Are there Trolls on BT Forums?

Sometimes I miss Jdogg....

JDogg comes to mind... Remember him?

In Internet terminology, a troll is a person who enters an established community such as an online discussion forum and intentionally tries to cause disruption, often in the form of posting messages that are inflammatory, insulting, incorrect, inaccurate, or off-topic, with the intent of provoking a reaction from others. Trolls can also be existing members of such a community that rarely post and often contribute no useful information to the thread, but instead make argumentative posts in an attempt to discredit another person, more often than not based on what they thought was said rather than what was actually said by the other person, concentrating almost exclusively on facts irrelevant to the point of the conversation, with the intent of provoking a reaction from others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

Yeah, jdogg was the most entertaining little troll. I can dig up some other examlples (two immediately come to mind) if anyone's interested. It will take a little research, and it's now lunchtime.

word.

Are you hinting we have a troll here, or are you saying that this incident just made you think of this question?

Trolls can be fun because we have a particularly good group of people to weed them out.  A while ago I thought we had a troll amongst us but it turns out he may have just been someone with an opinion on a topic that was unpopular for a "beginner" site (and poorly expressed).  I have since seen him post thoughtful and helpful posts and have changed my opinion of him.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:  As always when this subject comes up - for people who may be new here - if you suspect a troll you don't have to go around publicly "outing" or bashing them - especially if you are not sure.  Simply PM marmadaddy or one of the other moderators and the situation will be looked into.

As some have stated, trolls tend to be few and far between here and when they do pop up, we get notified quickly. We're fortunate that way.

We are generally tolerant if someone is new or otherwise has a history of working and playing well with others in the forums.  If they're new, they may not realize what's considered acceptable here and they just need to be told. If they're not new, they may just be having a bad day.

Another reason we try not to be too quick with the 'Ban' button is because that can quickly have a chilling effect on forum activity. People posting in good faith shouldn't have to worry about such things.

Not a troll, just a slacker...

(Of course if you check my logs, I don't have much to brag about lately either.)

Mark

WaterDog66 - 2007-02-16 1:23 PM No, I don't think I have a troll here. (Yet) I was probably more suggesting that we have it pretty good here on BT (In a Backhanded sort of way) because we are not overrun by Trolls and/or snarky posters. But I agree, they can certainly be fun. ("Ternowski" and "Fantasma De Illuvia El Hombre" from RWOL come to mind) Being that most of the forums are actively moderated (As is the new Marathon Group Home over on RT) Trolls seem to be a thing of the past. Cheers to the Moderators for doing a great service to the community

RacoonSuperStar (I think that was/is his name).  He takes troll to a whole new level.  It involved photoshopping someone else's wedding photos, and posting it for all to see. 

Yeah, Bear has really come around, hasn't he?   

I said the other posts were thoughtful and helpful.

I don't know about trolls, but there seems to be this constant swarm of gnats around my arse... internetically, figuratively speaking.

That might even be clever, Dennis, if I hadn't specified "internetically, figuratively speaking." As it is, it only gains you "gnat" status.