Job Discussion Forums

[dyak]

Shall we ask Dave for a troll discussion forum then? Trolls could respond to posts by trolls, make troll friends, exchange stories of great troll 'escapades', organise troll outings, perhaps two trolls would even meet, fall in love and have troll babies and...

[British]

One thing "merlin" you can't be English because you would know what a troll means!.


In the English Slang word a Troll = means, an ugly girl.

So you call your self a teacher? very funny ahahahahahahahahah

there no way you are British or American.

BTW I have email dave to remove this troll list from the forum.

Bye

[GeminiTiger]

Obviously the previous poster "British Bulldog" has resorted
to various personal attacks in a futile attempt to win favor
or to have his point of view been recognized. The reality is
very few people, outside personal friends of such a type of
poster will support such a post. This leads to yet another
problem of trolls, the frat boy environment, supposedly
democratic but ultimately controlled through a few personalities
in which logic and reason weigh very little. This is why a voting
type system is useless in an anonymous system, such persons
can simply create additional personalities to simply agree with
his personal attacks and create a bandwagon environment.

Ironically, often is the people would want such a list or
call people "trolls" who themselves most qualify for the title.
This being because such terminology is used as a personal
attack meant to sway someone to a point of view that is
often irrational and cannot be supported through logic. In
effect this had disintegrated into no more then a child's
name calling device, personally I see enough of that already.
I shudder to think of legitimizing such nonsense.

[mcNug]

Oh no! I've been discovered!



Watch your back everyone! This troll is feeling hot tonight! *growl*

[texastmblwd69]

Merlin, Peaches, don't make me stop this car.

Atlas, I don't know about the others, but you were right on the money with Extoere. He's a Troll Par Excellence!

[anthyp]

I am sometimes guilty of engaging in troll - like behavior, I admit.

And I imagine there must be quite a few posters out there who don't like me. And it would be my own fault, really, for constantly letting my temper get the best of me; for not preventing myself from posting in a manner I know will rile people up.

But I think I have always been equally hasty in apologizing for those hastily - written attacks; whether in public or private fashion, I often seek out those I have offended, and try to make amends. I don't think it worth having "arch - enemies" on an Internet forum; anyway it strikes me as incredibly childish.

Then you get to a point where you can never communicate with these people, regardless of what they say. I certainly don't agree with many of the regular posters in the China forum, but I don't dislike any one of them. And I am learning to stay out of threads in which there is a pointed disagreement between the OP and myself, lest I incur the wrath of the entire forum!

I think that is what seperates the true trolls from the imposters -- the latter remain unwilling to bend, to seek amends; they never pass on an opportunity to ridicule others who do not share their opinions; and never in a reasonable fashion. Always with the bitter, distracting, plainly ad hominem, attacks.

They are, in short, the kind of person whose ass you would surely like to kick were you to meet them in person! And thankfully I can't say that of many of the posters here (not anymore, anyway).

[merlin]

Once again the most sincere post gets validation:
anthyp,
Yes, I believe I'd nominate YOU to add your contributions to the list.

This leads to a tangent thought:

Are we so caught up in the myth of democracy and equality that the obvious truth hasn't shown itself?

Is two levels of users the key?- those the moderators feel are level-headed could post to such a list and those who the moderators feel are not entirely stable remain barred from certain forums until they are "approved"?

Oh, yes. Just to make one thing perfectly clear - these are al ideas I've had knocking around in my head for a while to perhaps implement in another place at another time. Thanks for the feedback regarding their soundness. Note the question marks in my posts.

Somone asked about multiple usernames to one person. This is a valid concern. Under such a karma system the moderators and webmaster have to be ruthless in detecting and stamping out posters who blatantly violate the one username per person rule.

This leads to a question: are webmasters allowed to fight dirty and use the tools of technology at his disposal to deter trolls from ruining his forum? Is a webmaster morally obligated or morally forbidden from "outing" a troll's location?

Again note the question marks.

[dyak]

Empower yourself against trolls!

