While I respect Michelle, and her opinion, I want to point out the difference in mod policies here. Had Michelle controlled this while it was hot, branta would not have had to do this cleanup work. No offense Michelle, I understand it is a tough job and you have better things to do (although I envy your job and you DID apparently sign up for it.. )
Very often one of the mods will try a gentle hint in thread rather than using a big stick first time. It is much easier to start gently and escalate the action if the subtle approach fails, rather than go in hard on the first contact. Sometimes all it takes is for one of the mods to post in the thread, and the smarter trolls disappear.
That is why this stuff has to be nipped in the bud. The gyst of the threads is in the OP's topic. Please close them immediately if they are obviously taunting, bashing or inflammatory, and obviously will to lead to this flaming, thus forcing the OP to rephrase the thread topic in a more positive constructive way. . you will save yourself and other mods a lot of work and us a lot of grief.
Dealing with repetitive or badly phrased posts is a very fine balance between discouraging (often inexperienced) members, and letting trolls slip through unchallenged. If we take a hard line against a new member with a real problem the chances are they will simply go to another site and never visit CB again.
It is also incredibly difficult when the trolls manage to get into a valid thread unnoticed, and by the time mods can review the thread we are faced with having to review multiple pages to weed the problem posts, and members who make a valid rebuttal of the troll's provocation.
realize that nobody "asked" me to control the forum, I attempt to do it because these people annoy the heck out of me, it is out of control and nobody else is controlling it (Other than branta, apparently) thank you.
The other mods do a lot too, simply that you have noticed my work more than others. In fact they do more than me in the forums because I put more time into spam prevention over in the blogs.
there is no way to just avoid reading them if we want to find anything useful because it is everywhere! It has to be read before determining if it should be read or not!.
That is exactly the problem faced by the mods. With thousands of posts every day simply reading a small proportion is all we can manage around the reported posts and having a life away from the screen. We all have to fit online time around employment, shopping, family and loved ones.
