My thoughts on the aftermath of a thread

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#184

I can see that a number of posters have at least a minor issue with me "name calling" a troll. Guilty.

With only a light brush stroke of irony, I noted a thread recently where the thread's creator had an issue with people labeling the Bundy crowd as "fundamentalist". To say that about them was to engage in name calling.

I politely call bullshit.

It seems to me that one of the larger issues with the Hive is the tendency to be incredulous to the acts of trolls. How could he say that? What did he really mean? See how easily refuted this is? Sigh.

It's important to see various posters as real people, but the troll is exceptional. I have been engaging trolls for years, and I see no reason to be too polite about it. If someone is deliberately trying to piss me off, I call them on it without adding too many adjectives. I didn't call him a fucking troll, I just called him a troll.

Should I err on the side of the fool when a guy with a name like "drail" comes along to try to derail my post and put it on another subject? I could sit back and wonder if he's trolling me, or I can let the truth hit me more squarely. In case some of you haven't figured it out, the name is almost always a part of the act. It's usually pretty easy to see what's going on with a few clicks. .

I don't know of a more polite word to use and I truly believe trolls don't mind being called trolls as much as other worried readers seem to mind seeing it done to others.

So, to recap this post, the issues are honesty and recognition. If I recognize that someone is trolling me, I choose to be honest about it

In my mind and in my experience, trolls aren't normal people. I don't think it is effective to treat them like everyone else. I think many in the Hive do not recognize that. Having said that, I see normal people baited into trolling. I don't regard that as quite the same thing. Such a person has self awareness about it. A true troll is pretty much always trolling.

So, if someone comes along to try to troll me, I see no issue with saying effectively, "Hey, I see what you're doing. Fuck you." Then I pretty much never engage them again unless they seek me out. The troll gets this language much better than the other readers, so it isn't going to make you too many friends. This is where things break down. Normal people don't want to see this conflict or to share this emotional experience. It's upsetting and that reaction is understandable, but to just let it go plants a seed that starts to grow. I choose to try to crush it with my heel before it takes root.

2 Likes
#185

If I had your apparent sense of certainty about the validity of my judgments I would probably be more comfortable about your approach, but absent being able to read minds, I am burdened by considerable historical experience with situations when I and others have misread intent, all too often by a factor of 180º.

Couple that with the experience of having had my own motivations being painfully misread, I tend to favor softer approaches.

Yet at the same time I recognize the value and importance of accurate labeling of behavior, which is why, for example, I grit my teeth every time I read about a 'domestic dispute,' when clearly 'domestic abuse' is a more accurate description.

I tend to end up looking for more thoughtful approaches, which sometimes require more investigation and other work, while trying to avoid reflexive actions that too often get me out on thin ice.

The pause button is a very useful device, the invocation of which recognizes that very rarely are situations urgent enough to require instant responses.

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#186

Maybe it's a semantic game, and maybe it is a significant difference, but I see the "troll" as having assumed a persona. The human being behaving as a troll is a normal human, who happens to get their kicks poking sticks and people and seeing them react. Just like the fisherman after whom the word "troll" is named, they delight in getting "hits". Even the "fuck yous". But I get what you are saying. We don't interact with these folks in a vacuum. There are other humans in our sphere and they react, as humans are wont to do, as they will :smiley:

#187

Yes, me too. Very painfully. 180 degrees painfully. So the jumping to conclusions is not an error free activity.

Indeed. As are Rewind. And of course Fast Forward. And the wonderful ability to change channels. Or even turn the darn thing off. In the big scheme of things, folks like Hugh and drail don't matter to me.

1 Like
#188

I'm very late to this discussion because I just joined Prime June 11 (I was a victim of Josh's hard sell). I only wanted to say this: I am very familiar with the person being discussed because I encountered him in another forum. I recognized his style immediately after reading 3 or 4 of his many posts here in The Hive. I am loathe to discuss him mainly because the one thing he loves most is being the center of conversation, so I will refer to him this one time only. He posted in that other forum for a long time under multiple handles, the last being the same one he used here, which is how I knew it was him. He posted prolifically, would lace his posts with links that often did not even support his argument, oozed contempt for virtually every forum member except the few that agreed with him, and essentially turned the whole thing into a big controversy about him. In that other forum he did not make nearly as much of an attempt to be "polite" as he did here, and often openly bragged that he liked to go to liberal forums and disrupt them (He believed that he would "beat them" with his "superior" arguments). He alienated and drove away a lot of interesting people and dragged the whole thing down. His personality on that other forum fit the description offered in Wikipedia for "narcissistic personality disorder" perfectly. I would advise those here who make these decisions to never let him back on. The moderators of that other forum were very reluctant to ban him because they prided themselves on not suppressing dissenting opinions - an admirable ideal but a mistake in his case. They gave him multiple chances and he would behave for a while but invariably revert to form. They banned him more than once for trolling and he would come back with another handle, but he just could not suppress his personality for any length of time and others would spot him very quickly. I guarantee you that he has rejoined this one under another handle to see if they are still talking about him. This is classic narcissistic behavior (I know because I have an internet degree in amateur pseudo-psychology that I bought for $10.00 from "Degrees Online"). So my warning is this: He will not change, he will not behave, don't believe he will. He ruined that other forum and they eventually shut it down. Don't let him ruin this one too. Don't let him back in. Stick to your guns.

That's all I've got to say about that. (read that in Forrest Gump's voice)

7 Likes
#189

Welcome to the Hive.

Your observations are spot-on. I guess the investment in pseudo-psychology paid off, except when it comes to resisting the sales pitch. smile

1 Like
#190

Yep, you pretty much nailed it. I agree that he's a narcissistic sociopath and most likely has created one or more sock-puppets just to read folks reactions to him.

Aside from that welcome to Prime!

#191

It would not surprise me if he made the effort to make the sock puppets look like progressives. I've seen a few comments from new Hive members that make me go "huh?".

#192

His style is easily recognized. Along with being a narcissist he has a little Dunning-Krueger going on in his blind spots.

1 Like
#193

That's assuming he didn't just read but wrote something.

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