Tomble's Journal: Well that was fun

Beetles, under my carpet, under my feet...

Well, not quite. For the past 3 hours or so (well again, not quite, because another hour's passed now) I've been dabbing away at my Dad's crassula plant with a tiny little paintbrush soaked in meths. The thing was covered in Mealy Bugs, which are officially Teh Suck. Apparently the usual treatment is Malathion, but apparently crassula are allergic to it (as my dad put it). As he was busy with other stuff, he got me to do the job instead.

I'm only glad it wasn't a bigger plant, it took so long to get them all -and due to the way the leaves are, many were very well hidden. I'm not certain I got them all, there would likely have been 2 or 3 left, but maybe I'll be able to see any survivors tomorrow. We're also probably going to repot the thing, especially because there's a chance the little bastards will have got into the roots. DIE, YOU DIRTY LITTLE FUCKSTICKS

For any mealy bugs reading this, sorry, it isn't anything personal.

Philhasomething

I can't decide whether this woman is a troll or has some sort of personality disorder. She seems to have been "doing the rounds" in everybody's JEs recently. Really not sure what to make of her, much of what she says seems entirely random, or sounds like she's making some sort of joke or trying to be artsy or whatever, then every now and again she seems to come out with something pretty vitriolic for no obvious reason.

Reminds me of some of the GNAA stuff at times, or those Markov bots (you know, the ones that randomly generate vaguely meaningful looking text based on Markov chains. There was a "Markov Blogger" too IIRC). She also seems to produce JEs of a similar style at a phenomenal rate, and then delete them again (ATM the earliest is from the 11th, but I'd seen earlier ones before). Very odd.

Yeah yeah, "don't feed the trolls", but I never bought in to that philosophy 100%. If someone says or does something that's way out of line, I prefer to bring attention to the fact.

Other

I had another JE I was going to do, but I can't be arsed now. My feet are soggy from having to water the garden, and I'm kind of tired, and I'm watching a spider possibly going to catch a clothes-moth that's on the window, although that's not relevant in any way shape or form. Fucking clothes moths. Hate them. Oh yeah, and I've still got more repotting to do, but I at least seem to have found a halfway decent soil mixture (although the proof of this will probably not be seen for a while).

You cannot win

[Safety Cap]

Yeah yeah, "don't feed the trolls", but I never bought in to that philosophy 100%. If someone says or does something that's way out of line, I prefer to bring attention to the fact.

Bringing attention to the fact does not shut them down or serve 'em. If they are truely a skilled troll, they'll respond with something that will inflame you, or simply give you more of the same, right?

Re:You cannot win

[Tomble]

No, it doesn't shut them up, but if people are aware of what they're up to, it can prevent some of their "fun". Most people only need to learn somebody's a troll once before they know to ignore them in future. Plus, in various cases, trolls can be spreading shit about people that others may take for granted to be true. Yes, only stupid people will do so, but as they say, "mud sticks".

As such, I don't really believe it's possible to "win", but I think always lying back and doing nothing whilst they say what

one of my only foes

[SolemnDragon]

i made this person a foe for a reason. And told them so. I don't know what their deal is, and i know that trolling is designed to bother people- well... it worked. i was bothered enough to foe, and that rarely happens. i don't know what their deal is, but i strongly feel that we should be able to mod any comments in our own journals made by anyone other than ourselves. I'd like to be able to look over the replies to an entry and mod the comments there.

Mostly because of people like that.

Re:one of my only foes

[Tomble]

Yes, I saw some of her comments in what I presume was the JE in question. I don't know if she said any more there before you deleted that, but what I read seemed strange and bitchy enough to make me wonder what her problem was, and look over her other comments. I'm none the wiser, I'm afraid.

I'd wondered if she was posting in so many random people's JEs because she was trying to make friends or something, but if so she's going a funny way about it. Ah, theory of mind and all that shit. We could go nuts try

Funny

[metlin]

But she does not seem to be trolling much, for the most part her comments seem normal.

However, maybe some of her responses remind me of classic cliched USENET troll responses, but then that could be said of almost 70% of everybody's comments on Slashdot ;)

Re:Funny

[Tomble]

Hard to say. The majority of her comments at least don't seem to be offensive (whether or not they make any sense is another matter, and I can't quite tell), and some even appear helpful at times, but then some are quite unwarranted flames. IIRC there was also one comment where she just posted a string of expletives. Overall, I'm not sure that "Normal" is the word I'd use for most of her posts...

Actually, she seems to have stopped posting since the JE where I called her a troll. I don't know if that's coin

Re:Funny

[metlin]

Maybe she's just taking a break and seeing how people are reacting.

Just out of curiosity -- how did you come to the conclusion that it's a she?

Re:Funny

[Tomble]

I forget where I saw she said she was a woman, but I'm quite certain she did. Might have been in her first comment (which was still visible when I first spotted her) or in one of her earlier (since deleted) JEs, I'm not sure. Also, some of her current JEs say about being loved by a man, although strictly speaking, that wouldn't necessarily make her a woman.

And of course, it's obviously possible she's a man pretending to be a woman- who knows? But I think if that were the case, (s)he'd probably have chosen