The SDMB’s “No Troll Left Behind” policy has been in full swing as of late, and just out of curiousity, who bothers you more?
Is it the trolls themselves or is it the many SDMB posters who are always waiting to engage them, initiating dialogue and giving them the attention that trolls so crave?
No specific posters need to be named…
I don’t really see a troll problem around here.
The troll feeders easily bother me more. It’s so easy to just block trolls and move on with your life. To block the troll feeders would effectively block a third of this place’s active population.
Ok. I admit, I am a troll feeder. I mean, even if I know someone is trolling, I don’t let it affect my responses to the subject matter. I feel like topics on message boards are for discussing. If the topic is interesting or funny or fun, I say, let’s all discuss it, even if that means conversing with trolls. I never really considered that pathetic, but I can see how it may annoy a troll-hater.
Let’s all discuss this topic as if we are using the same definition of “troll.” Yeah, that’s a good idea.
There is a slight misunderstanding here.
*Discussing[/] a topic is not what troll feeders do. Repeating yourself and your positions/views/stances over and over and over again to a troll is bothersome because it usually is super obvious the troll is just screwing with the pathetic person who keeps repeating their self.
None of the above. The people who bother me the most are the ones who the trolls get a rise out of (or is that what you mean by those “waiting to engage them”?) Look, if you don’t like 'em, don’t respond to 'em. Simple. Some of us who respond with sincerity to posters accused of being trolls are actually having a conversation, if not with the “troll”, then with others in the thread, or with a hypothetical internet audience.
I don’t much care about the motivations of posters. I’m more interested in topics. It doesn’t matter to me if a “troll” starts a thread about, say, the efficacy of the withdrawal method for contraception (topic derived rectally, not making any accusations). I happen to know a lot about that topic, and if the “troll” isn’t really interested in the actual answer, there may be someone else out there reading the thread in earnest who can actually benefit from a genuine answer. They don’t, and I don’t, need to wade through pages of posts decrying the OP as a troll and an idiot and whatever else when there really is something worth discussing there.
And if there’s absolutely *nothing *worth discussing there, then just don’t discuss! Thread will die, troll won’t be “fed”, life goes on. You don’t get bonus internet points for being right that someone’s motivations were less than pure, or for pointing it out over and over.
It’s like third grade in here sometimes, I swear. One kid makes a comment that’s out of line, and there’s 2 hours of "shhhhh"es that are more disruptive than the original comment was. We’ve got mods for shushing people, the rest of y’all just stop playing hall monitor, please!
On Preview: yeah, what **Nzinga **said. Or can the OP clarify what he means by “waiting to engage them, initiating dialogue and giving them the attention”?
Ah. Got you. Ok, in that case, that doesn’t bother me. When I see that heating up, I just don’t pay attention to either of them. Unless they entertain me. Then, I’m all up in it.
Once in a while I shake my head at topics that are still living long past what I thought was a useful life span, but they’re a good source of reading material for when I’m bored.