Is Countertrolling a Troll The Answer

[Scott5114]

I think we are all in a state of shock. We thought this kid was just ridiculous and to hear he was someone else who trolled here before adds a new light on his identity.

Eh, I'm not. I even accidentally posted a reply to him once addressing him as "Mike" without thinking about it, before realizing what I did and going back to edit it out. I should have listened to whatever part of my brain made me do that, I guess.

I'm certainly shook. Wasn't on the forum when Mike was here, and I was actually talking to MMM like he was a real person just with crazy ideas, trying to take him seriously and help him understand. Now I know that he's just a troll.

When I was about five years older than you I came to the realization that there are some people that there's no point in trying to help understand anything, because they can't or don't want to. Trolls certainly fall in the "don't want to understand" category.

[jlam]

1, how did you get this quote? Was this posted on the forum?

I assume he got it through an email from MMM Mike, but I could be wrong

[Roadgeekteen]

I think we are all in a state of shock. We thought this kid was just ridiculous and to hear he was someone else who trolled here before adds a new light on his identity.

Eh, I'm not. I even accidentally posted a reply to him once addressing him as "Mike" without thinking about it, before realizing what I did and going back to edit it out. I should have listened to whatever part of my brain made me do that, I guess.

I'm certainly shook. Wasn't on the forum when Mike was here, and I was actually talking to MMM like he was a real person just with crazy ideas, trying to take him seriously and help him understand. Now I know that he's just a troll.

When I was about five years older than you I came to the realization that there are some people that there's no point in trying to help understand anything, because they can't or don't want to. Trolls certainly fall in the "don't want to understand" category.

Well I didn't know that he was a troll. I thought he was just a clueless person on the internet.

[Max Rockatansky]

I think we are all in a state of shock. We thought this kid was just ridiculous and to hear he was someone else who trolled here before adds a new light on his identity.

Eh, I'm not. I even accidentally posted a reply to him once addressing him as "Mike" without thinking about it, before realizing what I did and going back to edit it out. I should have listened to whatever part of my brain made me do that, I guess.

I'm certainly shook. Wasn't on the forum when Mike was here, and I was actually talking to MMM like he was a real person just with crazy ideas, trying to take him seriously and help him understand. Now I know that he's just a troll.

When I was about five years older than you I came to the realization that there are some people that there's no point in trying to help understand anything, because they can't or don't want to. Trolls certainly fall in the "don't want to understand" category.

Well I didn't know that he was a troll. I thought he was just a clueless person on the internet.

Why not both?

[kalvado]

I think we are all in a state of shock. We thought this kid was just ridiculous and to hear he was someone else who trolled here before adds a new light on his identity.

Eh, I'm not. I even accidentally posted a reply to him once addressing him as "Mike" without thinking about it, before realizing what I did and going back to edit it out. I should have listened to whatever part of my brain made me do that, I guess.

I'm certainly shook. Wasn't on the forum when Mike was here, and I was actually talking to MMM like he was a real person just with crazy ideas, trying to take him seriously and help him understand. Now I know that he's just a troll.

When I was about five years older than you I came to the realization that there are some people that there's no point in trying to help understand anything, because they can't or don't want to. Trolls certainly fall in the "don't want to understand" category.

Well I didn't know that he was a troll. I thought he was just a clueless person on the internet.

Don't take too much responsibility upon yourself. If people are genuinely interested, they will ask questions. They will go and read something before asking. If someone is making statements instead of asking, repeatedly, it's not the case where your efforts would pay back.

[J N Winkler]

I think we are all in a state of shock. We thought this kid was just ridiculous and to hear he was someone else who trolled here before adds a new light on his identity.

Eh, I'm not. I even accidentally posted a reply to him once addressing him as "Mike" without thinking about it, before realizing what I did and going back to edit it out. I should have listened to whatever part of my brain made me do that, I guess.

I wondered how I had missed Mike2357's appearance on the forum, so I consulted my diaries from August and September 2021.  It appears that, at the time, I was preoccupied with motorway construction in Poland and Romania.  (Poland wins the prize for most picturesquely ugly signs in Europe, while Romania leans hard into its Roman heritage with red-capped fake milestones that I think are probably made of plastic with patches of retroreflective sheeting for text elements.)

Well I didn't know that he was a troll. I thought he was just a clueless person on the internet.

A troll is as a troll does, but discussion sabotage often comes in subtle forms that take some time to play out and experience to recognize once they have done so.  I did notice that a few times when I asked him questions about what he was proposing, there would be a long silence, and then he would go back to talking up craziness.

If people are genuinely interested, they will ask questions. They will go and read something before asking. If someone is making statements instead of asking, repeatedly, it's not the case where your efforts would pay back.

