Maybe. The werewolf has now joined the Sabine Hossenfelder anti-science thread in IMHO. The werewolf informs us that Hossenfelder does not cater to science deniers, when in fact she is clearly doing exactly that.
The werewolf also informs us, and I quote, that “having a healthy amount of skepticism about our science institutions is a good thing in my mind”. Now where did I hear that exact bit of wisdom before? Oh yes, climate change and anthropogenic global warming. Do we really know for sure that the Earth is warming just because climate science tells us so? And even if it is, how do we know for sure what’s causing it? Healthy skepticism, my friends, we must practice healthy skepticism!
Of course our scientific and academic institutions aren’t perfect, but this sort of vapid truism is actively harmful when it’s used to defend blatant lies. I can only conclude that the werewolf either (a) never watched any of Hossenfelder’s controversial videos and never watched Dave Farina’s careful explanation of why her views are so wrong and disingenuous, or (b) knows nothing about science, or (c) is trolling. Like the infamous cartoon sea lion who inspired the term “sealioning”, our resident werewolf likes to jump into threads and opine contrarian views in a very civil yet highly annoying manner.
Just want to say when I skimmed the first post about the guy I misread it and thought they were talking about you and I was horrified and knew it couldn’t be true.
Five. Usual sock MO; post early on about cafe society-esque topics; “See, I am a normal human!”. Then three to five years of sleep, then they come back all “edgy”.
Trolling in the Pit is NOT a free from consequences action, and can and has been enforced. Anyone remember HandsomeHarry?
There was a notorious sock from the 00’s who had at least 5 accounts. These people are often OCD on top of anything else rattling around upstairs, and can certainly keep track of their various voices in their head. [that one got tripped up after apparently drinking or smoking too much one night and posted the same OP in 2 of his accounts.]
Nor did I say it was. I was very specific with my wording. People do get away with a little trolling at times in the Pit, that’s a fact.
If the were-troll hadn’t edged back I expect that there would have been moderation, but they seemed to know where the line was, which shows this person has more experience than their join date (and posting history) would indicate.
Yeah I have to say our werewolf friend has been on my radar for a while now. Nothing blatant, but he slips into clear trolling from time to time. And he has a very “look at me! look at me!” posting style. That’s not an automatic condemnation, some of our more interesting posters have a gadfly personality and I would never call them trolls, but it is a reason to take a closer look.
And this right here is classic sock behavior, agreed.
I remember one from my first tour of duty who had dozens, maybe hundreds. It once registered 26 names in a row, one for every letter of the alphabet.
It also claimed that its primary account was a prominent member of the community, and that everyone would be so shocked when they found out that we’d immediately rescind all of the rules against socking. Of course, when it did eventually reveal itself, everyone went “Wait, who?”.
I’d say that, most of the posts which I’d seen from them in the last year or so have been dismissive, mean-spirited, and/or thread-shitting, and rarely seeming to actually add anything meaningful to the discussion.
All I know about Chingon is that in my time on this board – almost 11 years – I never saw anything useful from them, and a few months ago I put this asshole on ignore – something I almost never do – after a very offensive, unprovoked attack in the Bill Maher thread in response to a completely innocent post I had made. With the possible exception of a certain climate change denier that I won’t bother to name, I was never happier to see someone banned. Good riddance.