Some of my favorite parts of this forum are being ruined by trolls who constantly derail threads. specifically the racing section and car talk. i will not name names here but even putting the user on my ignore list allows them to show up in quotes text and it ruins the thread anyway.

i know there has been some action by the racing moderator but i dont feel like 1 mod is enough for the racing section a-lot goes unseen since it isn't frequented by many users except the usual suspects and the trolls.

i stopped visiting the auto news section for this very reason and i dont want car talk to be a victim.

 

Do their posts anger you so much that you can't focus on other aspects of the thread (i.e. comments posted by other members that aren't specific to the "troll" you are referring to and more to the actual topic)...?

 

PHEE for moderator 2012

campaign slogan

 

seeing their posts doesn't anger me. having a topic to discuss, logging into Azine, navigating to a thread and finding it locked annoys me. A LOT of good threads have gone to crap simply because users can't seem to ignore the trolls (or do not know how to use the ignore feature)

surely, you understand where I'm coming from?

 

I came into this thread because I thought you wanted trolls.
I was ready to help.

on a serious note, thanks Phee for bringing this up.

 

Sorry, Ill be good

 

A thread is usually locked by a moderator because the thread has completely gone south thanks to back-and-forth fighting and the inability to keep it civil.

So, it takes two to dance in these cases. You have the individual(s) who hold an opinion which well, the majority don't agree with. These individuals probably (but, we can't say for sure) know that their opinions are inflammatory. They will post their "XYZ blows because I think so and period."

We cannot censor that. An opinion is an opinion. If it is not an attack on race, culture, gender, religion or NWS, we cannot stop them from posting. So, these "trolls" say their thing and obviously, will strike a nerve with some members.

If their opinion is that obtuse, don't argue anymore and carry onwards with the topic without engaging the individual(s). Guess what? No thread locked. It's the need for some to be as witty/lookatme as possible and to come up with that awesome genius comeback that gets the thread going and well, soon we have a pile-on. Thread locked.

So, in short? There's a saying: Don't feed the trolls. Ignore their posts, don't engage them...let them say what they need to. If they choose to self-own themselves, the staff here will happily send them packing for that.

Does this help?

 

IMO, best thing one can do is make use of the ignore feature.

 

i use the ignore feature but what about members who do it just for the sport? you guys know exactly the type of members i am talking about. is there truly no warning system?

One member in the racing section makes every topic, no matter what the subject was originally about, a comparison to his mazda... that's gotta be some kind of violation.

 

Well, that member clearly loves his Mazda. So, good for him.

And again, that does not violate any of the conditions I've listed earlier that constitutes us stepping in.

And if you guys don't engage him and do the tomato-throwing, what true damage can he do to that thread?

 

If people cant contribute to the forum in a good way, then i think they need the boot


I can name a few people that i would ban right now, but that's just me.


seeing these threads in cartalk get derailed about a BMW 323i, or a racing thread about an acura vs something gets turned into a discussion about how a mazdaspeed3 is a "world class sports car" just gets old.


its gotten to the point where i post less, but i guess i too can learn to use the ignore button.


I think mods need to be kept in the loop of these offenders. Ive seen a thread where a mod replied to a troll, and an admin came in and shit all over the mod, but i didnt think the admin knew the trolls history.

i dunno. just typing aloud here..

 

I don't hear anything

I do have to agree on this though. People have gotten perma'd for the type of shenanigans some members constantly bring to many, many threads.

I understand that everyone has their own opinion, but when said troll comes into a thread, there is no opinion. It's just fact and you're wrong and i'm right.
We all know that you all do a fantastic job of moderating the site and keeping it clean... but you can't be everywhere at once. Let us aid you in keeping the site the amazing one it is, by informing you of people who are just trolling for the fun of it at a communities expense.

One member shouldn't get special treatment because he cries wolf whenever he feels outed based off his idiotic opinions. I am a firm believer in majority rules, and I think that should be the case here.

 

See, 90% of the time, we don't engage him or give him the time of day. That doesn't mean he won't come into a thread, shit all over it, then leave for us to pick up the pieces. Seriously, H, it's becoming quite the problem.

 

Value of contribution is hard to measure and IMO relative.

We have people who are also not of the "troll" variety you guys are identifying who come to AZ strictly to PW in Ramblings with little contribution to car topics and other sub-forums and so, should these guys go too based on your criteria?

We are drawing a fine line here with what I think is a need to censor people and their right to post what is on their mind.

Remember: if a member does not attack personally attack someone on race, culture, gender, and etc. (as I have said earlier), we cannot send that person packing.

