Is Countertrolling a Troll The Answer

[Rothman]

Does anyone else get the feeling that MMM is reading this forum as a guest, basking in all the attention he's "posthumously" receiving?

Everyone is still feeding the troll.

^This.

And this is why we're doomed to have another one.

[Rothman]

I still think a more recent hawker of YouTube videos on here was less prevalent when people didn't give him the time of day.

[roadman65]

Let's forget about MMM. He's gone. No need to hypothesize on his behavior.  The world is full of strange folks.

[kphoger]

The world is full of strange folks.

And 6% of them are members of this forum.

[roadman65]

True, especially when we have a bunch here on the spectrum.

[webny99]

The world is full of strange folks.

And 6% of them are members of this forum.

Wow, I didn't know this forum had 474 million users.

[roadman65]

[/quote]
Does anyone else get the feeling that MMM is reading this forum as a guest, basking in all the attention he's "posthumously" receiving?
[/quote]
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=16214
Look at his last login. It was post ban.

[kphoger]

Wow, I didn't know this forum had 474 million users.

The world is full of strange folks, but not every person in the world is strange.  That's not how language works.  For example...

Chicago is full of museums.  This does not mean there are no apartment buildings or restaurants there.

[webny99]

Wow, I didn't know this forum had 474 million users.

The world is full of strange folks, but not every person in the world is strange.  That's not how language works.

How language works is irrelevant here, though: I just disagree that not every person is strange (at least as an objective statement).

[formulanone]

Wow, I didn't know this forum had 474 million users.

The world is full of strange folks, but not every person in the world is strange.  That's not how language works.

How language works is irrelevant here, though: I just disagree that not every person is strange (at least as an objective statement).

Strange is all relative. Or maybe just a few relatives. Sometimes you don't know how weird (or normal-ish) things are in your own family until you meet a few more of them. Then we reshuffle our deck of People We Know and arrange them in an order, putting some in different margins because that's how we roll.

If faces come out of the rain, then you're strange. If streets are uneven when you're down, you're a roadgeek.

[Roadgeekteen]

Strange is also subjective. Just depends on your societal norms.

[kalvado]

Strange is also subjective. Just depends on your societal norms.

https://youtu.be/sezc05A4s2g

[Big John]

Opposite of "charm" in subatomic quarks:

[jeffandnicole]

Wow, I didn't know this forum had 474 million users.

The world is full of strange folks, but not every person in the world is strange.  That's not how language works.

How language works is irrelevant here, though: I just disagree that not every person is strange (at least as an objective statement).

Strange is all relative. Or maybe just a few relatives. Sometimes you don't know how weird (or normal-ish) things are in your own family until you meet a few more of them. Then we reshuffle our deck of People We Know and arrange them in an order, putting some in different margins because that's how we roll.

If faces come out of the rain, then you're strange. If streets are uneven when you're down, you're a roadgeek.

Pretty much everything is relative.  Once someone knows something and it becomes their norm, they become desensitized to it, then are often surprised when others don't know it. 

For roads, work in a toll booth (one of the few that exist anymore).  You'll get questions that make you realize what a scary world it is alongside others at 70 mph.

[bugo]

There was a guy a few years ago in some of the road-related Facebook groups who was downloading pictures from the groups and offering prints of them for sale on his website. He's been permabanned from any of the groups that I run. He recently tried to join a couple of them, but I declined his requests.

[bugo]

Does anybody remember Tom From Ohio? He had massive heel heat back in the day, but a lot of old school road guys look back on him fondly for some reason.

[Takumi]

Does anybody remember Tom From Ohio? He had massive heel heat back in the day, but a lot of old school road guys look back on him fondly for some reason.

[Rothman]

Does anybody remember Tom From Ohio? He had massive heel heat back in the day, but a lot of old school road guys look back on him fondly for some reason.

You, sir, win the Internet for the day.

[hbelkins]

Does anybody remember Tom From Ohio? He had massive heel heat back in the day, but a lot of old school road guys look back on him fondly for some reason.

DUAAFAFO.

Also: My testicles: Deez Nuts?

[kphoger]

Is this what we should be doing? Feeding a hungry troll?

Clearly, the answer is yes.

[formulanone]

Is this what we should be doing? Feeding a hungry troll?

Clearly, the answer is yes.

Concerning anything to do with the fandom of Poiponen:

[Max Rockatansky]

Much have a P13 to troll than the grand priest of the Church of Wallethub again.

[Brandon]

Does anybody remember Tom From Ohio? He had massive heel heat back in the day, but a lot of old school road guys look back on him fondly for some reason.

I think he did us all a favor and fucked off.

