Well, for the last hour I’ve sat here refreshing the page to find an endless barage of dredged up postings full of spam. I don’t know what was more pitiful, the trolls postings or those who insisted on replying to them.
You do realize that every time you post to one of those threads you’re just making the moderators job that much more unbearable ? If NO ONE replied to any of those posts, it would be a simple job for them to delete the last post from all the threads that were dredged up and be done with it. But now they have to go through every one of them to find and delete the crap.
Why do people insist on responding to trolls ??? - If the temptation is that great, shut the computer off and go work on the layout.
There must be a reason why not, but here goes anyway: Is there a reason that old threads can’t simply be locked after the moderators clean them up. They are going to sink anyway and I’m sure that it is safe to say that these threads have run their course if they are several years old. Seems like a simple way to clear out the mess.
I moderate on 3 forums and have suggested that several times…In my case the Admins feels that a lot of locked topics would give the visitor the wrong impression.
The result? Topics several years old show up with some irrevent comment.
Good advice. But I also think that starting up topics like this is responding to trolls too. In fact, my reply to this topic is essentially doing the same, but I have to make a point somehow.
The best way to deal with a troll is to report it and ignore it. That includes creating topics to complain about trolls.
Question: I have an issue that I need help on. I search the forums and find an old thread exactly on topic. I have a new question that I would like to post. What do I do? If I post a question to the old thread, this would appear to label me a “troll.” If I start a new thread, the first five posts will just be links to the old thread with a snippy comment such as “If you bothered to use the search at the bottom of the web page…” or “You know the search engine can be your friend.” So seriously what do I do in this situation? I can tell you what I have done in the past–I simply don’t post because I never know what is going to be judged as an inappropriate action on here. Jamie
You can use something like this: I did a search and found an OLD thread from X date that relates to what I want to know. Being that this information is old and may be out of date now I would like to know what the current thinking is on it. Here’s my question.
Jeffery, I would just simply re-ask the question instead of bringing up the old thread. Lets face it, lots of the same questions come up month to month so its not that big of a deal. How many times in the last few months has the topic of cleaning track come up? Lots, lol.
Jeffrey, with so many new people coming out of the wood work and into the hobby your bound to get the same questions time and time again. I just answer them unless somebody else has first. Season modelers like ourselves may think the questions are getting old and some of us may even post something like “Did you try doing a search” instead of just answering the question, I see that alot here.
I think a lot of us more seasoned modelers tend to forget that we were asking those same questions maybe years ago.
The problem I have with some of us suggesting a newbie do a search for the info they need is that the suggestion comes across as “Don’t bother me,look it up yourself” which is about as rude as you can get.
If someone asks a question I can answer I just do it.Life is much more fun that way and I may just make a new friend that way.[:D]
… and your response to it ??? [(-D] - if you’re gonna play, you can’t win !!!
It’s like car accidents, train wrecks and house fires - instant crowd of people that need to be involved. Sure, I sat here and read every post as they came up … but unlike a lot of other people, I didn’t throw more gas on the fire or drive another car into the pile-up - I watched from a safe distance until it was over and went home.
I believe that there is software out there that can move this forum to self deleting posts after 90 or say, 120 days. The technology is there, it just whether MR can find it, afford it or even wants to use it. And no, I do not know if that exists in end user software. That I would imagine could help fight the recent problems we have experienced.
Deleting posts in the short term is not a good idea as there is a LOT of very helpful information in the archives that can be accessed using the simple search function.
What needs to be done is to give the “off-hours” moderators the power to block a user or ban his current IP. This doesn’t stop him entirely as it’s very easy to obtain a new IP, but it would sure slow him down to the point it may not be worth the effort.
I happened to be one of those to have had one of my old posts resurrected recently, (not my doing BTW) its now got almost 2 full pages of new comments, so clearly it wasnt irrelevant to those who added posts.
Old posts get revived, it happens all the time on forums. If you dont care to read them move on to the next topic, if enough people feel the same way, with all the traffic on this forum those topics will quickly fall off the main page, otherwise newer members who were not around at the time of the original posting might have their opinion or experience or some relevant new information to contribute and they should be allowed to participte.
Troll flaming only occurs when you respond to the trolls comment, if you ignore the troll’s comment and stay on topic with a relevant contribution, the troll loses. But a blanket locking or deleting of an entire thread just because of one or two reply, is stupid, or simply because its a couple of years old, is really stupid, and in doing so the troll wins, Besides the moderators here have the power to nuke individual posts.
Thats the way it should be handled if its a particularly nasty comment, but leave the thread alone.
I’m on a computer forum where you REALLY have to jump through hoops to bring up an old thread. (over 6 months) There’s three or four extra steps including a secondary SN log in. That would slow things down a bit.
They think locked threads will look bad to newbies. How about the whole front page filled F you’s and racial slurs…
Brakie-Does he come over and cause trouble on Zealot?
Al comes on here because he knows that we will react. Nothing more, nothing less. As stated above, the best approach is to egnore, hit the report abuse button and move on. The trouble lies in how the moderators handle the situation. The best case senerio is to delete his account. It takes more time to create a new account than it does creating a new thread. The second step (only after you delete his account) is to delete his posts. The third step is to report him to the proper internet athorities. Hi IP is visible to the mods and should be used to stop further trolling. In terms of the old threads, a simple lock will ensure they move back into oblivion.