Rules suggestion

I want to throw this out here. We have all seen someone post something that is an obvious attempt to start a troll thread. A mod in another thread raised a good point, Trolling isn't against the rules. You can troll someone and never be disrespectful, call someone a racially insensitive name or otherwise be rude to them. All of those things are in violation of the guidelines. But as long as you are nice an respectful a lot of statements are permissible.

The Troll can get you in a lot of trouble with your response way more than they can for being an ass.

My first thought if you get trolled is hold your comments for a bit. Step away from your computer, calm yourself and then either don't respond or respond in a way that doesn't violate the guidelines.

With that said maybe there should be a minor offense called "baiting". If a thread is obviously a troll thread, maybe we can get it a punishable offense.

I sum this up as a fist fight in a football game. The person who hits first might get away with it, but the person who hits back gets caught 99% of the time. Both parties are wrong, but the one who "started the fight" stays in the game, while the person who hit back gets ejected.

How would a person define baiting? In some ways any opposing view or questioning could be considered baiting.

I think this sounds like a good idea, but at the end of the day, if a post is intended to bait you, and you know that it is, you are responsible for not “taking the bait.”

Most trolls are very good at it and they do it in such a way that if you respond, they can always say “well I wasn’t talking about you so you must be guilty of what I was talking about.” Or if you do respond, those of us that don’t know the backstory only come away from the post wondering is the OP a troll or is the person responding a “drama queen” or in fact another troll themselves. Most of us don’t know.

So in the end it all comes down to can you prove that the post was “baiting” someone or not. And that is hard to do.

Moon and Rez good points, but I figured it was worth starting a discussion. We all know some on here live for drama and pestering others.

The guidelines aren’t going to be changed for that...

If you follow the guidelines, whether you’re being trolled or not, you’ll be fine. If you violate the guidelines, whether you’re being trolled or not, you’re going to get an infraction. Be smart enough to follow the guidelines...

The behavior of other people shouldn’t modify yours...if it does, you’re not smart enough to continue posting here, and the infractions will eventually ban you for 90 days on points. This is all as it should be,

Wakeup, Moon and Rez. Good points. I won't apologize for the suggestion but I am glad for the education. This is how the site should work. I had a question/idea, and I was educated of why it wasn't feasible.

I think we all can agree that it sucks when we see someone get taken in by a troll. They put up with BS, play by the rules, keep their mouth shut until they say 1 wrong thing and get 60 or 90 days and the one who "started it" gets away with being an ass.

However, we are responsible for our actions, not the actions of others.

I appreciate the input. Happy hunting.