhere.