Ashes, there needs to be ashes.
I tend to agree with @silenus that that poster was being a troll. The anti-union post felt deliberative provocative to me. Maybe they simply failed to read the room and wanted to spur discussion. I think they were maliciously trying to stir shit. The fact that they jumped straight to broad-brushing seems like maximizing the area of effect to upset the most number of people possible.
I also think it was trollish. Having a hardline anti-union stance is not in-and-of-itself trollish. Evil, sure, but not trollish evil.
Posting it in that thread, though? That was done deliberately to get a rise out of people.
For me, it was more how far they went, without even the slightest bit of acknowledgement that everyone else had been pro-union.
It reads exactly like the troll posts I see on YouTube—the ones where I have to tell everyone that they’re being trolled.
I’m not calling troll (yet), but this is kind of weird. In the San Diego Comic Con thread (Cafe Society), Zakalwe posts about vendors getting hosed by the likely drop in attendance (post 4). Then in post 90, new poster sophia Windsor posts almost the exact same thing with different wording. It’s the same sentences, re-written like a middle schooler trying to hide that they copy/pasted from Wikipedia.
Yes. That is … interesting.
“You can have any opinion you want, as long as you keep it quiet.”
Really? Can you distinguish between a minority opinion, strongly held and expressed, and trolling? Or are they the same to you?
Yes, really.
Generally, yes.
No. Not all minority opinions are obviously designed to get a rise out of the majority of posters in a thread.
That one was probably a spambot or at least an AI bot.
That one is gone, gone, gone.
I agree with you that a minority opinion is definitely not by itself indicative of trolling. I hold a few such opinions myself. One way to tell the difference is if the poster supports their minority position with a well-reasoned argument. This anti-union poster did not.
I don’t agree that they’re necessarily a troll, though. It sounds more like a moron of probably a right-wing persuasion who doesn’t understand what unions are for and what they do. Not every dumbass is a troll.
That is my theory.
I am definitely not ruling out the troll theory either though.
Nah, I highly doubt that they’re in the news.
Hanlon’s law in action.
I don’t usually make accusations of trollery, but the irony of our clearly-Russian-yet-fluently-English-resident-monarchist Ivan Denisovich heaping praise upon the Soviet Gulag is making me laugh out loud. For the unread, Ivan Denisovich was a fictional prisoner in Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Solzhenitsyn is probably rolling over in his grave.
Given the unusual and controversial point of view, the seemingly native fluency in English (but it is strongly implied he is not “Western”), the recent join date, the tendency not to respond to any poster more than once or twice, the 6 month gap in posts, and the pure irony of that particular username, I would be surprised if this member is arguing in good faith. If he’s being honest, I tip my hat.
~Max
Solzhenitsyn is also putting in a shift as Ivan’s avatar. I even tracked the photo down.
(A Tiny Village in Vermont Was the Perfect Spot to Hide Aleksandr Solzhenits)
j
Pot? Meet kettle.
A post was split to a new topic: Ivan_Denisovich Troll posts
Hidden? Not well enough, obviously.
I’m surprised a troll that was doing a fairly good job of lying low jumped into this thread. It is a big red flag for the Mod team. A little checking confirmed he was a returning troll.
So Ivan Denisovich has been sent to the Soviet SDMB Gulag cornfield?
I wonder if that was the Martin Hyde troll - similar high investment and effort.