Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

Ok, take at the many lock threads in the spam vault, most of them involve Trolls just...being idiots, and then after that, theres the many users that feel compelled to say "Some one lock this thread!" or a generic flame against the topic creater. By doing this, they put that thread at the top of the board, compelling others to follow in there footsteps. By continueing to fill that thread with the life blood that is posts, they keep it alive, making them no better then the Creater. Obviously, the don't know this, and continue to do so until its locked. Everyone should just PM a mod about it.

This has really become a problem, and action should be taken. There must be a rule, and possibly a punishment against this. My suggestion: maybe have a temporal ban for Troll feeders, 24 hours or so maybe. Longer for Frequet troll buffets. Or, more unlikeily, since post counts are so vaulble for many, you could knock down there post count a couple notches.

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Personally, I don't think there needs to be a ban on troll-feeders. They just need to know to knock it off. Even though afterwards, when it is locked, most of the mods say "Stop keeping this alive" or something like that. Of course, it's still being done.

This is the solution.

Of course, I'm not a mod, so it's not really my call.

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I always PM a mod, but a few minutes later someone else posts in the topic because he/she didn't know.

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Uh, no. I always forget not to feed the trolls, so other people will forget, and then what? They get banned for breaking a rule they didn't remember!



Impossible, you'd have to delete posts to do that, and if you posted once in the spam thread, and a mod wanted to knock your post count down 2, they'd have to delete a different post, which can get REALLY annoying.

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Administrators can change post counts as much as they want without editing any posts. (Weird).

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Odd, I could never do that on PHPbb.

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It IS a good Idea,

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Alright! You win, The Noid! No more memes.

That's probably 'cause you didn't poke around in the database.

Anyway, this has always been a problem (and has been a problem on every forum/chatroom/newsgroup/bulletin board in the history of the world), but there's no good solution. There are always people who aren't smart enough not to feed the trolls. I'd say we should start some sort of demerit system, but the trouble is that just makes more work for the mods. It's enough of a pain to deal with the trolls themselves; we don't want to separately deal with the people who feed them.

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I agree.

I think that my scathing commentaries on the troll feeders' mothers should be enough incentive not to repeat the offense, no? We don't need to knock down post counts! Mainly cause I'm too dang lazy to do that.

I've recently been seeing people just being complete jerks to new users who don't know the ways of the forum, mainly here.

I try to always think before I hit the "Submit" button (though I sometimes forget), "Am I being a loser here? Is there anything in here that makes me look like a jerk?" I wish that some people here would think like that, too.

Just remember- it makes you look dumb and no one will like you if you insult. You may think it makes you look big, but it really doesn't. People just start to dislike you.

*audince applauds*

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PMing a mod, as someone said, is the best solution. But I admit, unless the trolling is really obvious (a la Edgar or 123ABC), sometimes I've been known to "feed" those who I assumed were trying to start a debate, only to find that they are simply trying to make all of us angry at one another.

The problem about being unecessarily rude to newer users, as Fuh Buh mentioned, is a greater issue, and possibly deserves punishment, IMHO.

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Don't forget Necromancer/Low Rider. I usually catch on to a troll pretty quickly, then I just alert the nearest admin.

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I'm not sure about that. As far as I can tell, most users are not rude to newbies. I see feeding the trolls as a bigger problem. The fact that every locked topic has about five posts saying "Lock this" or "This is spam" helps my point. Of course, I understand that people forget themselves sometimes. Just PM a mod about the spam topic. Don't keep it alive by posting in it.

Although I'll agree that obvious trolling is much less likely to be fed.

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Rudeness isn't a problem that shows up frequently, but it definitely happens and needs to be kept in check. Feeding the trolls is definitely more prevalent, but it doesn't really do as much harm. Yes, feeding a troll can encourage their behavior, and a lot of troll feed is pretty spammy, but in the end the troll gets banned and everybody moves on. Usually.

Perhaps the next time the rules are revised (which we really should do sooner or later), we can add a clause about not feeding trolls and PMing mods instead.

