I guess ADreamer got banned

Also, from the 5th entry on the google search "ban hammer .gif"

 

I guess her/his being a member here was just a.....dream.



Yeeeaaaahhh...

 

Who was ADreamer and Aire?

 

Oh, um...
Here
https://www.writingforums.org/threads/well-hello-there.142014/#post-1382433
and here
https://www.writingforums.org/threads/hello-my-fellow-dreamers.142171/

 

"The rassclot tinks he can cold up Badman. He a fool... he's a dead fool... De boy is no match for I and I. He's nuttin!" - Little Jacob, Grand Theft Auto IV

 

Sure, and the answer is yes. Are there ways around even this? Of course. *shrug*

 

I just figured 'follow the rules' and you'd be OK. Only got into trouble once with the mods during my stay here.

 

Yeah? Not so much, me.

 

Yikes! I hadn't paid much attention to either of them except for one thread each they posted and stirred up controversy. Looking at their introductions though... Wow.

I wonder though if these accounts were characters in a book they're writing. So they turned them into accounts and brought them into the "real" world to see how people would react to them. Dreamer laid it on pretty thick, so that immediately felt like an act to me. Then Aire was so.. specific. Like my pops, going gray. Like my pops, good at art.. I dunno. Maybe we were all just guinea pigs for their newest novel.

Anyway. Who knows. People are strange.

 

@Lea`Brooks ADreamer was definitely a character the user was writing. He/She mentions joining this forum to write fiction, and then saying says their parents jokingly told them to write a book about their experiences. Their experiences would make it a nonfiction, yet they're writing a fiction.

We were given their life story right off the bat.

 

Then they should be aware their characters are total Mary Sues/Gary Stus

 

Least it is not Wikipedia - sockpuppet nightmare over there. Most people never realize how desperate some people are to muck things up and there is a little page called "WP:Long Term Abuse" which has some of the most desperate and determined attempts. One user has made more than a thousand socks... and then there is the "ceiling fan vandal" who replaces good images and uploads videos of... you-guessed it... ceiling fans. Sockpuppets and such are something which cannot really be stopped by an even minimally competent user - simply not giving them the enjoyment of being the center of attention is effective. Knowing how to deal with such individuals is a skill every community needs - but it is typically thankless and time consuming work.

 

Quite possibly the most objectionable person I've ever encountered on here. If it was some sort of method acting though, I'm rather impressed. Wish I'd thought of it.
*Off to find a proxy for some surreptitious sock-puppetry.

 

Gross? Do you mean, "Great idea for a ridiculously popular TV series"?

 

Spit personality.

 

Funny. After you've been a member a while, you start to get a feel for who's trolling and who's not. I had those two on my radar for a while. You know, those members who make you think ...nahhh ...I'm not giving THAT one any fodder. We have long-time members who are not noted for always being ...how shall I put this? ...diplomatic. But these are genuine people, being honest rather than diplomatic, and very valuable to our community. It's great that our mods seem to recognise the difference.

But trolls? What on earth goes on in their minds? They've risen, like scum, to the top of the internet's social interaction pot, but they must have been out there 'among us' all along. What did they do with themselves before they went online, I wonder?

......

Actually I've just realised I did engage with ADreamer on one thread ...the one about taking critiques. My radar was off that day, obviously. However, the discussion didn't get nasty. If it had, I'd have backed off immediately. I would. That's my story anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

 

Something with a magnifying glass and ants.

 

I disagree. Trolls are the product of the internet, The internet gives them meaning, a platform, and recognition beyond a veil that normally does not get crossed in real life. Sometimes it is just mental illness - there is no other way to describe some trolling. Trolls are not the worst type of people on the internet though, they are relatively benign compared to griefers.

 

Oh, I'm not saying they are the worst people in the Universe. Some of our political leaders fall into THAT category. But trolls were out there before the internet. The internet didn't create them, it just offered them a platform to do harm that carries little or no risk to themselves. Kind of like vandalism without the fear of arrest.

They do dominate the internet now. Just read responses to ANY news story posted online and you'll find them. It's a rare interchange that doesn't get immediately bogged down by people deliberately stirring the pot. It's actually become boring, but it's also incredibly destructive. It destroys the internet as a means for real discussion among people from all over the world.

The only way to tackle them is to avoid them. Or ban them, if you're in that position. But don't respond to them ...ever.

 

@Inks what is a griefer?

 

The term originates from the minecraft community, and has since come to every online play system. Originally minecraft worlds were open, so people could create some real neat things and post them online. A giant castle for instance, or 1/1,000,000,000 scale model of the entire earth. A griefer is a person who intentionally joins your world with the specific goal of wrecking shit the fuck up. Blowing up your work with dynamite, flooding it with infinite water blocks, etc.

The term is now used in team player games to describe a player that, for any reason, has set out to make his team fail, in the most aggressive way possible. This usually involves "feeding" intentionally letting other players kill you so that they get more money and more experience, and can generally kill anyone on the griefers team.

I'm honestly not sure how this would translate onto a forum, but @Inks used the term, not me.

 

I used to run an rp forum. I had someone create sock puppets so they'd have someone to agree with them and back then up when conflict arose, and to ship their characters. I also dealt with one of my members finding out a player was really her mother, using the game to spy on her.

 

The term has actually been around since the late 90s. I remember some of my first experiences with griefers on public Counter-Strike servers. (Especially the ones with friendly fire.) Ever since online games have existed, gamers have spared no effort to make other gamers miserable.