Do you ever wonder if this regionalism that is rife in DU these days is promoted by infiltrating

[raccoon]

trolls?

"Divide and conquer" is a tried and true strategy.

[graham4anything]

1. Is the sky blue?

[H2O Man]

2. Nope.

I never wonder what is obvious, at all.

Recommended.

[Journeyman]

3. If so, they're very persistent trolls who've been at it since 2001 . . .

[librechik]

4. nope. I'm sure of it. n/t

[Buzz Clik]

12. Not all of the divisive rhetorical is attributable to moles and trolls, but they are here.

[HappyMe]

5. Sometimes I think a bunch of the

strife here is caused by trolls. I also think they come in to fan the flames.

[Buzz Clik]

13. bingo

[Egalitarian Thug]

6. To what purpose? n/t

[raccoon]

9. Just to try to drag down the level of DU. And just to P.O. other people. nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

15. To drag down DU? Again, to what purpose? DU is just a message board, if it disappeared tomorrow

would that make people vote for republicans? Would Democratic politicians and staff suddenly realize that they are pushing an agenda that doesn't benefit their constituents and change their ways?

As for pissing people off, well that has become the reason for it's existence. Have you ever been to a "no dissent allowed" board?

Ms. Thug has been here for 8 or 9 years. She joined because this was a great place to find real news in one place and engage in thoughtful discussion on the specific topics that interest her. At some point a decision was made that purposeless ridicule and aggressive disruption was allowed and the news gatherers and debaters left, leaving nothing but the occasionally entertaining pie fights.

Even so, to what purpose do these agents of division spend their time here?

[Nay]

17. These are good questions. As I've mentioned before, tombstoning disruptors IMHO was

the most effective way to deal with people who were here to be shit-stirrers. That system worked much better than juries to keep the discourse on a higher plane.

After reading some of the people whom I consider to be shit-stirrers in the past year or two, I think that one answer to the question of why "these agents of division spend their time here" is the same reason that Christians invade boards to spread their religious message; the same reason health nuts invade boards, etc., -- it's to force an essentially evangelical idea onto people who don't care about your evangelical message. The ideological message, in their minds, is SO important that spreading it by any means available is no less than a religious duty. When people feel that way about their god/candidate/nutritional program/social reform program, nothing else (like polite discourse, avoidance of overposting, sticking to the subject in the OP, etc.) matters.

The only thing that matters is 1) forcing their message onto people as often as possible, and 2) starting irrational pie fights to disrupt a board that, in normal times, would be a good source of information ANTITHETICAL TO THE TRUE BELIEVERS' POSITION.

[Egalitarian Thug]

25. I showed your reply to Ms. Thug and she disagrees that it was better when there were mods.

Her reply was simply, "OMC". Contributed nothing, constantly disrupted and derailed and was allowed to stay for many years.

There are still more than a couple of the same gang here, still doing the same things. The only difference is that the juries are more likely to hide their threads than the mods ever were.

[Nay]

28. Interesting...maybe it is just my perception, but it seems much worse the last couple of

years. Maybe I'm just getting to be a disgruntled old bag! I do find myself reading and posting here much less than usual. I am also considering the use of 'ignore.' Now that I've retired and have more energy (my job was a major drain on my time, energy, and emotions), I find I'm doing more sewing projects, geocaching adventures, hiking, reading, gardening, etc.

I also feel that this country, 10-12 years ago, could have pursued a much different course than it has, but has resolutely decided to sell itself out to the 1%. I don't see any way for this to end well, no matter how many 99%ers get involved, so I have decided to enjoy my old age without agitating myself too much about stuff I have tried and failed to change for 40 years.

Tell Ms T hi for me!

[Egalitarian Thug]

36. I'm right there with you. We tried, for 30 years in my case, to show people that

we are going the wrong way. That we were being lied to and that none of the ideas being pushed on us were going to end well.

Now, I'm basically done. Just trying to decide whether to get out or find a place to hide. The people have spoken and they are determined to take the most unpleasant path available to them.

[KoKo]

10. Distraction from broader issues of concern to Democrats as a whole. n/t

[NYC_SKP]

7. I think trolls are helping, yes.

However, there are still an ignorant few who are just insensitive or ignorant, but not trolls.

The infiltrating trolls just give them support.

[KoKo]

8. Yes, I've thought that some of it is.

Particularly when it flares up at certain times.

[Buzz Clik]

11. Moles. There's a difference.

A troll is here only to disrupt. They are transparent and shown the door quickly.

A mole is one that works in more subtle ways. They build up post counts in forums where bad behavior is normal -- Gungeon, Religion, Lounge -- and leak into other forums to spew. Their cautious approach has mostly neutered them during times of typical discussions, but when the shit hits the fan, they turn up the heat.

DU's current philosophy of allowing any and all criticism of elected Dems adds to the problem.

