"Ron Wanttaja" wrote

The spam and the trolls. Rec.aviation.piloting saw a mass exodus when a
couple of trolls started near-continuous postings.

To quote Wikipedia, "A troll is someone who posts inflammatory,
extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an
online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of
provoking other users into an emotional response."

The trouble is, spam is pretty obvious, but whether a given poster is a
troll or not depends on your personal relationship of the poster. They may
claim it's "all in fun," but not everyone takes it that way. To a
newcomer, who doesn't know the relationships, it just plain looks ugly so
they go away.

You hit the nail on the head, Ron. The trolls used to be dealt with by
shunning, like good ole' Bass Wars days. Now, someone always has to play
with the troll, and it ****ed off anyone that had something to say, so they
left.

Vicious Circle, describes it. Troll wins, everyone is gone. Once in a
while, there has been a little real discussion start up here, then the
neurotic troll joins in and quickly kills it. Everyone leaves again, and
after that happens a few times, they don't come back.

I think Usenet still could be big. It fits today's style of not talking
directly to anyone. Ampeater, why don't you be the life of our party? I
have a feeling that you have plenty of stories yet to tell. Then when a
troll joins in, blast him with both barrels, and a little 3 phase high
tension line voltage, and drive him off. ;-)
--
Jim in NC