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There have been a few new users around recenty dredging up threads that are over a year old, that just say they agree with the person and statement above, without much actual input other than that.
Would it be ok to remind them about rules like that?
Or just tell them to read the rules page?

Just a bit of frustration at some new users around here who have no respect for the rules or havent' bothered to read them.
Thankyou and good night.

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Perhaps trusted users (appointed by mods/admins) could mark a thread as "dead", i.e. posting on the trolled thread would not rise to the top. This could help when there aren't any mods/admins around (like now, 12:37 AM my time).

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True, they are usually all within a few time zones of each other.

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Are 7 hours really going to make that big of a difference? If some newbie revives a really old thread just to say "I think you guys talk about dumb things. I agree with the second guy though.", is it really such a painful and forum-killing event that we need someone to smack that thread down this very minute? I think that a maximum 8 hour turnaround is pretty darn good, and I would hope that this place is mature enough to not need 24 hour supervision.

We're talking about reviving threads months old.

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Well that's a horse of a different color! That really does need 24 hour surveillance! Really? Does it?


Sorry. I'm feeling a little snarky... I probably should stay out of R&P today...

I don't think that the forum needs 24 hour surveillance. Of course, it would be safer, but the forum is not spammed enough to need a mod logged in all the time. Like you said, this place is mature enough to not need constant surveillance.

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You can't have it both ways. You can't complain about people making new topics when old ones already exist, and then complain about necromancy (ie - reviving dead threads). The latter of which is only a slight nuissance IMHO.

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What about a "Report Post" button? I'm sure there's a mod that can be downloaded somewhere to do this. Seems to me that's an easy solution to report all flames, spam, necromancy, and more or less everything else.

As said before, there will always be people who don't know to not feed the trolls. Heck until recently I didn't know, although usually when those spammy topics come up I just don't bother posting in them; I waited for a mod to lock them rather than report myself. Ought to do the latter nowadays. Still, some newer members just don't know. We don't need to temporarily take away their posting privileges, just have to get that crud locked, and quick. As long as this topic is here, we might as well let this be a source to inform the rest of us on how to deal with trolls, such that a thread will be reported sooner. Simple really.

Now that I look at it, I'm quite surprised there ISN'T a report post button. I see that on other forums. And true, we don't have something that reports just to every moderator, so it's hard to choose who is on first. A good point.
Until that comes around, I have an idea for ways to inform every active mod. There are several forum superregulars here (i.e. Ramrod) that know their forum posting. For those of us that get here on a consistent basis and are deemed capable of reporting a post, we can make a list of like 10-15 respected regulars. Then 2 or 3 regulars, every time they see a spammer, report it to IJ, the other 3 to Seethroo, etc.

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"No, no, no. You gotta get those rings... INSIDE the bottle!"
I'm just an old timer who lurks on occasion. Even in 2020, at least.

I had to read that over a couple times to really get it, but it sounds like it could work. I have another idea, though, that I think is much simpler. I saw this used on another forum a while ago. Whenever a member sees a spam topic, they simply post the words "mod alert". Nothing else. That way, whenever a mod logs on, all they have to do is do a search for "mod AND alert".

Only big downfall there though is.....the mod would, unfortunately, have to do a search for "mod alert" every time they log on! If they don't search for mod alert, then they won't see the topic until later.

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"No, no, no. You gotta get those rings... INSIDE the bottle!"
I'm just an old timer who lurks on occasion. Even in 2020, at least.

Which is why I think it's a secondary option to a report post button. But it really only takes a second to do a search. Oh, and obviously, all the previous mod alerts would show up, so the mod would have to edit the post.

Just send a PM, kids. To each of us, if you want, or to IJ or Seethroo (seeing as how they're on most often) and whoever is mod of that particular forum. Whoever logs on first will take care of it. I'm sure that most (if not all) of us have the PM popup feature set up, so as soon as we log in we'll be notified. No need to do a "Mod alert" search.

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It also might be helpful to check which mods and admins are online at the time. We are the ones highlighted in green or red.

If only this was vBulletin.. then we'd have the PERFECT way to deal with trolls (apart from redirects ).

Nothing more hilerious then seeing them talking to a wall. "lolz, guys, where is everybody?".