The Troll/Idiot Conundrum - Page 7  

Jesus. Fuck that guy then.

It'd probably be best if you didn't.

A man after Cronenberg's Cock.

Fuck these threads, by the way. I mean that in a broader sense - Junk Food threads and threads complaining about Junk Food threads. Even broader than that though. They're all doing more harm than good. over three hundred posts

Nothing personal, but you can kindly fuck off with this line of crap. Trolling is not an act of blazing cultural satire, nor are the boards, much as I love them, important enough to require such a scathing, subtle critique. You don't create a false persona and say things designed solely to piss people off in order to show them a distorted reflection of themselves and nudge internet society in a more sensible direction. You do it because you're an attention-craving twat too immature to care whether or not that attention is positive.

Again, nothing against you. But let's not make excuses for assholes just because sometimes the people they're being assholes to might be assholes themselves.

Just to clarify I meant fratboy as in guys who like to party, like to joke around and josh each other, the brah/bro/awesome sort of stuff. I had no idea that the connotations of Fratboy was so daterapey in the US. So to clarify my interpretation of fratboy = Belushi. I'm kind of annoyed that people took that as an attack on the thread when I went out of my way to be nice about them.

In regards to the topics maybe having a moderator in place would help the problem. Not a Star Chamber deal but people with power to close threads, issue warnings, who could step in when threads go off topic and steer the topic back.

Spike Marshall, Well Bluto did climb a ladder to check out a hot blonde as she undressed, so while it was not...Rapey, it would fit the behavior of a peeping Tom.

Just because Chocula is more literate than the average troll, doesn't make him any less trollish. Just a bit more pretentious. His posts have been fairly innocuous in the past so they haven't really bugged me, but lately its become quite tiresome.

Hey... I got that you were extending an olive branch. For me, actually, fratboy means asshole. And that's not so bad. I've always said it's more flattering to be seen as an asshole than as a moron.

So I guess I'm saying I got your compliments on the thread and thank you.

Also, there is a joke in Animal House based around one of our frat heroes deciding whether to have sex with an unconscious, underage girl. Date rape and frats already had a storied history in the 60s.

Of course, she turns out to be a bit of a whore, so it's all in good fun anyway!

she totally would have deserved it...sleeping tease..

Ok that's fair enough. But I still think this chocula guy is basically harmless, and sometimes quite entertaining.

I always thought he was that JohnShade guy myself. M.O. seems the same.

Speaking of Fabfunk, has anyone seen this new Windows 7 commercial with some guy in his bathroom? I think it's him.

*EDIT* Found it!

I've been reading this thread through my hands from the start, afraid to comment, but I did just want to share one observation in light of Spike's clarification - this was becoming a pretty hateful thread until the B-Movie guys were mentioned. Its sort of mellowed since then and I think that speaks volumes of some of the regulars over there (I'm not a big poster there myself).

I'm not going to come down on either side of the argument, as I primarily come here to discuss films and find that the average movie discussion intellect round these parts is far higher than my own. I've also been guilty of endlessly lambasting the likes of Kate and Fleed in several threads and the solution really is to avoid. The discussion can continue without them if you choose to ignore them and you have the right to engage them if you choose to do so in a constuctive manner. I found that harder and harder, blinded by indignation and frustration, so I have them on ignore now.

But I also think there is an element of snobbery for some of those that have been around since the start that, in very good discussion threads, can be off-putting and asshole-ish. And I think its worth EVERY poster bearing in mind that there is a difference between ripping on someone or disagreeing with them and publicly dismissing them.

I've been in discussion threads where my opinion has been unpopular and that's fine, I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. But when the discussion ends there with outright dismissal or put-downs, then the "smart" are no better than the "idiots". It can result in people who want to participate unwilling to, out of fear of "proving you have bad taste". If that 'bad taste' is backed up with honest justification and context, what's the harm? This is the nature of discussion.

No, that man clearly has a living breathing wife.

She's just a beard. I saw no love in his eyes.

Thanks for so eloquently stating what I was talking about before. I'm glad a few people around here agree with me on that subject. Now let's see if Dellamorte mocks you for bringing up this point as he did me.

But the bad taste is so seldom backed up. For example it's fine to dislike '2001', plenty of very smart people including criticis and film makers do, but if you want to be taken seriously you have to do better then 'it's slow and the ending doesn't make sense'.

Devin, I don't think you're giving yourselves at CHUD (and some of the vets) enough credit. As far as free accessible forums go in 2009, CHUD is pretty stellar. I understand it might not be the film-centric utopia it once was but the reality seems to be that as the site has expanded it's interests so has the community. Its certainly inevitable that as people get more familiar with each other they will start to care or wonder what each other think about things non-film related. Yes, they could send PM's but it's the community discussion that brings us here.

I can understand your feelings that it shouldn't be a 20/80 split in favor of non-movie related stuff but again, it's a credit to how well everyone keeps the boards (mostly) on subject and generally decipherable. I know I can come here and check out a board about The Tonight Show and not have to endure... well you know... everything that other forums would have you endure.

It may not be exactly what you want, but its not really as bad as it seems is it? I'm fairly new so admittedly, I have no frame of reference regarding the old days. This is strictly a comment on CHUD's place in 2009 compared to the rest of the garbage out there.

That's well said Timothy, I can understand exactly why the hardcore guys find it so tiresome when every single fucking thread with even a whiff of Batman turns into yet another fancasting session for TDK2, but when you're aware of the state and level of discussion in other movie message boards around the place CHUD's little imperfections really do fade into the ether.

Even so, I still find it admirable that even though the CHUD boards are at the top of the premier league of movie forums Devin continually makes an effort to have them get better.


