I am only familiar with it because of the movie Snatch. Brad Pitt played a “Pikey” in the film (which I take it is a pretty nasty slur over in the UK). I have never encountered the concept or term anywhere else.
Scotland has its own version of Travelers as well apparently.
Never heard the term before that thread. To me, an “Irish Traveler” is a visitor from Ireland! 
I first heard the term when I worked in a video store, and discovered a movie with the same name.
I’ve heard the term “Traveler” in various news stories over the years. Some at least are Roma. Dunno about the Irish Traveler, but I suspect it has more to do with their last country of residence than where they’re actually from, if you see what I mean.
This is going to be a bit superficial and very simplified.
Roma/Romani is a label that encompass quite a few subgroups. Travelers is one of them. Traditionally, in Europe, they where very good metal workers, traveling from village to village and performing services: sharpening knives, a pair of scissors. Tinkerers basically. They were tolerated, because that small village might not support a Smithy, and they provided good services.
However, they, as all other Roma, were regarded with suspicion. Discrimination and bigotry have followed them for centuries. There’s an ongoing debate, more or less explicit depending on country, if they are scammers, thieves or just misunderstood. Without a doubt, they are edge people, i.e. living on the fringes of society, never welcome. So it comes down cause and effect - Do they keep to themselves and steal as a matter of culture and lifestyle, or are they pushed out to the point where illegal activities are their only way of making a living? Or is it just prejudice?
Back to Travelers. Their metal working isn’t such a great way to earn a living anymore. Going from town to town to sharpen knives will not really put food on the table. And so, in Europe, there are rumors about Travelers, especially from Ireland, who roam the land and prey on people through different scams. Ask people and everyone “knows” about this, because someone told them about it. Trying to find reliable statistics is a lot harder.
I concur with recent posts about thescrr being… questionable. Several topics of a softball-ish “gosh golly gee whiz, I’m just interested in ya’alls opinions” nature, interspersed with a couple swift locks, and not much in the way of read time or topics viewed. Having been a member for over a year, with two short bursts of activity interspersed with not much of anything. Smells of a certain kind of footwear to me.
Indeed.
Only the finest, most artistic types of video stores contain movies coincidentally titled “Snatch”!
Am I being wooshed? I was referring to “Traveler.”
Yes, I would not have made that comment had it actually been a movie called “Snatch”.
Another new poster who claims to be shunned is getting my attention. Member for 2 days and has started 6 threads with only 2 responses to their own threads. So far most of the threads have been nonsense proposals to magically make the world better, whether it’s global warming or something about BLM and the police. It’s all “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know” which might be true, but if you are really that inept would you be diving in head first to a new message board? If you’re not a troll, please take a breath and a step back, and do a little reading first. K? thks bye.
Of course this is a fucking troll. Only a troll would write this OP:
https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-prepare-and-repair-black-lives-for-upwards-progression/970240
The last 5 words are the clincher, in case anyone was in any doubt. That’s a not a dog whistle, that’s a fucking troll-trumpet. Trolls love thinking they’re so fucking clever.
I’m just disappointed in @Kimstu and @thorny_locust, who really should know better by now.
Am I the only one who read this in Mark Lester’s voice from Oliver?
“Please sir…could you give blacks a chance to climb the ladder with everything they need to separate the wheat from the chaff?”
Condescending much?
For answering at all, or for something in the answer?
Eh, I tend to think it can be worthwhile to firmly rebutt a troll’s initial toxic insinuations as soon as they make them. It leaves other readers of the thread in no doubt as to why these insinuations are bad, and that these boards share a widespread consensus that the insinuations are bad.
If the troll then just keeps popping back up in the same thread with the same argument begging you to whack them some more, then sure, there’s a case to be made for no longer feeding them.
But sometimes the troll appears to be just firing an initial ranging shot at a venture, and doesn’t follow it up if they get pushback. Which is what seems to have happened with the same poster’s thinly veiled transphobic whining in this post.
Feeding a troll a well-earned shit sandwich that causes them to shut up and leave the thread is a response I’m okay with. When and if it happens to work, of course.
I agree with this. A rebuttal is okay. When the troll tries to dance with you and pesters you with sealioning questions or keeps repeating themselves or tries to evoke more responses, that’s when you should back away.
Basically, you are bullshit and here is why, and I’m out.
Sometimes I think we’re too quick to declare “troll”. There is much wisdom in the old adage (which I first came across in a compilation of hundreds of corollaries of Murphy’s Law) that one should “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”. I’ve bolded it for emphasis because it’s pretty much a universal truth.
In this case, the additional evidence for this particular poster’s standing is their totally asinine questions about things that might help to curb global warming. Along with their prolific thread starts relative to their posts and their reading. In the absence of really persuasive evidence to the contrary, I’m going with “fucking moron” on this one.
I’m not convinced of trolldom either, but there was enough incendiary language in one OP that I think it’s not unwarranted to speculate about it.
Troll or not, they’re not worth trying to have a conversation with.
Probably not.
But stupidity may come with a malice all of its own. Not all evil comes in the form of genius.
The maliciously stupid (or the stupidly malicious!) are no less malicious for their stupidity.
Anyway, obvious troll is obvious.