How do you separate ignorance from trolling? For instance, if I say:

Congratulations, you are an idiot!

(with bold/italic/underline/headline tags plentiful)

or

lol that obama what a loser he'll be gone soon

It's pretty obvious that it's trolling. However, if I say:

Stop talking about the birth certificate issue. It has been long debated, and there's nothing left to debate. He is qualified to be the President of the United States, and any and all discussion trying to show otherwise is stupid.

That could be considered as trolling to those who think there's still an argument to be had and also tries to restrict the conversation, but if the poster really believes what he is saying, he's not trolling -- he's just ignorant. The motto of ATS is to "deny ignorance," but should ignorance receive the same punishment as trolling? When the line is not so clear, how do you and your staff differentiate between trolling and ignorance? I would think the logical thing to do would be to leave the post up and try to start a conversation with the individual first to see how he responds and then go from there. In the instance that he isn't trolling, it would be better to try and show him his ignorance instead of moderating his post and leaving him bitter.

I wonder if the U2U I sent you guys a week ago has anything to do with this thread...

Yeah this is why I pretty much stay away from the left, middle, right political threads. It's to easy to insult someone with this level of anonymity, but you do have a reputation here. We remember your name and face (avatar). The only difference is we can't smack them in the face like we would in the "real" world for the insults.

I treat people with respect here, just as in the "real" world.

I expect the same.

Well said sir.

I have noticed the temp or mood of ATS change over a period of time.

It seem to be related to the number of children receiving computers for Christmas.

It is caustic for the winter/spring months then levels out during the summer.

I have attempted to stray away from those threads.

Have you ever considered turning off all stars,flags page views etc. on a possible troll?

They only do it for the attention to begin with.Your sites points system has in some way created competition.

I have even seen people bragging about it on their posts.

There is also a group whom follow another poster around on the forum who is known for pithy remarks and then responds not to the thread but to the remarks he made.

I have seen a thread hijacked just by others making unrelated posts to his comments.

It is unfortunate this is the situation.

I do know now to use the alert button to notify a mod to look at it but I wish that was not needed.

[edit on 25-2-2010 by Oneolddude]

Well I honestly couldn't believe I was seeing this thread, because as far as I was aware, 'Pissed' is one of the words that are verboten on ATS, in addition to any attempt to evade the 'swear words' ban, such as 'pizzed', etc.

I'm kinda gonna miss some of these trolls.

I agree some they were excessive at times, but a small percentage of trolls were also actually kinda funny and sometimes, all we can do is laugh.

I wonder if the Workforce Commision will be setting up a special little line for the trolls, now that they've been fired.

First, I think its really cool to be able to adress a company owner in an open forum like this.

Sir, do you like pain? I dont believe this to be an unreasonable question. How many of us out here in cyber land have wireless connections in our homes? Along with the interface for signal interperetation and transmission? Probaly a whole bunch of us. The reason I ask if you like pain is not to be personally inflamatory, but to try to demonstrate just how important 'emotion' is here at ATS. You have children, victims, elderly, veterans, farmers,and factory workers 'lurking' around this site.
And when I came here the only unintelectual thing that I observed was a game of acedemic submission and dominance that used 'dark sarcasm' (pink floyd) to create an elite enviornment for itself.
The percentage of what I would consider outright disruptive I would estimate at 5 maybe.
If the purpose of this thread is to target those 5 then great. But if the purpose is to segregate based on assumed intelligence or technological advancement, then that is not so good.
When using such an invasive medium such as wireless communications one must be careful not to tick off the locals.
The signals from this web-activity are a real and physical thing. So proprietary in nature. But some find it a difficult concept that another person no different from them can own an invisible beam that is shot through thier brain. Some look at internet period..as pollution of the worst kind and would love nothing more than to see its eventual collapse.

Like Google Earth..I believe they owe me money for taking a picture of me without my knowledge and storing it somewhere. Since when is Google the government? I mean if they were filming someone or taking a photo for experiment then immediately deleting..ok..but taking unauthorized photos and storing them..not ok.

Dont mean to rant.

My two cents...This sounds like censorship of an open intelectual forum. I dont ever here any street thug yo mamma threats or direct insults. I see alot of give and take and mutual respect here. Maybe its the specialized superbrainiacs that should 'take it outside' sometimes.

The problem with all of this is there is no true general consensus of what trolling is. Moreover, when you're dealing with mods and admins who obviously operate in the realm of preference and bias, and have sycophants doing their usual act, things are bound to be misinterpreted and BAM! There goes the ban hammer or -1,000 ATS points for an infraction.

Now S.O., you made this thread and I have a question for you. If someone posts about the illogical belief in "the right to vote" or any other voting madness, and they make it a point to post in those threads because they believe it is a conspiracy, are they trolling?