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Welcome, new trolls! We're pleased as punch to have you aboard, unfortunately as you may have noticed our moderators are unable to give you the moderations you've been working so hard for. Since we can't really do much about people not moderating more, we're going to be giving out more points so that the ones that do can give you the attention you so desperately crave.
Moderators: Starting a little after midnight UTC tonight, everyone will be getting ten points a day instead of five. The threshold for a mod-bomb, however, is going to remain at five. This change is not so you can pursue an agenda against registered users more effectively but so we can collectively handle the rather large uptick in anonymous trolling recently while still being able to have points remaining for upmodding quality comments. This is not an invitation to go wild downmodding; it's helping you to be able to stick to the "concentrate more on upmodding than downmodding" bit of the guidelines.
Also, this is not a heavily thought-out or permanent change. It is a quick, dirty adjustment that will be reviewed, tweaked, and likely changed before year's end. Questions? Comments?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Friday August 25 2017, @11:49PM (49 children)
The way to extinguish the behavior, in a nutshell, is to avoid rewarding it. Don't give them the attention they seek - either ignore them completely, or find a different sort of attention they won't like.
Getting more mod points out could be a roundabout way of getting more ac comments modded down, which in turn could result in fewer people biting the lures, I see the logic there. I'm skeptical how it really works though. I suspect to the trolls, the downmod itself is one of the responses they are hoping to provoke. It proves that someone read it, was so affected they had to reply, yet had nothing intelligent to say in reply and was left with no way to express just how triggered they were but by wasting a mod point on an AC post.
But ok, maybe I'm wrong, maybe on bulk downmods will discourage them more than it encourages them. This announcement, however... I get it, you always announce what you're doing and that's good, but you have to realize this is exactly the sort of recognition they want right?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @11:50PM (7 children)
Funny since the main target of trolls is attention seekers. Get off of my bridge ;P
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:06AM (4 children)
shut the fuck up nigger.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:32AM (3 children)
Say what?!
Who you callin' a nigga, you gotdamn niggah?!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:35AM
I think he meant to say 'NAGGER'.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VaBNCBXwiN8 [youtube.com]
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:30AM (1 child)
ET - doubles down on stupid. Again.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:13AM
AC - Can't even spell EF
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:04AM (1 child)
If only trolls weren't so stupid. After all the point of trolls and their bridges is to collect a toll for people on them. This is counter intuitive to making them get off the bridge.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:36AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDhAEmODyzw [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:00AM
Yeah, if there were an easy solution someone else would already be using it and I'd shamelessly steal the hell out of it. Just seeing if this helps mostly.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:15AM (3 children)
Trolling may be attention seeking and even downmods may excite trolls.
However, when the get downmodded to the point that they are no longer seen, the reverse is true.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:18AM
For instance I turned off notification of anonymous replies to cut spam, but when I load the article I still see all comments. A negative rating is functionally equivalent to small positive ratings, only the highest rated comments are different.
Not sure on the numbers but I'm sure I'm not the only one that does that.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:27AM (1 child)
I have a troll follower on Gab whose mission in life is to achieve more downmods than anyone else (apparently there's a competition going on somewhere in the deep dark where I haven't looked). He's sometimes quite funny so I forget myself and mod him up, then have to give him two downmods so he's happy again.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @09:05AM
That's why I went full time AC: no followers! Not that I myself was followed, but I've seen it done to others.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:30AM
You mean like using a font apart from the default?
Maybe I'll start posting this way:
ldkfjhdjlkfjghlkjNo, maybe this one:
NO, NO ATTENTION GATHERING HERE, FOLKS!
(Score: 2) by rigrig on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:48AM (24 children)
Offtopic: could someone explain why some comments (like the parent) show up monospaced for me?
Looks like the whle comment is somehow enclosed in <tt></tt>.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bart9h on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:06AM
He's just trying to seek attention.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Arik on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:29AM (19 children)
There's a control, might be a drop down list, when you post, as to what 'mode' you want to use, and if you're logged in you can set a default.
One of them is 'code.' I set it as default after some testing, years ago, determined it was least likely to munge up what I typed in and post something different. Usually leave it alone, occasionally change modes if I want to do something that's easier in another though.
