Back in the days of dial-up I used to be a Guide for AOL. For anyone unfamiliar with that term, I was a volunteer who patrolled chat rooms and made sure no one was being disruptive or offensive to the people in the group. I'm talking about people who used profanity, bullied others, made gay or racial slurs, hit on kids, or were just a general nuisance.
These people were called snerts. Today they are called trolls.
When chat rooms died, message boards and social media took over. Yet the same behavior exists in both formats. Usually it happens because the anonymity of the internet allows people to say what they really want to say without fear of repercussions in their real life.
So what happens when people have to use their own names to join the group? Will they edit themselves or still say what they want? Welcome to Louisvillehotbytes.
I will admit that I troll message boards. Yes, even after working to stop such nonsense... I love to do it. I trolled Sean Hannity's message boards so hard during the last two elections that I had to use 4 different friends' computers just to create fake accounts because they kept banning me from their site.
Anyway... if there's one thing I've learned through all this is that you don't feed the troll. The opinions that seem the most outrageous are meant to be so. They are just trying to provoke a response. The more attention given to them just creates the shit storm they want. Paying them no attention gives them no reason to continue. It should be common sense.
That being said... the real names thing has created a different problem. The trolls will still out themselves but those with differing opinions are afraid to voice theirs. I'm sure there are 100 people on here who love Stoney River but are afraid to comment on the current thread bashing them. Having a contradictory opinion on this board can be brutal. Sometimes it's deserved but rarely is it civil.