Yup.  This is an important telltale.

[Scott5114]

Don't take too much responsibility upon yourself. If people are genuinely interested, they will ask questions. They will go and read something before asking. If someone is making statements instead of asking, repeatedly, it's not the case where your efforts would pay back.

Another tell is refusing to accept information from what should be taken as a more reliable source. Like when he had some ludicrous portrayal of I-11/US-93 north of Kingman, and I had just driven it and disputed his assumptions, he chose to stick with his own version of what he supposed it to be like rather than take it from someone who had actually been there and seen it in person.

There are some people who would do this who are not trolls, but they're generally not worth your time either.

[JayhawkCO]

he chose to stick with his own version of what he supposed it to be like rather than take it from someone who had actually been there and seen it in person.

There are some people who would do this who are not trolls, but they're generally not worth your time either.

This applies to over 25% of the active posters here.

[jemacedo9]

And yet there were a handful that kept replying and replying and replying and replying and the troll vortex kept spinning and spinning and spinning...

[formulanone]

Don't take too much responsibility upon yourself. If people are genuinely interested, they will ask questions. They will go and read something before asking. If someone is making statements instead of asking, repeatedly, it's not the case where your efforts would pay back.

Another tell is refusing to accept information from what should be taken as a more reliable source. Like when he had some ludicrous portrayal of I-11/US-93 north of Kingman, and I had just driven it and disputed his assumptions, he chose to stick with his own version of what he supposed it to be like rather than take it from someone who had actually been there and seen it in person.

There are some people who would do this who are not trolls, but they're generally not worth your time either.

At the risk of sounding the Unpopular Asshole Alarm™, I feel the staff needs to act quicker in these situations.

Quackmaster General Mikey NumbersNYC trolled about a dozen threads and that toxicity quickly spills over into nearly every other thread.

I've been here 12 years and have never felt the need to suggest how to moderate; this isn't exactly a cause of any hurt feelings, but just how things can really get out of control with such a long leash.

On the other hand, there's a half dozen or so here that just don't know when to quit giving out admission passes to the shitshows.

[Roadgeekteen]

Don't take too much responsibility upon yourself. If people are genuinely interested, they will ask questions. They will go and read something before asking. If someone is making statements instead of asking, repeatedly, it's not the case where your efforts would pay back.

Another tell is refusing to accept information from what should be taken as a more reliable source. Like when he had some ludicrous portrayal of I-11/US-93 north of Kingman, and I had just driven it and disputed his assumptions, he chose to stick with his own version of what he supposed it to be like rather than take it from someone who had actually been there and seen it in person.

There are some people who would do this who are not trolls, but they're generally not worth your time either.

At the risk of sounding the Unpopular Asshole Alarm™, I feel the staff needs to act quicker in these situations.

Quackmaster General Mikey NumbersNYC trolled about a dozen threads and that toxicity quickly spills over into nearly every other thread.

The thing is, he did not explicitly break any rules. He was annoying, but being annoying isn't against the rules.

[Scott5114]

Right, that's kind of the key problem here. I don't want us to get to the point where someone can get moderated for having a stupid opinion. (If we did, I'd probably have to ban myself.) And we do need a clear rule we can point to when someone says "Why am I banned?"

he chose to stick with his own version of what he supposed it to be like rather than take it from someone who had actually been there and seen it in person.

There are some people who would do this who are not trolls, but they're generally not worth your time either.

This applies to over 25% of the active posters here.

I said what I said.

[jeffandnicole]

At the risk of sounding the Unpopular Asshole Alarm™, I feel the staff needs to act quicker in these situations. I've been here 12 years and have never felt the need to suggest how to moderate, but Quackmaster General Mikey NumbersNYC trolled about a dozen threads and that toxicity quickly spills over into nearly every other thread.

Some of me agrees with this.  And some of me believes that this was more of the problem...

And yet there were a handful that kept replying and replying and replying and replying and the troll vortex kept spinning and spinning and spinning...

The thing is, he did not explicitly break any rules. He was annoying, but being annoying isn't against the rules.

Maybe the rules need to be reviewed, to tone down what can become such an issue that it continues to be discussed several days later. A lot was made about the 32 post a day rule. Yet, it only took a few posts to derail several threads.

[Roadgeekteen]

At the risk of sounding the Unpopular Asshole Alarm™, I feel the staff needs to act quicker in these situations. I've been here 12 years and have never felt the need to suggest how to moderate, but Quackmaster General Mikey NumbersNYC trolled about a dozen threads and that toxicity quickly spills over into nearly every other thread.

Some of me agrees with this.  And some of me believes that this was more of the problem...

And yet there were a handful that kept replying and replying and replying and replying and the troll vortex kept spinning and spinning and spinning...

