The traffic from the Weblog Awards has brought with it a fair bit of Freeper attention. I’ve been deleting a few really obnoxious wingnut comments a day for the past week or so. And then two days ago a well-meaning person linked CRN from the comments at P*nd*g*n, which these days has much the same effect, plus the occasional abusive comment from someone styling himself a “progressive.” The result: I’ve been checking in every half hour or so to delete just ugly, stupid, hostile, and off-topic crap.
And I have to go out for a few hours now.
So here’s a reminder, and an attempt to make lemonade out of, um, well anyway. Discussion of CRN’s comment policy is here. Short version: don’t be a jerk. If some of the miscreants happen to get through the Freep Shields while I’m out, and you can’t bring yourself to ignore them until I can delete their wall-smearings, then try to limit yourself to mocking them in the third person. Do not engage with them directly: they are harder to clean off of you than bunker fuel.
And here’s the lemonade. What’s your favorite clichéd troll blather? Choose from the poll here, or add yours in comments. And I’ll be back with the mop and bleach later this evening.
P.S. Please don’t link me from your comments at P*nd*g*n anymore. Seriously, I appreciate the gesture. But each link means a couple hours of deleting really vile stuff. It’s not worth it to me.
My favorite is definitely the rampant incorrect usage of homophones.
I checked the “free speech” one simply because it’s at best disingenuous to assert that a particular amendment to the US Constitution applies to private fora. And then you have to add the irony that the same people who appeal to this protection that they’re not actually entitled to would seem to be just as happy if that protection weren’t available to anybody under any circumstances.
I LOATHE liberal usage of ellipses.
Freeper’s too, to obliquely snark the apostrophe problem, which of course, *I* only have when I am very tired, not because I am too psychotic to realize I am shooting my own argument in the mixed metaphor.
However. The meth lab? Too good. Got me.
My favorite? Trolls who post under multiple names thinking that I won’t notice that all of them have the same IP number.
I had a mean, but interesting troll a few weeks ago. He tried lots of techniques to start fights, but my commenters held firm. I was so pleased about that.
Around the middle of his efforts, he wrote, and I quote, “May I humbly request that we switch the topic to God and abortion?”
WHAT?! What? I run a friendly little engineering and chat-style blog. We talk about irrigation technology ‘round my place. I do not think I have ever ventured into theology or reproductive rights. Who barges into a party and demands to change the conversation to God and abortion?
That said, I fully want to do that now. Next party I go to, I’m gonna slam the front door open, drag the needle off the record, and announce that we’re talking about God and abortion from here on out. Better get me a drink, to start it right.
Megan, if you do that (and oh, how I hope you do), you’ve got to find some way to get it to YouTube. I’m begging.
In the poll thingy I picked the one about “Let me seize on one sentence” because not only did I used to get A LOT of that, but also people used to accuse me of doing it—focusing on that one (sandwich) little detail (sandwich) to the exclusion (sandwich) of the overall (sandwich) and much more important (sandwich) point. So that selection had a pleasing “goes both ways” aspect to it.
I’m sure it has been done, but I would love to see a play acting out a comments section being trolled.
*Strokes chin, considering Megan’s suggestion, thinking evile thoughts.*
‘Course, the people who pay for modern theatre don’t know what the internet is.
Ooops, did I say that out loud?
=v= Following the liberalesque convention of wanting everything to be all things to all people, I take umbrage to your Eurocentric imposition of radio buttons instead of checkboxes.
Live to troll, troll to live.
And kill snakes. To live. No, no, Live to kill snakes.
And troll…...
megan, you’re brilliant! that would be the only way that i could tolerate seeing troll commentary. [the play would have to replace the last 900 paragraphs with a device. something like a recorded “blah blah blah,” and jump to the next part.]
Jym, why do you think they’re called Czech boxes?
=v= Megan and Kathy, I believe you might enjoy this:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1771556
Awesome. I knew someone must have done it already.
I had to check the misinterpretation-of-post approach too. It’s so tempting a target, and so irritating. It’s really hard to avoid producing virtual reams of comments explaining something to a troll who either is incapable of or uninterested in appreciating the clarification - especially, if like me, you tend to obsess a bit about conveying one’s message with clarity.
You did forget one category - the troll who tosses in something about Clinton or race or abortion just to stir up shit (though some of the options come close).
I also get riled by the “Hypocrite!” finger-pointing of people who don’t understand the true meaning of tolerance. It’s not about giving morons a free forum in which they can shoot off their mouths unchallenged, nimrods. It’s about keeping an open mind and weighing evidence and not getting insulted by things that do not in fact affect you personally, like another person’s private lifestyle choices.
Mmmm… lemonade!
(Ah! I used ellipses! *ducks*)
I chose the ellipse with extra dots option, because, after all, Wikipedia says:
The use of ellipses can either mislead or clarify, and the reader must rely on the good intentions of the writer who uses it. An example of this ambiguity is ‘She went to…school.’ In this sentence, ‘…’ might represent the word ‘elementary’, or the word ‘no’. Omission of part of a quoted sentence without indication by an ellipsis (or bracketed text) (i.e., ‘She went to school.’ as opposed to ‘She went to [Broadmoor Elementary] school.’) is considered misleading. An ellipsis at the end of the sentence which ends with a period (or such a period followed by an ellipsis), appears, therefore, as four dots.
Gentlewomen, choose your dots!