Or at least a good percentage strive to be better than that.
So what have we landed on? That conversation, when appropriate and on topic, is a good thing? Pretty hot take, but sure.
Of course, some folks have made a habit of posting blatant falsehoods and then, when called out on them, doubling down and claiming the objections are based on not wanting to hear “unpleasant facts” or political partisanship.
Which is at best arguing in extremely bad faith and at worst openly trolling. Neither is conducive to constructive discourse.
But what did I say? All I said, in fact, was that you were the legitimate offspring of a legal marriage. Right? What is insulting about that?’
‘But’-I stopped and ran over in my mind the infuriating, insulting, and degrading things he had said-and, do you know, that is absolutely all they added up to. I grinned sheepishly. ‘It was the way you said it.’
‘Exactly, exactly! To put it technically, I selected terms with high negative indices, for this situation and for this listener.’
Yeah that’s typical of octopus. He’ll come into a thread and State a fact that on its face is true. Very difficult to argue with. But he’ll present it in such a way as to be insulting to anyone who objects to the style of his presentation and the fact that he’s couching his fact with a whole bunch of trollish and absolutely unnecessarily confrontational behavior. And then he’ll throw out a line daring the entire thread to disagree with them. Then everybody responding to him is a snowflake who can’t handle the truth.
Octopus is a troll he knows he’s a troll and he knows he’s tap dancing on the line. He’s very good at it I’ll give him that. Sometimes he actually does have some valuable contributions? Maybe? Not every single post of his pings my troll radar. But every so often he’ll come into the middle of a conversation and toss a grenade just like he just did here.
If this goes on…
…it will never end…
The other name for Heinlein’s “If This Goes On—” is “Revolt in 2100”. Seems to me that might fit in with wannabe Scudder, Tan the Conman, mighty close to the dates Heinlein selected for the end of democracy in the United States of America.
Nailed it.
A certain coffee-chiller was trolling outside the Pit, and then revealed all in the Pit. I really don’t see a reason they should be here.
And it would be nice if people would move the conversation about them to this thread, not the thread for legit Dopers.
They last posted 5 hours ago (about 6 hours after you post), but I just went to their profile (to add them to my ignore list) and saw that their status now indicates This user is suspended. So maybe you won’t have to suffer them for much longer.
But I agree, far too many obvious trolls getting called out in the wrong thread.
Well, for the record your honor, when they were first called out (the brew that had gone cold for 50 days), several of us said things along the lines of “yeah, I get the general feeling they’ve had some unpleasant posts but no specifics”. So at the time, they were being pitted for the single noted incident.
They way they responded to the criticism was 100% troll, and I (and I’m sure others) flagged the fuck right out of them, since their responses were (IMHO) de facto admissions that they were posting just to get a reaction.
And they kept digging long after a smart troll or trock would have stopped to let the heat die down. Honestly though, I did suggest that they be pushed here a couple of times, but since they were responding in WWYT, it feed off of cold coffee’s own perverse “defense” and became a thing on it’s own.
I also think a lot of us were expecting the troll to hit the suspension wall sooner, but 
As for a while they were keeping their trolling to the Pit where it is to some degree allowed, they weren’t moving the needle much on suspension or even warnings. Once they got bored and trolled in two non-Pit threads, the warning and suspension came and the modloop discussion is on-going.
I’m happy to say, I’ve been largely out of this one. Though I was trying to figure out today if they’re a sock (thus trock) or just a newish troll.
I suspect they don’t care if they get banned, the post in Can the term Juvenalian irony or satire be applied to the Fool's use of irony /satire in King Lear? looks like the post of a troll that is done caring.
I guess that’s the post that I’m seeing as “View one hidden reply”! 
As I said in another thread, I almost never use the “ignore” feature, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do!
That got flagged so much, it might be hidden from non-mods. Not sure.
Not the only insult last night outside the pit, but a blatant one:
Oh agreed, and the fact that they originally were trolling in the Pit turned up the"trock" feeling to about 11. And then spreading the hate once they were more-or-less outed also feels extremely trock-y.
We have a poster “negative zero” I don’t recognize with a new MPSIMS thread about trusting your gut. My gut says a poster with a hidden profile just asking questions is a troll. Far too early to ban, but calling it now.
They’ve been around almost a year now and seem pretty stable. Check their posting history.
Yeah, it’s not immediately apparent but you can search normally for users with hidden profiles. I’ll admit to also being suspicious of any poster with a hidden profile.
These threads do not relieve my suspicion (cutting the https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ prefix):
what-does-following-your-gut-feel-like-to-you-how-did-you-learn-to-trust-your-gut/1000103
what-are-some-of-your-presidential-hot-takes/999738
struggling-with-relationship-difficulties-as-wedding-approaches-needing-advice-support/999114
It’s quite possible the “gut feel” thread is triggering me. It’s too close to someone trying to explain away their gaslighting, like “don’t trust your gut, believe me…”.