The thing is, he did not explicitly break any rules. He was annoying, but being annoying isn't against the rules.

Maybe the rules need to be reviewed, to tone down what can become such an issue that it continues to be discussed several days later. A lot was made about the 32 post a day rule. Yet, it only took a few posts to derail several threads.

The 32 post rule is not consistantly enforced. Many people break that rule, sometimes multiple days in a row, without anything happening. MMM was really given that punishment IMO to find some reason to kick him off for a bit (mods, don't get mad at me for saying that, I admit that I could be wrong). It almost seems like more of a guideline than a rule.

[Scott5114]

There is a reason the rule says "such as" and "may" where it does: because there are legitimate reasons for going over it. Examples include returning from a long trip and catching up replying to threads that were started while you were gone, or GMing one of the "Guess the ..." games and still keeping up with your usual posting.

We also don't have any sort of automatic alert system that tells us that someone has gone over 32 posts, so if one of us is going to your posts page and counting your posts to begin with, it means that we already feel like your posting is low-quality enough that the rule may need to be enforced. (And if we think you're making constructive posts that add value to the forum, then we have no reason to check how many posts you've made in the last 24 hours.)

The only reason there's an exact post number specified is because it was written while we were dealing with someone who I suspected probably wouldn't have understood the phrase "high rate of low-quality posts" if a number wasn't included.

I'm guessing most people wouldn't want us to be hardasses about enforcing that particular rule.

[kalvado]

The 32 post rule is not consistantly enforced. Many people break that rule, sometimes multiple days in a row, without anything happening. MMM was really given that punishment IMO to find some reason to kick him off for a bit (mods, don't get mad at me for saying that, I admit that I could be wrong). It almost seems like more of a guideline than a rule.

Talking about speed limits, though,

[Roadgeekteen]

The 32 post rule is not consistantly enforced. Many people break that rule, sometimes multiple days in a row, without anything happening. MMM was really given that punishment IMO to find some reason to kick him off for a bit (mods, don't get mad at me for saying that, I admit that I could be wrong). It almost seems like more of a guideline than a rule.

Talking about speed limits, though,

It's actually quite hard to hit 32 posts during normal times. There really isn't that much going on the forum to warrent that many posts. I was passing 32 so many times during the whole MMM fiasco as there was so much shit going on in those threads. But with MMM banished to the shadow realm my posting frequency has dropped off a cliff, with only like 8-10 posts the last few days, and a few more than that today but will still not pass 32 most likely.

[hotdogPi]

banished to the shadow realm

This did not happen. He got a regular ban. A shadow ban would look like nobody was replying to him, but he wouldn't appear banned on his screen and would have had to figure it out himself.

[Roadgeekteen]

banished to the shadow realm

This did not happen. He got a regular ban. A shadow ban would look like nobody was replying to him, but he wouldn't appear banned on his screen and would have had to figure it out himself.

I know what a shadow ban is. I was making a joke  .

[Scott5114]

I can see why shadowbanning is a popular practice on large social media sites, and I can think of a few instances in which it would potentially be useful here. However, there's something about the practice that seems unethical to me, such that I don't think it would ever be a practice this forum would adopt, even if there were a feature available in the software. The closest thing we have is requiring pre-approval of posts before they go public.

[Roadgeekteen]

I can see why shadowbanning is a popular practice on large social media sites, and I can think of a few instances in which it would potentially be useful here. However, there's something about the practice that seems unethical to me, such that I don't think it would ever be a practice this forum would adopt, even if there were a feature available in the software. The closest thing we have is requiring pre-approval of posts before they go public.

It's really easy to tell/check if you've been shadowbanned if you have even a tiny bit of internet knowledge. Copy the link of your post into incognito mode, if you can see it you are not shadowbanned, if it doesn't you could be.

[Molandfreak]

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the "posts must add to the discussion"  rule is being enforced much, either.

[Roadgeekteen]

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the "posts must add to the discussion"  rule is being enforced much, either.

That's very subjective and vauge a lot of the time.

[J N Winkler]

I personally think the 32 posts/day limit is too high, though I realize it was set at that value partly to preclude arguments that moderators enforce it arbitrarily.  A lower limit should (at least in theory) encourage participants to pack more of a punch into each post and think twice about whether a given point needs to be responded to.

[hotdogPi]

I personally think the 32 posts/day limit is too high, though I realize it was set at that value partly to preclude arguments that moderators enforce it arbitrarily.  A lower limit should (at least in theory) encourage participants to pack more of a punch into each post and think twice about whether a given point needs to be responded to.

On one of the days that MMM went above 32, I had to warn Max Rockatansky that he was at 30. I made 16 that day.

I made 23 posts on March 6.