Apparently the most popular browsers, with default settings, change to a monospace font in response to what the server sends in this case. Server very likely does wrap the whole comment in <tt>, haven't actually looked at it.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:40AM (2 children)
Uh huh. Sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:43AM
So now he knows and can change the action. Oh wait, no, I guess it's just a lost cause.
LOL!
(Score: 4, Touché) by Arik on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:47AM
Was there something that you posted but no one is actually seeing in your post? Did the server just munge your post?
Annoying, isn't it?
There's a simple fix ;)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @09:42AM (1 child)
> the most popular browsers, with default settings, change to a monospace font in response
You said it was code. Have you coded? Have you tried with a variable-width font? The coders of popular browsers use monospaced fonts for coding, and don't imagine many fruitful coders would want otherwise.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:35AM
Yeah, I'm not currently a coder but when I started with computers there was no other option. A PC out of the box was just a bunch of parts, and once you got them all soldered together and working you still had little more than a computer - waiting to be programmed. That was what a *normal computer user* did - create programs. The typical productive strategy was to do an outline using BASIC, then profile it and figure out which sections were causing it to go unresponsive for long periods of time, and recode them in hex. Admittedly, for a number of reasons, I haven't done that in a long time.
"Have you tried with a variable-width font?"
Yeah, I've tried them, but the best thing to do with them is just delete them. But it has nothing to do with code! Code or no code, FONT! you have one job, convey information. You look real pretty but lose information? YOU FAIL!! I don't need you, I don't want you, I certainly don't love you.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Disagree) by lentilla on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:32AM (12 children)
You know what, Arik, it does wrap your entire comment in a <tt>. I looked it up for you.
You have been told many times; by many people; that your posts appear in a monospace font and that it's very annoying. If your browser doesn't behave this way then it's broken. Your browser is broken - not everybody else's.
When you are writing for an audience the onus is on the writer to make it easy for the reader. That's because it's a "write once, read many" situation. What you are doing comes across as lazy and arrogant.
So don't be a dick, mate. What you have to say has merit, just not how you go about saying it.
To Long Didn't Read? Arik: Please stop posting using "Code" mode. You say you know where the control is, now go ahead and use it. It's very jarring to everybody else.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Arik on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:41AM (8 children)
Thanks!
"You have been told many times; by many people; that your posts appear in a monospace font and that it's very annoying."
Oh lord, it's another of THOSE posters.
If you don't like the font your browser is displaying then FIX IT you farking maroon!
"If your browser doesn't behave this way then it's broken."
Absolute nonsense! My browser, in fact, does behave this way - but if I told it not to, then it would not! If it bothered me, I would tell it not to! And if I told it not do this but it STILL did it - THEN I would agree it was MY browser that was broken!
"When you are writing for an audience the onus is on the writer to make it easy for the reader."
I'm not writing for you. If you enjoy my post, wonderful. If you don't, fuck off. You haven't paid me a cent and I wouldn't take it if you offered.
"What you are doing comes across as lazy and arrogant."
Right back at you, you myopic, self-obsessed little jackass.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Gaaark on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:25PM (2 children)
I look at it as, if I don't want to bother my eyes reading your 'font', I skip it and scroll past.
It is annoying to look at and might make me miss something I might have wanted to read, but I have a choice. Just like why I don't adjust my settings to skip AC's. I might miss something intelligent.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Troll) by Arik on Monday September 04 2017, @09:09AM (1 child)
I'm going to put myself, mentally, in the place of someone who knows nothing about computers. This is easier than it sounds, for me, as I do it regularly.
Yeah, that sounds reasonable.
In fact, though, it's not. It's umm, 'magical thinking.'
Fact is, I have no font, I have no way to make my font appear on your screen. I'm just sending text.
YOUR browser determines which fonts it will use to render that text. If you don't like it, well that's not unexpected. You're probably running a toy OS from Microsoft, and it probably has abominable font choices preselected for you.
But you are not helpless, my friend. Dig in. Figure this computer out. Bend it to your will, don't let it run the show. You may not be able to REALLY take control of Microsoft Windows but even on that you can certainly prevent it from using fonts you think are ugly.
