The goal of the propaganda assaults across the internet is not to convince anyone of anything.*

[defacto7]

171. It's true that disrupters are everywhere on the net

but how do we really know who is and who is not? I know many of us like to expound on their vast experience with routing them out and follow their history, but logically, reasonably, how do we know that we know? We don't. For me, it comes down to not wasting time trying to read minds or hunting for the bad guy. If the conversation works I go for it. If it gets sidetracked I dump it. If it seems like bait don't bite. Mind reading doesn't work nor does ESP and the suspicions of most of us are highly tainted with our own prejudice. If you pretend to "know" who bad guys are, then after a while you can actually emote into the very troll you are against simply by magnifying your prejudices; your own remarks become the baiting.

I also think that people have many ways and levels of communication, different language skills, different mental states and ways of envisioning and idea. Creative people are easy to mistake for trolls, new people on the board are also and there are those who actually think differently... are we to just take for granted they are disruptors? I think that rather limits the field to those who think, talk, walk, and speak alike. I think that's boring and unproductive.

There are things that are strong tells, and there are those who have the control button and make decisions when they see them based of facts... IPs, socks, proven reputation, TOS violations etc. Outside of that, there is little to do except give most people the benefit of the doubt and move on to other things if you don't think it's beneficial. But the last thing to do is exercise our prejudice toward people who are different and turn it into the neighborhood watch gone mad.