Sarkus:
And therein lies the matter at hand: you saying that you didn't, and Tiassa thinking that you did. All that is required now is for Tiassa to explain why he thinks you did.
He would have explained that in the first place, if he actually believed there was some inconsistency. That was never his aim, with this.
That is the issue here, not that there has been any trolling, as Tiassa was accused of.
It's always good to refresh our memories about the sciforums posting guidelines now and then, and this is right on topic for the current thread. So, here's what our guidelines have to say about trolling:
18. Trolling is the posting of inflammatory posts with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional (often angry) response. Trolls aim to disrupt normal on-topic discussion, often by raising tangential or irrelevant hot-button issues. Trolling posts are intended to incite controversy or conflict and/or to cause annoyance or offence.
Trolls are damaging to online communities because they attempt to pass as legitimate participants in discussions while actually seeking to disrupt normal conversation and debate. If permitted to remain, trolls tend to reduce the level of trust among members in an online community. One consequence may be that truly naive posts are rejected by sensitised members as just more examples of trolling.
Trolls tend to follow certain patterns of behaviour that may include:
- Posting of similar responses and topics repeatedly.
- Avoiding giving answers to direct questions put to them.
- Never attempting to justify their position.
- Demanding evidence from others while offering none in return.
- Vanishing when their bluff is called, only to reappear in a different thread arguing the same point.
- Deliberately derailing discussions onto tangential matters in order to try to control the flow of discussion.
Trolls are not tolerated on sciforums.
Warning: do not feed the trolls! Do not reply to inflammatory posts or threads and do not reply to insults. Hit the ‘report’ button on the relevant post(s) and let the moderators deal with the matter.
I19. Repetitive or vexatious posting is considered trolling. Sciforums reserves the right to reject contributions that have been widely canvassed in the forum and to reject contributions from participants who seek to dominate the discussion.
With that in mind, ask yourself the question:
what did Tiassa intend when he asked me whether I affirm that woman are human beings who have rights?
Bear in mind that Tiassa has been on sciforums for more than 20 years, along with me. Tiassa has read
thousands of my posts, including many concerning woman and probably hundreds on the topic of abortion.
Do you seriously believe that Tiassa was the slightest bit unsure about whether I think women are human beings, or whether I support rights for women?
In the specific context of the thread from which the current thread was split, was I at all unclear about my pro-choice position on abortion? After all, I took a couple of lengthy posts to careful go through why I responded to my own poll in the way I did, in response to questions/objections from Bells.
Do you seriously believe that Tiassa was in any doubt about my pro-choice position on abortion and the right I believe that women should have to choose?
If you are able to conclude that Tiassa was not, in fact, in any doubt about those matters, what are we left with? Why ask
that question? The answer is simple: Tiassa's intention was to try to provoke an emotional/angry response from me.
Why would Tiassa want to troll me? Well, think about it. Surely you have some ideas, bearing in mind recent and not-so-recent history, including Tiassa's gradual slide into regularly telling lies and making false accusations. His implied accusation that I do not support human rights for women - or even recognise that women are human beings - was intended to smear my character and to annoy me. Just as importantly, it was another cry for my attention, because Tiassa desperately needs my attention to feel relevant here. It's almost all he has left, having sacrificed his personal reputation and moral integrity some time ago to pursue a pointless personal vendetta, because he thinks doing that is easier than owning his own lies and trying to be a decent human being.
Let's work through the troll list, briefly, shall we?
- Posting of inflammatory posts with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional (often angry) response? Check.
- Aiming to disrupt normal on-topic discussion, often by raising tangential or irrelevant hot-button issues? Check.
- Intending to incite controversy or conflict and/or to cause annoyance or offence? Check.
- Attempting to pass as a legitimate participant in the discussion, while actually seeking to disrupt normal conversation and debate? Check.
- Posting of similar responses and topics repeatedly? Check.
- Avoiding giving answers to direct questions put to them? Check.
- Never attempting to justify their position? Check.
- Demanding evidence from others while offering none in return? Check.
- Vanishing when their bluff is called, only to reappear in a different thread arguing the same point? Not in this case, although I would not be at all surprised to see Tiassa try to resurrect this episode at a later date, once it's all over.
- Deliberately derailing discussions onto tangential matters in order to try to control the flow of discussion? Absolutely. In fact, I felt that it was necessary to split the original thread, since it essentially became all about Tiassa's illusory concerns and his false insinuations, rather than about the topic of Americans' views on abortion.
Maybe your mileage differs and you honestly can't recognise that Tiassa's posting here is just trolling, and quite obvious trolling at that. If that's the case, I don't think I can help you. It would fit a certain pattern I have observed with you, but that's another story.
While he hasn't yet explained why he thinks your view of the former is contrary to an affirmative response to that question, he has linked the two for purposes of the discussion.
What has happened is that Tiassa has taken some time to come up with a plausible-sounding justification for his initial trolling, after the fact of being called out for it.
If he had had some kind of point to make about this in the first instance, he could have (a) explained his point and (b) couched it in general terms, instead of as a personal attack on a hated opponent.
But, by all means, keep an eye out. Watch to see whether he
does actually ever get around to making an argument on the ostensible topic of his trolling. If he
doesn't, that will tell you something important. If he
does, it will be difficult to draw a useful conclusion; after all, you can be sure that he will have read this post, and he might adjust in response. Tiassa isn't stupid. He knows how to troll and make it look plausible. He is skilled at presenting the facade of the legitimate participant.
Presumably the reason he has not yet provided that explanation is because you (and others who have been asked) have been unwilling to answer that question.
I did not answer his question because (a) he already knew the answer before he posted it; (b) the answer was obvious from everything I had written previously; and (c) it was insulting (due to a and b) and I recognised it as a transparent attempt to troll me, from the start.
What is trolling, if anything, would be your (and others) subsequent and ongoing refusal to answer what is ostensibly a straightforward question, and to then harass for him asking it, and the manner of your responses.
You're way off base. Clearly you don't understand how trolls operate. Blaming the intended victim means that you've fallen for the troll's gambit. But maybe you can't see that.