*I've tried NOTHING and I'm all out of ideas!*
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Gaaark on Monday September 04 2017, @10:58AM
Sigh
From your own post elsewhere:
"Trolling is intrinsically an act of attention-seeking."
You like attention. "Mommy, look at me. LOOK AT ME!"
I know. I get it. You type in 'code' for the attention it gets you. That is why i put 'font' instead of just font.
My profile will show you i use linux. I am typing in palemoon. I am just not going to change my browser settings for one troll.
I was actually saying a nice thing:
I guess in your place, i am wrong.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Touché) by lentilla on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:53PM (4 children)
"The folk at 71 Baxter Street were having an extended party. On the morning after the third night of loud revelry, a group of neighbours gathered in front of number 71. A spokesman stepped forward and knocked on the door.
"Yeah, whatcha you want?", said the large man that answered the door.
"Neighbour - you've been having some mighty fun these last days", said the spokesman, hat in hand, "but we're all hoping you'd be keeping it down some in the evening-times. Our kiddies can't sleep for the music and it's causing trouble in our homes."
"Yeah?"; said Mr Seventy-One; "well put in some earplugs you farking maroon!""
---
I'm not a maroon, and neither are you Arik. I don't want to make enemies and I was simply asking you to quit with the <tt> tag. I; too; expect people to accept me for who I am but I always try to take their wishes into consideration because I'd prefer to live in harmony rather than constant conflict. We appear to have a fundamentally different view of the world - and that's OK too. I look forward to your future postings outside this thread - even if they happen to be in monospace.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Monday August 28 2017, @08:20AM (2 children)
Hey Arik,
Your use of code as default for comments is annoying me, to the point that I skip over your comments. They're just not worth the effort they require of me. Case in point: I skipped your grandparent post after the first line, because I'm not going to waste effort on it. Then I read the replies. Specifically, I read all of Lentilla's silly, off-topic story-slash-analogy. The story was way too long to make an obvious point obvious. Yet I read all of it, and I could not read more than the first line of your post, even though that might be more on-topic.
Clearly, your posting style is annoying the hell out of me.
Equally clearly I'm not the only one.
You might want to consider changing.
Sidenote: @TMB and others: I'd love to auto-hide any all-code comments. Or apply an automatic -3 mod to them or something. Same thing for other comments that deviate from regular style. Can this go up on the wishlist?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 28 2017, @10:13AM
The auto-mod thing, possibly. We can't get rid of them any more though because they've been an established if little used feature for too long. Justified butthurt would ensue. Really, the best solution is just to make Arik a Foe at the moment and adjust Foe-post karma down if it really bugs you. For me it just makes it easier to tell who wrote something. I look at monospace all the time in terminal windows, so it doesn't bother me in the least.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday September 04 2017, @08:54AM
Thanks for letting me know you're a moron. I didn't really need, or want to know, but thanks anyhow! It really warms the cockles of my heart when I hear a REAL HONEST TO GOD MORON go off like this! You're the reason I'm here, and I love you!! *smooch smooch smooch*
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday September 04 2017, @08:49AM
To put it concisely, You ARE being a maroon and the care I would normally have for your feelings is trumped by that fact, prohibiting me from exhibiting the sympathy I might otherwise feel for your poor MAROON ass.
The gentleman who spoke for the residents of 71 Baxter Street gave it a try, as any gentleman in his circumstances would have to. After the rude reply he received, he should have called the police. And under no circumstances would I recommend he take any direct action until that route had been played out to whatever effect it might have.
Do you really think there is any sort of recognizable symmetry here? I am sending a signal to the server which consists of several parts. The logic of the server requires a value for the type of post, and I give it the value which results in the behaviour I find least objectionable, for objective and easily verifiable reasons.
And in response to all of this, sometime later, the server then sends your browser a signal.
And in response to that signal, your browser renders the HTML (which is actually generated by the server, you understand? no matter what post mode I choose) and it's choosing a font you don't like.
FSCKING CHANGE YOUR FONT? Why is this hard to understand? Why do I have so many trolls that appear so sincere but really have a problem with this?
