3281

I think Robert was correct to use the word obsessive.

3282

He’s kind of gone a bit Koontz which seems in a way ironic.

3283

For no reason she can put her finger on, Pole Vault Girl feels a little bit emptier inside.

3284

He’s busting chops today. You can ask anybody.

3285

Let’s be grateful he’s not licking ass and taking names.

3286

No. Once you open registration, there’s no way to keep away someone that really wants in. It’s foolish to even try. They’ll just laugh at you.

Open registration can work, but it requires active moderation, which we don’t have. I guess we’ll see how it pans out.

3287

While the former is definitely true, it’s often still worth doing a bit of it. It’ll never keep out those who are truly determined, but lost of folks aren’t really that worked up about it and won’t bother trying to defeat even modest barriers.

Open registration can work, but it requires active moderation, which we don’t have. I guess we’ll see how it pans out.

This is very true.

3288

There are no possible barriers.

3289

Read. Comprehend. Respond. You skipped the middle step.

3290

Got it the first time, this is not rocket science or some philosophical question. Thanks anyways.

So you think people “who are not that worked up” are the issue?

Seriously?

3291

Man, the new guys are working out great.

3292

I’m secretly hoping they’re all joke accounts because people just should not be this stupid. Not even on the internet.

3293

This man speaks truth.

3294

Depends on the context. It’s not uncommon on a largish forum for people to make sockpuppets on a lark, or as a random “heh, this’ll be convenient when I want to be a complete fuckwad,” kind of thing. Most admins would really prefer that not happen too often, and a bit of scripting and some casual oversight of the registration process will cover a lot of that stuff. It also, not coincidentally, covers those who simply aren’t technically competent or informed enough to do things like proxy servers and such.

For example, in my experience, the most common way to tell if someone who just registered is a returning bannee making a new account is a fuzzy match on the registration email account. You’d be amazed how many people will re-register with imatroll111@gmail.com when the account registered under imatroll412@yahoo.com got banned. People are lazy. People aren’t that informed. Many are both. IP matching, usage patterns, etc, follow on down the list. It’s not hard to catch most sockpuppets. Just time consuming. A lot of it is scriptable, which helps. Still a pain, though.

Now, the competent, determined, troll who’s so obsessed with the unrighteousness of it all that he just wants to make life miserable for the forum admin is another ballgame. That’s a really shitty situation and is much harder to deal with. People that pathetic are also, thankfully, fairly rare.

So which one are you, Lynch?

3295

[fingers crossed]

Maybe we have reached our quota.

3296

Ask yourself, is it easier to create or destroy?

I don’t mean to sound all profound, but some people enjoy smashing things. If you let them, they will.

3297

You’ve never read the comments on YouTube, have you?

3298

Up until recently QT3 was way above the quality of the average background noise on internet forums. If all you knew about internet discussions was QT3, you are in for a major shock!

3299

When a whole wave of the newbies hits 50 posts simultaneously and a tsunami of inane threads are created on all six forums at once, nobody will be laughing at Cleve anymore. Or something.

3300

Well said.