[sabrina 1]

32. Why does it add to the problem? What problem? Do you believe that we should be silent

when we see our own party doing what we opposed when the other party was doing it?

Do you, eg, support this President nominating so many Republicans to a democratic cabinet? Democrats elected this President for the most part and I doubt a vast majority of them ever intended by doing so to see Republicans put back into positions of power after they threw them out.

Do you think we should all be quiet about these things? And why do you think that? I know that was the case with Bush supporters, they didn't dare criticize him. And I thought we slammed them for that, now you are saying we should do what we slammed them for doing??

You can't control what people think, so what good would shutting down any criticism of our party do? Change people's minds? No, it would not, it would just drive people off this board and leave it to the small minority who think their party can do no wrong. And that would be a very small group as everyone knows.

[QC]

14. It's been going on since the beginning.

Some kinds of prejudice are acceptable even among people who imagine themselves to be good progressives, and probably the most acceptable prejudice is regionalism, followed closely by class prejudice.

I came here early in 2001, and there were already plenty here who loved to throw shade on Southerners and poor people and especially poor Southerners.

Of course, the fact that someone has been here for a long time doesn't mean that he or she is not a troll.

[LanternWaste]

16. I think it's less a nefarious plan, and more mere ignorance...

I think it's less a nefarious plan, and more mere ignorance and petulance on the part of the school kids bored at home and out of school for the summer.

[kestrel91316]

18. I have been on the receiving end of some really nasty comments for being in California.

It's one thing to dislike the political acts of state and local governments. It's quite another to dislike everyone who lives in those states on general principle.

[Journeyman]

20. "You're from California? Y'all are only there because of the Great Shake.". . .

Or so I was told when my TI in Boot Camp found I was from the Golden State.

"The great what?" I foolishly asked.

"The Great Shake," he repeated. "That's the proven fact that when God created America he grabbed it by its Maine and shook, and everything loose rolled into California."


I still smile at that.

[Javaman]

19. Nice post, Earthling!

[bluestate10]

21. There is palpable frustration with southern voters as a body. But the people playing out

that frustration fail to recognize that there are many liberal and moderate hearts in the South, we just need to hold their backs until they have enough numbers to end the insanity they see and fight against every day.

[Paladin]

22. No, it's an ugly, chronic problem which can't be put off on trolls. (nt)

[yurbud]

23. now hold on! You can call fellow DUers racists, but you can't call them trolls or shills

[NaturalHigh]

24. South-bashing has been pretty common as long as I've been here.

Christian-bashing was always fashionable too. Nothing new under the sun.

[LWolf]

26. Who do you think are the trolls?

The dissenters, or the apologists?

[CBGLuthier]

27. Nope. I think it is done by true blue Duers who think their shit does not stink

This is my first post since some of those wonderful true blue duers enjoyed the death of my fellow Oklahomans. This will also be my last post. I was here for 12 years and have seen it many many times. Some people just think they are better than others and DU is rife with those people.

Adios Y'all.

[malaise]

29. Is the pope catholic? n/t

[Cleita]

30. Some of it, but they disappear very quickly.

I think it's just divergent points of view and not everyone is going to agree with everyone on every point. Frankly, I don't even mind a conversation with a tried and true right winger as long as it's civil. Trolling is a little different. It's those who stir the pot and indulge in innuendo and other ploys to anger the person they have engaged so they can get them into hot water so to speak. In that sense we do have some trolls who have been flying under the radar here for a very long time, but they are very few. As far as divide and conquer, we Democrats can do that all by ourselves as witness all the circular firing squads of past elections.

[rrneck]

31. I might think it is right wing trolls if I didn't have to put up with the same shit in real life. nt

[NoPasaran]

33. I attribute some of it to the abandonment of the moderator system

Back on DU2, south-bashing, Texas-bashing, threads linking to sites that ridicule poor people (like People of WalMart) would eventually get reined in my the mods. DU3 is a much nastier, ruder place due to the reliance on juries to enforce some sort of community standards on a website that every day becomes less and less of a community and which seems to have abandoned any standard of behavior.

[okaawhatever]

34. I'd bet a lot of money that trolls and moles are here on the site. The regionalism may just be a way

to give quotes to the Southern gop folks. Did you ever see the video of the tea party trainer teaching people how to go on web sites like ours and continually plant seeds? Yep, there's also a lot of them paid to do it as well. Often, I can tell when something is going to hit by the number of new posters on a site. A bunch of anti-democrat or anti-Obama posters show up and then boom, fake scandal. Soon after they go away. The video taken during the tea party training is just one example of conservatives doing that sort of thing.

[justiceischeap]

35. And lets not forget the site that has a forum

that brags about the shit-stirring they do on DU.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why someone would want to "infiltrate" a message board, but to each his own, I guess. They've got to do something with their sad, boring lives.