What's with the old trolls?

Given recent events, and from what I understand a bit of publicity for our happy little site, I expect to experience an upswing in new accounts by people here to troll around, then they lose interest or get banned, and within a few weeks it dies down and all is right in the world.

Over the past few days I've noticed the expected additional trolls (note the ignore button would useful if we had it) however the vast majority seem to be older members (at least a year) that for some reason, unknown to me, have decided to lower their personal standards and resort to behavior unbecoming of someone with their ranking.

What's going on? Did I miss a memo?

P.S. yes I have reported a few of the exceptional ones.

I think some one advertises virgin sacrifices and they came a runnin
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f15590f918a7.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by hillbilly4rent


That's fantastic, thanks for the laugh.

reply to post by searching4truth


Its amazing to me how trolls like you are talking about last so long on this forum.
The moderators here are second to none, and for the most part act impartially and quickly.
But with that being said, I see what you are talking about alot.

I refer to them as drive by trolls, they hit the thread, take one or two shots at the OP without even reading the rest of the thread, and then disappear and drive by another thread. The kind that annoy me the most are the ones who show up 6 pages into a thread, make the same point that has already been discussed ad nauseum and seemingly put to bed, only to open up 6 more pages of the same.

reply to post by searching4truth


Heh - if there was a memo then I didn't get it either.

Hopefully it will settle down sooner or later. In any event, you do have a point. One of the principals of ATS has always kind of been for the older members to strive to show the "best of the board" and in some cases that seems to be getting forgotten at times.

reply to post by youdidntseeme


Like me? I put this right where it belonged, although I must admit I didn't look through bts for this topic, it's bts, full of randomness.

P.S. I didn't slam the mods, I have seen them working, at it seems they are working overtime at the moment. Nearly every thread I click on (granted this is specific my interest areas, I haven't clicked every thread) seems to have a ton of mod edits, deletions, warnings, etc. Again indicating that people are not behaving.

reply to post by Frogs


That's exactly what I meant.

Last night, for example, I was participating in 6 or 7 threads and was shocked by some of the behavior I was seeing. It was atypical both at large and for the specific people.

reply to post by searching4truth


Dont' be shocked, pal Ya see, there's alotta buddies doin things that nobuddy knows and theres' others that aint' doin nothin like everybuddy says, understand?

reply to post by inchworm

Originally posted by searching4truth
Over the past few days I've noticed the expected additional trolls (note the ignore button would useful if we had it) however the vast majority seem to be older members (at least a year) that for some reason, unknown to me, have decided to lower their personal standards and resort to behavior unbecoming of someone with their ranking.

Someone with their ranking?! ATS isn't the court of Queen Elizabeth the first. Our beloved skeptic overlord doesn't give out knighthoods (although Sir Silver Star does have a certain ring to it).

I know what you mean though. I think after you've become a familiar face around here, you're cut a bit of slack when it comes to toleration of your thread disrupting hi-jinks. I say that with no heat... it's a fact of life that the powers-that-be give their pals special treatment.

P.S. yes I have reported a few of the exceptional ones.

edit on 11-1-2011 by searching4truth because: (no reason given)

Why bother? In fact, I'm often puzzled as to why anyone would bother to report anything. The thought has never crossed my mind to 'alert' a thread or post. Who gives a fig?

reply to post by Silver Star


Yes, I know there are no knighthoods

What I meant is people that have not only been around a long amount of time, but participate very frequently

Perhaps, it is a benefit of making the right friends or whatever, but I have seen a large amount of mod notes and such, like I said they seem to be working overtime, it's simply a very large job right now.

I've never reported anyone in my two or so years here, but recently it's just become outright ridiculous and I finally had enough.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/38335fa01393.jpg[/atsimg]

Yes, that is me.

reply to post by hillbilly4rent


In other words theres' peoples here who try to do other things and nobuddy even notices while the whole time others is NOT doing the same thing and everybuddy says something like "Hey, look at what HE'S doing".

Ronnie