Diary title edited for clarity...and a little humor
Update 2:05 p.m.Yes & No in the poll are tied...so I'm letting this diary live :)
Ok, so this diary isn't all that important.
But I decided to post it anyway just to share....because I care. And I'll delete it if that's what the poll indicates (..after it's on the diary list, for a little while of course...)
A little background:
I'm a member of another online community,
myspace. Maybe you've heard of it? Fourth most popular (non-porn) website, soon to be breaking into the music industry, developed by some people in CA.
Anyway, I'm a member of the Myspace Democrats group. It's basically a message board. It's a public group meaning that you just join without any hassle, no form or pledge to the Democratic party. Myspace Repubs are a private group, so the moderator has to approve you & you can get kicked out.
The dem group is a lively bunch, and they have more than their fair share of trolls. Let me tell you, that
dKos is and always will be my refuge for smart debate. I've
never wished to troll rate anyone as much as I've wanted to troll rate some of the righties on that board. There are some particularly offensive people (racist, misogynist, homophobic slurs abound) who start all kinds of threads attacking libs for not bowing down to the Chimperor & his crew. Usually the trolls flock together in those threads, and occasionally someone will challenge them (by disagreeing). Then the argument ensues. Note that I didn't say debate. Ad hominem attacks, straw man arguments, faulty logic...you name it, it's there. It's very annoying.
I tried to ignore them. I really did. But then one of them had to go after Kos (& Atrios & DU). Why the attack on kos, etc? Here's the original post in the thread:
About as shocking as low test scores in big inner cites in blue states is the fact that none of these heros of the looney left have mentioned the rioting and murders on Paris by islamofacist terrorist sympathizers.
Why wouldn't they want to discuss that?
Well, homey don't play that. I couldn't just sit there and ignore it. The reputation & honor of kosmopolitans, kossaks, and kosuburbia had to be defended by someone. At first I didn't want to directly responding to this troll. Why give him the satisfaction? So I answered another poster who didn't seem to know what's happening over on this end of the blogosphere. But that didn't stop the troll from using my response to attack Kos & Co. again.
You can read the whole thread, including my response here (It's just 15 messages long).
But to sum up: I broke my pledge to never directly address the trolls, but it sure felt good. I corrected & called him out, and the offensive troll never responded to me. I wonder why?