 

I don't see ramblings being an issue. It never was. Plus there's really no topic to derail, you know how ramblings goes. I've never heard any complaints about a ramblings thread, save for a few people that post in SWEDT saying that its not what it used to be

The issue is threads where topics are in place and they are always cluttered by these frequent offenders.

 

if they are following the rulez, then there would be no grounds for sending them into space.

 

I think there should be a "watch list"

Anyone can flag any offender. It can be tallied in a thread viewable only by mods so frequent offenders can be monitored. So mods can see what we see. Every mod can be kept in the loop and you guys can discuss within a mod viewable thread

Kinda like the reporting post system, but different.

 

Here is hard proof...from a troll, who ran to admins and reported all of us for thread derailing and hid behind them acting innocent. Now, he is back to his old schtick...starts at post #424

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...822243&page=11

While I certainly have my moments...and I know there a lot of members who have wanted to see me gone over the years...this douche is just a malicious waste of internet who offers nothing redeeming to this community. He cries foul and hides behind the parents when he is dosed with his own medicine...and turns around and acts like a brat when he thinks they aren't looking anymore.

get rid of him.

 

i dont see why posting something that is off-topic in any forum that is not the off-topic forum isnt against the rules.

 

Because sometimes when you are having a good conversation with people, the flow naturally runs off topic on a tangent but eventually comes back.

Then you have people like the above link you just throw things off topic for the sake of reaction.

 

I would love to see a feature to see how many people are ignoring you

 

Warning issued. Let's see if we can get him to play within the rules more.

 

Okay, boys...I've had a sidebar with one of the "trolls" you guys have identified. He has agreed to play ball...

But, that also is a 2-way street...I need you guys to be civil and not go back to your heckling/needling ways with him. Sound good?

And as always, if a thread goes stupid again, a PM to one of the mods is a great first step. We try to be everywhere but, obviously, we will miss some threads.

 

I second this.

 

We need a "dislike" or "groan" button. It works well on couple other forums that I used to visit.

 

It would be abused to no end on this site.

IMO Saintor doesn't bring any of the crap from past threads into new ones he posts before other members start complaining about him "shitting" on threads, when he's just posting like the rest of you.

Seriously, how many more times are we going to hear quips about ESP and 95%?

More often than not, (especially recently) his posts aren't insulting or derailing. I think you guys aren't willing to give him the time of day wherever he goes anymore, and that's not fair to him. Every thread should be treated as a fresh topic and a fresh opportunity for discussion. From what I've seen, Saintor understands that, and many who seem to have a problem with him don't.

Yes, there are many times when he has started petty arguments, and made uncalled-for insults. But so have other AZ members. For every one of Saintor's posts, five or six AZ members will reply with some kind of derogatory comment that does more derailing than Saintor does.

The tools are there to pretend he isn't posting. Think about it, if you have him on your ignore list but you complain about still seeing him in quotes, who's fault is that? Who's quoting him? Why doesn't that person just ignore him and carry on with the conversation? Why don't you carry on with the conversation?

There are a lot of smart people here that I like to think of as e-friends, but I think you guys are handling this pretty immaturely.

/rant

 

Trolls are amusing at first but people keep feeding them and it never ends.

Reddit has a great almost self-moderating system for trolls... there is an upvote and downvote button. Overall downvoted posts get buried and hidden while valuable posts rise to the top. I don't think it would work here because of AZ's relatively small size but it helps amazingly on reddit, the most insightful posts (and subsequent responses to those posts) rise to the top while the crap is literally filtered down and hidden at the very very bottom.



As for Saintor this ESP incident is merely a speck among the numerous threads I've seen him derail. He's free to proclaim whatever misguided beliefs he has about BMWs being superior in every which way but I know he won't change.

Undoubtedly there will be casualties for trolls, Saintor is no different. The peace will only last for so long I've seen it before on other forums, even before I joined AZ. Trolls walk the thin line and other people eventually get fed up with it then get banned.

 

There is. You have the report button. When you report a post, all mods assigned to that forum, plus the Senior Mods, are notified of that flagging. If we see the same person flagged more then once (or notice he's causing problems when we do some investigating), we alert the others in the mod forum and we keep an eye on them. Just b/c the mods, senior mods, and admins do not inform the general population of every little move we make doesn't mean stuff is not happening behind the scenes.

Well, I agree that no member of the "leadership" team should shit on any other member of the "leadership" team on the public forum. That's why we have a private mod forum. But, it happens. The admins can't see everything which is why there are mods and senior mods... but agreed... it should be kept private until it's sorted out.