I DO NOT CONTROL YOUR FONTS! YOU CONTROL YOUR FONTS, YOU CONTROL YOUR COMPUTER! OR YOU SHOULD! IF YOU DON'T THAT'S NOT MY FAULT!
I am seriously sick to death of computer illiterates infesting tech sites. You sound like a nice person, and I really don't want to antagonize you, but you don't have a clue what you're talking about, you're about 5% north of the folks that don't know the difference between a browser and a webpage, and you're not paying my salary so I don't have to be nice to you.
And I'll just leave it there.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Justin Case on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:42PM (1 child)
I gave you a disagree because some people prefer monospace.
What is needed is some kind of software that lets the person viewing something adjust it to their preferences instead of giving control to the author to force things the viewer doesn't want.
Oh, wait, that already exists. It's called a browser.
(Score: 4, Touché) by tfried on Saturday August 26 2017, @08:37PM
Umm, yeah. And I want my browser to show all posts alike, unless they are actually marked up different for a reason. I don't want everything in monospaced, I don't want everything in variable spaced. I expect the author not to lie about the nature of their post (are Arik's posts code?), so my browser an I can make a reasonable choice on the appearance.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday August 28 2017, @12:20PM
Dude...If you don't wanna read it just adjust your settings so you don't see his comments. Personally, I don't understand what the hell you're going on about. What, do you never use a terminal? Never write code? I frankly don't see how you're getting through the modern world if you're THIS annoyed by monospace fonts. They're not exactly uncommon...in fact, now that I think about it, that's how most of my text editors are configured -- not because I've set them that way, but just because that's the default. A lot of people do prefer it.
(Score: 4, Touché) by rigrig on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:01PM
Thanks for explaining.
I was a bit worried it was something on my end messing up posted text, but I'll just scroll past the blocks of code from now on.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:59AM (2 children)
It's caused from his JavaScript allergies.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @07:50AM (1 child)
It's not. SN works quite well from a modern browser with no javascript enabled whatsoever. The non-default monospace is used due to his choices. WHY he made those choices is somewhat less clear.
(This post made 100% javascript free.)
(Score: 2) by tibman on Saturday August 26 2017, @08:36PM
Maybe JavaScript is required to hear whooshing sounds?
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 4, Informative) by aristarchus on Saturday August 26 2017, @05:10AM
How soon do we forget? https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=16/05/09/0326228 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Saturday August 26 2017, @08:07AM (8 children)
AC posts != troll posts.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @09:58AM (7 children)
jmorris posts == troll posts
(Score: 4, Informative) by aristarchus on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:31AM (6 children)
Where is jmorris? Hasn't posted since the 18th! Even the Social Justice Warrior Special jmorris Survellience Squad is getting worried. Do you think his head finally exploded?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:33PM
Und wo ist Francis? [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 27 2017, @07:08AM (4 children)
It didn't explode, exactly...implode, more like. See, when someone gets their head that far up their ass, they basically become human Klein bottles. As that's not really compatible with 3+1D spacetime, well, it got...messy.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday August 27 2017, @09:15AM (3 children)
This is how minor stars go, they first collapse, but then meet themselves at the center, and "recoil with great force from their own selves". Right, not pretty. Would love to mod you up, Azuma, but I am banned from modding, since I took a line from an ancient book, and I spam modded The Mighty Buzzard. So I will limp along, unable to support the sane people on SoylentNews, but I will support where I can with comments. Human Klein bottles! The outside is the inside, and the explosion is the implosion! And jmorris, well, is jmorris.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 27 2017, @10:30AM (2 children)
Well, it is what you were after, after all. You Spam modded a technical answer and then laughed about it in another comment, so one can only assume that you wanted to be mod-banned so you'd have something to whine about.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday August 27 2017, @11:56AM (1 child)
And you fell right into the trap of mod-banning a Soylentil who was objecting to being unjustly spam modded? Not too bright, are we, oh Buzzard who claims to be mighty?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @02:21PM
Buzzy is right here. The spam mod takes more points away than the other mods and it gets added to a queue that Buzzy or other folks have to deal with.
Perhaps if you'd be less of an incompetent asshole, people wouldn't view you as such a worthless cum stain. Scratch that, at least with a cum stain you get the pleasure of a good jerk off.