"Russ Allbery"  wrote in message 
 news:87isak6pqv.fsf@windlord.stanford.edu... 
 > Steve Young  writes: 
 >> "Russ Allbery"  wrote: 
  
 >>> Constantly responding to trolls with the same post is one of the most 
 >>> obnoxious things that I think the non-trolls can do.  It borders on 
 >>> newsgroup flooding, just like the trolling does, and is almost as 
 >>> abusive.  It seems to be the recourse of people who know that they 
 >>> shouldn't be feeding the trolls but who haven't quite mustered 
 >>> sufficient self-control to actually not do it. 
  
 >> It's impossible to see them and not trip on one here or there 
 >> These are some *bad* *ass* trolls Usenet has. 
 >> It's impossible to always say no 
 >> You even get *your* *share* of the fun lovin, Russ :) 
 >> (I saw you redirect that political post the other day) 
 >> (but not without putting in a couple good licks first  ) 
  
 > You seem to be having a different conversation than I'm having.  I was 
 > specifically talking about repeated followups to trolls with the same 
 > message text, which clearly isn't what you're talking about.  Did I 
 > somehow not manage to make clear what I was talking about?  I don't see 
 > any way to read my post above in the way that you apparently read it, 
 > but then I wrote it, so I would feel that way. 
  
 (I really should have trimmed out the piece above, where I separated, but 
 I guess you wanted it together for your statement). 
  
 My point was ANYTHING that puts a + to any troll thread can be a problem. 
 If it's the same thing for the gazillionth time, it's an effortless 
 stirring of the pot. Finally you get constant responders to the constant 
 responders. All of this gets nowhere but repeatedly jumped out of peoples 
 filters and now, another portion of the crowd gets upset and they're in 
 the game.  I know groups who do this constantly over charter issues rather 
 than Moon landings. 
  
 > BTW, we get a regular stream of people who post to news.groups to talk 
 > about current events, usually under a mistaken understanding of what 
 > news.* means or because of a too-prominent placement in Google.  Some of 
 > them might be trolls, but most of them are just confused. 
  
 Fine and dandy, it happens in all the groups. 
 Occasionally, it turns into spontaneous fun. 
 The denizens become social in a completely different light, 
 and the group may *hoot* to some knee slappin text 
  
 So what's wrong with that?  drawing the line!? 
  
 :)x 
  
 -- 
 One thing you can guarantee, though: if you don't try, you'll never 
 have to find out it might have succeeded, and you can be very smug 
 about your species' extinction as it is happening: "I _told_ them 
 there was no way to bring peace to this planet!" 
 - xanthian 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)