In the general Trolls 'R Us thread, @John_DiFool’s prescriptive recipe for long-time lurkers who post for the first time.
Yeah. That is wacky CT-level suspicious and to no good end.
If I (the generic “I”, not just me) am a long-time lurker, I’m somebody that doesn’t care to post about existing topics. I’ve demonstrated that by my silence since forever. The only thing I am likely to post, if I ever do, is an OP. And it’ll probably be an OP on something I don’t know who else or how to ask.
To be sure, posting an FQ on a topic that is readily wiki-able or google-able is mentally lazy. But if the person wasn’t mentally lazy (or just not thinking that day), they’d already have done that.
Guess I should’ve looked here before posting in the other thread.
I think we have a sizable contingent of posters who like to jostle for “look I found the troll/sock” street cred when it comes to new posters.
Sometimes they’re right, but posting in troll threads doesn’t get these actual bad actors banned or corn fielded any sooner. What it does definitely do is create an unwelcoming environment for new posters who are posting in good faith.
But sir, sir, I’ve admitted to my crimes and done my penance! I’m a reformed man I am!
[ points parent thread in which he was chastised (with cause) for being overly suspicious ]
When you’re talking about a new poster with very little activity who just did something suspicious, I think you’re right.
Not sure how you’re defining “long-time” lurker; but I’m gonna disagree with both of you. I lurked for probably most of a year, studying how people posted here, what people did and didn’t get scolded for posting here, and wondering if the snopes boards were definitely dying and then dead or if they were coming back.
And when I did finally post, it wasn’t either an OP or in a thread I thought innocuous; it was in one where I wanted to correct some posters who I thought were being Wrong On The Internet.
(I have, admittedly, hardly shut up since.)
Pretty much this. I lurk on boards all the time, some for years and on most of them I have no presence whatsoever and on others I’ve only made rare appearances. This is the only one I engage with regularly, I lurked for some months even before first posting here and I first did so in response to someone else. In fact in my very long history here I’ve only rarely started a thread - it’s usually not my thing.
…says the person who has repeatedly denied doing the things they literally did in this thread. So tell us all about being a “bad faith piece of shit liar”.
This remains true:
As indeed you have repeatedly done about this thing you find “abhorrent”.
Let’s have a look at some of your “posts on the topic”:
Continuing the discussion from How much transphobia is permissible before banning:
You two think segregation was a “fringe” view? Remember, we’re talking about when it was happening, not now (although…).
And you think comparisons between the Nazi treatment of trans people and other minorities and what the current administration are pushing are “ridiculous”?
Feel free to explain how you are not minimizing what is actively happening right now.
The mod note in that thread prevented any response to this. Perhaps you’d like to answer now?
No? Are you as stupid as you are fanatic? Where the fuck did I say that segregation was a “fringe” view in the past? DemonTree was clearly talking about segregation today, which is indeed a long discredited fringe view.
The current administration is trying to shove trans people back in the figurative closet. This is incredibly fucked up, represents decades worth of progress lost, and will very likely cost lives.
The Nazis put trans people in literal gas chambers and then killed them.
You can call out the first one for being bad while recognizing that these are not the same thing, yes.
Actually, correction - most adult human beings can do that - but I refer you to the previously posted diagram:
https://i.ibb.co/p6H1jqs6/Screenshot-20250405-145400-Samsung-Internet.jpg
To quote Order of the Stick again… Evidence for this theory continues to accumulate at an alarming rate.
If by “every area of public life” you include sports, then yes, that’s an extremist position held by under 20% of the US population, and under 30% of Democrats.
If you don’t include sports, and since “public” already carves out the exceptions most people would find it reasonable to consider sex assigned at birth for, like picking sexual partners or interactions with doctors, then it becomes a much less extreme position that’s supported by a much wider swath of the population (And a majority of Democrats).
I really don’t think anything I’m saying there is particularly controversial.
Gyrate, move the fuck on and stop spamming this thread just when it stopped being about one fucking poster.
Fine. I’ll take it here.
Mods - feel free to shuffle any of the above posts you like to the other Pit thread.
I think that prolific posters have no idea or relevant perspective on lurkers.
Ive been a regular visitor to this site for at least 25 years. I’m not sure when, but before the purge, before 2000. Ive seen plenty of posters come and go.
I post more often now than I used to, but nothing like many here. I have mostly lurked my time here. There is no reason to assume anything about where or what a long lurker would choose to post.
The fuck it is, you bigoted asshole.
I cannot recall any poster whose initial contribution to this board was opening a provocative thread who later did not turn out to be a troll (sock or otherwise).
Well, that’s the internet.
Except for a very few carefully moderated forums, the loudest, crassest idiots get the most attention. While the vast majority don’t have the brains of a common sea slug, some have turned it into nearly an art form.
Cite, motherfucker? What percent of the US population supports segregation in 2025?
Back to the topic of “What were you THINKING?”, why did you have to bump this? Take it to your target’s personal pit thread.
I think you’re suffering from confirmation bias. We have plenty of weird threads started by someone who posts once and disappears. No one remembers them because they didn’t stick around long enough to make an impression. But they aren’t all trolls.
A report on the rise in school segregation in schools from Stanford: 70 years after Brown v. Board of Education, new research shows rise in school segregation | Stanford GSE
A report on segregation from NPR: U.S. schools remain highly segregated, government report finds : NPR
A report on segregation from Chalkbeat: Colorado school attendance zones keep segregation going, report finds - Chalkbeat
A report from Time: Segregation Is Increasing In America | TIME
And there is a bit about the massive Presidential Step Backwards: ‘Segregated facilities’ are no longer explicitly banned in federal contracts : Shots - Health News : NPR
Not weird, but provocative. That is, a thread designed to get others to object to the topic and/or argue among themselves.
I really cannot recall any poster. That will be remedied by a counterexample.