That's too true, but it doesn't change the fact that dissing someone's taste is about as boring, lazy and up-one's-own-ass a way to engage in film discussion as it gets, and Ben is right that even some of the smartest Chewers around have descended to that sometimes. It doesn't do anyone any favours.

Not sure about that Devin - you've articulated controversial points many times and still been shouted down - many people have - intelligent reasoning doesn't stop others from shouting someone down simply because they disagree (or have some other agenda).

There's also the distinction between saying something like "______ is a categorically awful film" as opposed to "______ really doesn't do it for me, and here's why."

One of them makes people feel like you're shoving an opinion down their throat. It should go without saying that opinions are opinions, but acknowledging that in a slight way when you're making a radical opinion known goes a long way.

http://chud.com/forum/showthread.php...51#post2750951

The key word here is "engage"

Yeah, I don't get out much anymore.

It's OK To Think About Movies (unless your thoughts include too many big words or I disagree with them)

I'm often guilty of having big speeches that manifest as chunks of text but that's me hopefully articulating my views - (and reviews), providing examples and responding to other posts etc- i know that they tend to make people skip over them and that's their call- but how does one intelligently articulate a point without writing something. Perhaps brevity is a virtue, however it does tend more towards casual levity and one line posts that are often more snipey (and frequently hilarious) than actually contributing.

It's also about earning the right to go long to a certain extent, but at this point, we have blogs, and twitter, and websites, and MB's are about the back and forth, and directing conversation at a topic not asserting theses. Conversational tone, I think, is key, and Policar has made my eyes glaze over. But also, that's not really a shout-down, so much as a curt dismissal. In the scheme of things I don't do that very often, and the thread dedicated to my column is full of dumb shit.

I don't think that post was unreadable at all. It's got paragraph breaks and all the ideas are clearly and logically laid out. Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather read another one of Policar's critical theory film analyses than one of the million content-less "it's cool/it sucks" posts that make up the majority of the "discussion" threads here.

And yes, obviously if someone came up to me and started read that post verbatim I'd walk away, but this is a message board intended specifically for film discussion/analysis. Perhaps that post was a little overly verbose, but it seems like any time someone even attempts a Marxist/Feminist/Post-Modernist film analysis, the prevailing response is HAHA LOOK AT THIS RETARD. And that's pathetic.

Really?

This is really so important. I just skip past the large blocks of text in threads and hope someone more dedicated than me is going to quote and reply to the portions that matter. Anyone that doesn't take accessibility into consideration is doing themselves more of a disservice than anyone else.

EDIT: Someone should make a tutorial for new folks. Plenty of this stuff would be helpful.

I'm sure Policar could write an interesting paper on Tim and Eric, but the place for it isn't on a discussion board. At the very least he could have condensed it down to get his core point across along with a few salient examples, even if no one was going to quote it directly. Then I would've read the whole thing instead of skimming it and moving on. Now if someone dumber wrote all that verbiage, I would've ignored it entirely.

I shouldn't be responding to Chocula but... have you read this?

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/de...avat-d23.shtml

I'm not a huge fan but if you want to come at film from a leftist perspective Walsh does it more intelligently than most. You could take a few pointers.

That may be true, but the intelligent way to treat both idiots and trolls is not to respond to them at all. If the way you're going to shout the poster down is by saying they have poor taste then you're an idiot yourself. It's meaningless, pointless and impotent to drop to that level if they're an idiot, and it's worse than that if they're a troll because you're only feeding them exactly what they want.

To go back to the point of the thread, you ask how you tell if a person is just legitimately dumb/crazy/weird? And does a person who is simply dumb/crazy/weird deserve to be banned? If the behaviour of both trolls and idiots has basically the same disruptive, corrosive effect on the level of discussion then why treat them any different? If you want to elevate the level of discussion then ban the people who post idiotically/trollingly and/or ban the people who get sucked in and take the bait and only make matters worse.

In real life, you might actually stay and listen out of politeness. I certainly would.

On a message board, people have the option of simply skipping the post entirely.

The gripe with Policar is, as Chocula suggested, due to insecurity on the part of other posters who are afraid that the reason they can't read the post is becuse they are more stupid / more afflicted by attention deficit disorder than a verbose poster like Policar.

In Devin's case, there's probably a huge "Hey, how dare this guy have the hubris to write as if he were ME the STAR WRITER!". You do seem to have a whiny "Stop taking attention from me" attitude, Devin.

No, the board is full of idiots, and the better you articulate your opinion, the louder the shouting will be. Because if you actually explain yourself well to an idiot, he actually understands that he's wrong, and will do anything to prove otherwise (his efforts will further underline his idiocy, of course).

Fuck off.

You hope someone will quote and reply to the portions that matter? How stupid of you. The person you are depending on may be an idiot, totaly mischaracterising and misunderstanding the original post.

Yes, we must remain ever vigilant against those types.

Why are you still here then?

Duh. He's a troll.

If it's a long winded pile of mess that's all the attention I am willing to give it. Remember, this was in direct reference to mongoloid posts and anyone with a brain can recognize one of those at first glance. I guess if they were instructions for CPR you're right, it would be dumb of me to depend on random quotes. Fortunately, it's generally something more innocuous like a 4000 word deconstruction of Howard The Duck so I don't think I'm doing myself much of a disservice. It's not like I attack the original post based on someone else's quotes so if that's your worry I'm happy to set your mind at ease.

Why are people abusive? Because the first assumption is that said person is a normal human being and responds to negative commentary by realizing "oh, this isn't acceptable behavior for this place." This is socializing on a very basic level.

The big thing about super long posts isn't so much the intellect, or whatever, it's the fact that it looks like a cut and paste. I think that longer posts are fine for the start of a thread, if you're starting a discussion about something, because then it's the baseline for the conversation, but otherwise not so much.