[hbelkins]

Does anybody remember Tom From Ohio? He had massive heel heat back in the day, but a lot of old school road guys look back on him fondly for some reason.

I think he did us all a favor and fucked off.

Also, O-315 = I-870?

[kphoger]

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.

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

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?"

Why?  I understand wanting to be fair and ethical, but limiting yourselves to a list of discrete rules isn't the same thing as being fair and ethical.  That is to say, it is perfectly possible to be fair and ethical while banning a troll who hasn't technically broken any rules.  This isn't a court of law:  it's an internet forum, and common sense can carry the day just as easily as technicalities.

This guy wasn't just annoying.  He didn't just have a stupid opinion.  He was committing the internet version of arson, and you don't have to determine exactly how a fire started before grabbing a fire extinguisher.  The answer to "Why am I banned?" could be as simple as "Because you were an asshole" and, while that would certainly be rude and perhaps uncalled for, it wouldn't make the ban itself unfair or unethical.

It was certainly conceptually possible to ban MMM on that basis.  It wouldn't even have been necessary to say something asshole-ish like "Because you were an asshole"--a formulation like "In our judgment, your posts fail to contribute to comity on the forum" would have sufficed.  But how many members would be comfortable with us running the forum in that way?  For better or for worse, the rules have evolved into an indirect mechanism for holding moderators to account.

(I wrote this before reading J.N. Winkler's response, so some of this may be duplicative and/or already addressed in your response to him)

You're right, and in some situations, invoking plenary powers to perform a ban as discretion applies is probably justified. The problem, though, is that without a clear set of guidelines saying what an 'asshole' is, we risk allowing ourselves to identify anyone who is being a minor irritant as an 'asshole' and banning them. Basically, it would be a tool that might become too tempting to overuse, absolute power corrupting absolutely and all.  That wouldn't be fair, and would arguably make the forum a worse place than it would be if we merely had to suffer a troll every now and then.

If the community feels like you have the right of it more than I do, however, and there's enough trust in the staff that they'd be okay with us having easier access to the banhammer in extraordinary cases, I can certainly be convinced that I'm overthinking it.

A great many posts (and their replies) have been moved out of sight since they have been found to breach the clause in the forum guidelines that prohibits offensive content.

Please remember that this forum focuses primarily on roads, and facilities for general-interest discussion are provided as an adjunct.  Reddit is a better venue for conversation on NSFW topics, such as sexual fetishes.

I still contend that I suggested the inevitable/eventual solution right before this thread went to dark places.  This is clearly circling the same drain others like tolbs and MMM already went down.  I'm not understanding what due process is really owed at this point?

I'm as guilty as anyone else of responding to the non-road-related stuff in this thread, but I would respectfully note that this thread itself has not really been related to "Fictional Highways" in quite some time (or, to the extent it has, it's been minimal)—see, for example, Poiponen's post quoted in Reply #3578. It's turned into the "Poiponen13 posts random thoughts and the rest of us ridicule them" thread. If the moderators are OK with that, then it's not my place to argue, but if Poiponen is unwilling or (more likely, I suspect) unable to control his scattershot random gibberish, then his postings seem to be inconsistent with your admonition about the forum's purpose. FritzOwl's posts—in a thread I do not follow—are, to his credit, at least road-related.

Yeah...this is well said.

Agreed. This entire thread is absolutely ridiculous and it's incredible it's gone on this long.

Regarding self policing, I get that the idea here is to hope P13 is going fall in line shape up.  I think most of us already know or have concluded by now that probably isn't going to happen.  The mod staff to their credit has generally had far more patience than probably necessary.  I do wonder though, how far does this have to go if stuff like yesterday wasn't enough to do P13 in?

Honestly, the degree of latitude Poiponen13 has been given is shocking.  The COVID thread and DST threads were all locked for far less than what goes on in here or the Metrification thread (and I would argue that the DST threads were more interesting).  tolbs took more flack for the Mary Hannah incident that Poiponen has over Sault Saint John Madden (even now!).  And let's appreciate that his original comment about what he would like her to do in his house is still here (did the follow-up comments get really bad between when I was logged in that afternoon and when they got removed?  Seems to me the original comment was worse, especially given her age).  And everyone who doesn't have the word filter on knows her name.

Seriously, does Poiponen have blackmail on the mods or something?  Seems like he gets away with a lot.

To me, it sounds like the community trusts the moderators enough these days to allow them easier access to the banhammer.  There's a place for grace and patience, but this freak sardine salad burning in a dumpster fire is no longer the place for it.

Seriously, how long does it have to burn, and how high do the flames need to get?  It's high time for the moderators to just grab the fire extinguisher, already.

(And, also, I'm sorry for pouring so much gasoline on yesterday.)