The problem with that - and this is just an observation, not an injunction - is cleaning up trolls like that is a lot harder if his trolling has been quoted all over the board.
I also think that trolls are best dealt with using the principle of Ignore, Silence, and Deny.
If a troll is identified quickly, squash it and don’t give it the satisfaction of acknowledging its existence.
Now, not all trolls are insta-zapped so this thread can help discuss them while they’re active. And there’s a certain amount of satisfaction and sick fascination in talking about them.
But your garden variety drive-by trolls aren’t worth the effort of a discussion.
Is there ever any new drivel? Where are our creative drivelers these days?
I think that Paula Cole sang a song about that.
I’m giving it my best, man, geez! Tough crowd!
I did note that the break-off thread indicated it was a Sock, not just a troll.
Since I was offline (sleep, why must I need it?) I have no idea if it had any tells or other confirmations that verified that for our Mod’verlords, nor do they owe it to me.
I will say though, that in the (comparatively) short time I’ve been here it seems the socks are putting in less effort to seem ‘normal’ for a period of time before raising the Trolly Roger to the mast.
You can always PM the mods and they’ll give you a private update.
Is chela a trock or just a garden variety asshole? His/her activities in the stupid “Shop class no no’s Shorts, long hair and giant prosthetic boobs?” topic he/she created confirm the asshole part. The fact their profile is hidden leads me to suspect troll or trock…but they have been posting since at least 2011, and their assholishness seems pretty recent.
Someone bigoted against trans people. I don’t think it’s more complicated than that.
I believe like most bigots they assume everyone shares their beliefs, and was surprised that people didn’t go along.
Fair enough. I tend to be suspicious of hidden profiles.
That’s a good observation.
You can’t start a thread about trans issues on this board without attracting bigots. And sometimes the bigots themselves start these threads. It’s disgusting.
I’m not seeing anything trollish, assholish, or bigoted about chela’s posts in that thread. They saw an interesting news story and posted about it. Unless there’s posting history that I’m not aware of, they haven’t done anything wrong, IMO.
This trollish, assholish, and/or bigoted enough?
Oh, yeah, that’ll do it. Now I need to reread the thread through that lens.
Thanks.
I didn’t know my profile was hidden until someone told me. I certainly don’t remember ever specifying that - and even when I knew, I couldn’t find the setting until someone told me where to look, it’s somewhere counterintuitive.
I just checked again - it’s not under “Account”, “Profile” or “Security”. It’s a little check box hidden in “Interface” among a bunch of other checkboxes that control superficial aspects of how the site looks to you. Very odd.
I’m pretty sure profiles default to public, but who knows what happened during the migration. A new poster with a hidden profile is somebody who knew to search for it and click it off. Definitely suspicious.
@JohnT, that is brilliant! Well done!
Not really. Discourse is very common. There’s not really any good reason for hiding your profile. Anything I can discover through it, I can discover without it.