Then they will be banned. As Yummy mentioned, warnings have been issued. As I mentioned above, we issue warnings and watch these folks fairly regularly. Again, just b/c we don't tell you guys every little thing we do doesn't mean it's not happening. I'm on quite a few forums as I know most of you are... and I have to say the communication here between forum leadership and the members is the best I've ever seen... 100-fold, easily. So the general membership on this forum is in the loop way more then I've seen elsewhere. It's what makes AZ AZ...

 

This is gonna turn into "I want anyone who has a different opinion than me banned."

Not that hard to ignore people, but I know everyone's favorite hobby is complaining.

 

I would tell you to read yesterday's m5 to prove you wrong but it was cleaned up of all his bullshit.

 

There are some good points in this rant.

 

Out of curiosity... have you seen Saintor's avatar? He's had it for a little while now...

 

I never paid attention to it, but that's a really good point...

 

:aman:

 

We should be able to democratically vote people off the ship.

 

IMO, this situation has come full circle. We're back to a situation in Automotive News where some of these threads become completely unusable. Certain individuals appear committed to doing nothing but stirring the hornet's nest; you can't even respectfully disagree with a couple of these folks without it turning into a completely ridiculous derail. In one situation I tried using the "report' button on a post that came out of left field as a personal attack on me and got no response, no action, nothing.

Seriously, are there are really no guidelines on dealing with these folks? And, please, don't tell me to use the Ignore function. All that does is allow the troll to do his job - disrupt the flow of the conversation. Ignore simply makes gaps in the conversation and it's just as bad. I don't have a single individual on "Ignore" and really dislike the function.

 

Hey ttribe...Your comments/feedback are not going to deaf ears here. If it were more black and white, it would've been dealt with alot sooner.

As I said in post #14, the true indicator we can work with are personal attacks on race, religion, gender, and so on. Everything else, we can only try to get the thread back on course by telling everyone to play nice again.



I'm all for suggestions here. I'm assuming the Civic thread is your PiTA right now.

 

That's the most recent one. My name was invoked and I was implicitly accused of being a rabble-rouser in that thread despite the fact that I wasn't even part of the conversation. The bigger issues I've been personally involved with are in the RLX thread. I made a concerted effort to try to engage one of the habitual offenders in a civil dialogue and all I got was grief. What's the point of participating in the conversation when a handful of people: 1) add nothing substantive to the discussion; 2) habitually derail the discussion; and 3) hide behind the skirt of certain admin around here? If people, like me, who WANT to discuss the topic, are driven away by a select few with an agenda for disrupting the board, and a blind eye is turned to their actions, I can't say I'm hopeful for an improvement to the situation.

On poster in particular follows his standard pattern every time: 1) post an opinion; 2) shout down any contrary opinion with accusations of "making it personal"; 3) resort to mockery and and personal insults; 4) rinse and repeat. When, ever, has a mod stepped in at step 2) and said - "Hey, [insert poster's name here], it's a legitimate question and not an attack on you personally. Either respond respectfully or bow out?" If that's ever happened, I've never seen it.

 

lol.. T. Try getting your email flooded with thousands of spam mail, maliciously linked to a malware site, and made to think your personal information was obtained through keyloggers. Also, said member has dozens of useless threads and an avatar that has a bare woman's ass.. yet allowed, while a longstanding member was threatened with a ban months prior for having the same avie. We also have some permabanned trolls who are back under another name, yet allowed to stay. A butt muncher who stirs the pot is the least of our worries.

The thing is.. this community.. really is a community. Yet there are members new and old, who do think of it as a shitting ground. They think Azine is just another place to troll other members. These guys probably killed defenseless animals as kids, have pricks so puny that they couldn't pay to get off, definitely have no lives, love haters, would get their ass handed to them IRL (in real life), and in most cases, their own mother's don't love them. So in this context, don't get too bent out of shape. Instead, realize your life is good, this site has plenty of great members, troll them back.

 

Valid points, T.

I have to confess that often, by the time I see the silliness, it is already too late and or after the fact.

I don't know if what I'm suggesting is much of anything...and frankly, I don't want to put you guys into a situation of some sort of "hall monitor"...but, honestly, keep a number of us on your short list for PM (i.e. dom, Ken, Sly Raskal, fsttyms1, and me)...PM us when a thread starts to look like it will go down that path.

If this is workable, maybe we can start to influence the behavior better. Does this sound workable for you?