[Atlas]

[ChinaEFLteacher]

anyone hear of good ol' mao's cultural denigration? we should denounce the traitors amongst us, whoever they may be! even if they're your mother or father. interesting post, theoretically, but should we try to put a list into practice...

[anthyp]

I think the current system works pretty well, actually.

You have your share of trolls, yeah, but eventually they get banned. And repeat offenders, who keep coming back under different names, seem to get sniffed out in the end.

So we have to deal with them in the meantime. Let's be honest -- they can be amusing, to a point. And anyway, the problem isn't the way Dave's handles trolls; it's that trolls exist in the first place.

I mean, if you had a rating system or two different forums or whatever, you'd still have to deal with that initial, and initially entertaining, appearance of the troll. So I think regardless of what kind of system you have, you must still put up with them somehow, at least for a while.

[moonraven]

I think this thread reflects, unfortunately, the climate of fascism that pervades the planet in this moment. Much as I find trolls reprehensible, I believe that unacceptable behavior should be dealt with on a case by case basis, the way it has been. I had to ask dave to ban a couple of really over-the-top misogynist trolls who were even stuffing my box with obscene pms--much as I support free speech they had gone WAY too far.

As for committed trolls like extoere, I have recommended in the past that we simply ignore him. He is not an EFL/ESL teacher, and lives--apparently--in LA, so what could he possibly contribute anyway? If we all ignored him, instead of periodically breaking down and taking the bait, he would leave the forum permanently.

Anthyp's breast-beating about how he can't control his troll behaviors but always tries to make amends is, quite simply, a crock. He's trying to make himself look like Little Mary Sunshine after Atlas outed him. He has trolled in my direction on several occasions, and even had the nerve to try to defend his motives as being other than trolling.

I don't think trying to construct a troll list is the solution to bad behavior on the forum. It's a little too Animal Farm. The problem is that there are a fair number of folks who wouldn't have the nerve to say the kinds of abusive, racist and misogynist comments they write here to someone's face--but because this is virtual reality they let loose with all their troll demons that have been lurking under the bridge. Maybe that's even healthy for them--keeping them from becoming serial killers, or something--but I doubt it. I feel we have the responsibility to confront bad behavior that interferes with communication. If that doesn't work, we can ask that the offender be banned, or we can ignore him/her and expect that the problem will disappear.

And we can make a real effort to keep our own troll tendencies under wraps. We ALL have them, and we have ALL let them out from under the bridge on this forum.

[dyak]

Then there is only one solution - Troll Court.

A court (thread) where troll and troll accusers plead their cases then a verdict is given; quite like Judge Judy but a little less tacky. The troll, if found guilty, would then be removed by the powers that be. I will of course be the judge, mwah ha ha, and the jury will be summoned shortly from a rival/impartial/less successful ELT discussion forum.

All rise.

[jpvanderwerf2001]

Wow, I didn't know I made the Troll List until my buddy moonraven pointed it out. It's interesting that the reasoning is that I have an "impossible to PM name", since I have received numerous PMs.

No matter for, as they say, bad pub is better than no pub.

[Atlas]

If my facetious post offended anyone, I truly apologize.

It was a rather trollish thing to do on my part.

I have nothing but respect for those people.

That said,

SHAPESPHERE
It's spelled Shakespeare, and no you aren't his postmodern incarnation.
If he were alive today he'd be in a Hollywood hottub writing Weekend at Bernies 4 under the pseudonym Chuggy Chubbs, and doing vegan lunch with Scorcese.

MOONRAVEN
Your Bible-Belt right-wing politics discriminate against minorities!

TEXASTUMBLEWEED
You're new, but I'm watching you, buddy

LAGERLOUT
I saw you drinking shirley temples!

JAMES T KIRK
Koenig, I know that's you!

DMB
Try DMBR! Do you have the Spock haircut?

DYAK
A real Sleestak!

G-BINGBANGBOOM
Do you badda-bing? Or Badda-boom? Whassamatta you?

GRAY
U don't escape THAT easy! And, a LAWYER!

ATLAS
Happy as a little girl!