gamma ray bursts

[Daniel Shawul]

I don't know why people like you know who, that pretend to be beginners, but clearly trolls are allowed to carry on. Also i don't understand people who insist on 'helping' them. I mean it is noble to help a noob that atleast shows some effort by showing a piece of code or something. But clearly this is someone that pretends to be a noob but is intent on working up the community. If you pull this kind of stuff in stackoverflow or some other similar forum you won't last an hour (though i think that place has crazy rules). Anyway these trolls start with 0 posts and come strong with questions and one line replies (hence why i call them gamma ray bursts) and this has become common now in the programming section. I think we should have some kind of rule like in SO to require some effort by the beginner before we answer his questions.

[Evert]

Or generally just quietly ignore them.

Some people really are that dense though and I like to be optimistic about people's motives. Until my patience runs out or I have something better to do.

[lucasart]

I mostly agree with Daniel here. On the other hand, the programming forum is actually not bad, if you compare to the other forums. In the other forums, it's incredible the amount of spamming, trolling and the general stupidity that goes on unpunished...

The internet is full of trolls and spammers, that's the way things are. There are smart people too, but you can't have only smart people. Unless you put an IQ test before allowing folks to be a member of the forum

But where I disagree with Daniel is on the notion of malicious intent. Some people are trolls and spammers without realizing it. Some really stupid people even think they are smart.

[tpetzke]

Hi,

I voted with yes, because one example doesn't establish a trend. Everybody should have the right to ask a question even if it seems a simple/stupid one to most. We've seem some consulting resistance lately but were do you draw the line.

Instead of introducing some kind of censorship I would opt just to ignore the thread when your level of patience runs out.

Thomas...

[Rein Halbersma]

I don't know why people like you know who, that pretend to be beginners, but clearly trolls are allowed to carry on. Also i don't understand people who insist on 'helping' them. I mean it is noble to help a noob that atleast shows some effort by showing a piece of code or something. But clearly this is someone that pretends to be a noob but is intent on working up the community. If you pull this kind of stuff in stackoverflow or some other similar forum you won't last an hour (though i think that place has crazy rules). Anyway these trolls start with 0 posts and come strong with questions and one line replies (hence why i call them gamma ray bursts) and this has become common now in the programming section. I think we should have some kind of rule like in SO to require some effort by the beginner before we answer his questions.

I would really like a StackOverflow sister site for computer chess. The reputation system there works pretty good and it progressively gives new users more and more priviliges as they continue to gain reputation. Another thing that SO allows is automatic linking to previous similar questions (even as you are composing the question!).

[mcostalba]

Don't feed the troll

This is the rule used in most of the forums (including Linux Kernel mailing list)

After some posts trolls are easy to detect. Their psychological tactic is to write a clear wrong/nosense line to stimulate you to answer. But we have to refrein and control our instinct that naturally would lead us to insult them and simply be cool enough to ignore the post.

Without replies a troll leaves the forum after few days.

[spambanane]

It's impolite and annoying (and suspicious, too) if a newcomer creates a lot of new topics in a short time. This is something an administrators should definitely deal with.

[Rebel]

Hi,

I voted with yes, because one example doesn't establish a trend. Everybody should have the right to ask a question even if it seems a simple/stupid one to most. We've seem some consulting resistance lately but were do you draw the line.

Instead of introducing some kind of censorship I would opt just to ignore the thread when your level of patience runs out.

Thomas...

Ditto

[Daniel Shawul]

Don't feed the troll

This is the rule used in most of the forums (including Linux Kernel mailing list)

After some posts trolls are easy to detect. Their psychological tactic is to write a clear wrong/nosense line to stimulate you to answer. But we have to refrein and control our instinct that naturally would lead us to insult them and simply be cool enough to ignore the post.

Without replies a troll leaves the forum after few days.

Indeed that is the rule but for some reason here they kept being fed. Even on something as simple as posting ethiquety the chess community
may not agree which is sad but true. Some would prefer to have them have them as a frenemy ( a third party used to get a message across ).
I am sure the linux forum and other technical forums reply in unison to such behaviour. Good thing that will come out of this is that the
troll will go away very soon with some excuse. It is not fun when your intentions are laid out to your face.

[Daniel Shawul]

I don't know why people like you know who, that pretend to be beginners, but clearly trolls are allowed to carry on. Also i don't understand people who insist on 'helping' them. I mean it is noble to help a noob that atleast shows some effort by showing a piece of code or something. But clearly this is someone that pretends to be a noob but is intent on working up the community. If you pull this kind of stuff in stackoverflow or some other similar forum you won't last an hour (though i think that place has crazy rules). Anyway these trolls start with 0 posts and come strong with questions and one line replies (hence why i call them gamma ray bursts) and this has become common now in the programming section. I think we should have some kind of rule like in SO to require some effort by the beginner before we answer his questions.

I would really like a StackOverflow sister site for computer chess. The reputation system there works pretty good and it progressively gives new users more and more priviliges as they continue to gain reputation. Another thing that SO allows is automatic linking to previous similar questions (even as you are composing the question!).

Yes a repository would be great but it may be a lot of change from the current habit here. But at least a simple request to show some code would put a halt to this behaviour as the troll would have to actually think before posting. It is very effective even for experienced programmers as that will increase productivity. Otherwise it is noise with no substance. I actually think hard before posting questions elsewhere and i am not even sure it will pass, but here not so much (no offence to anyone )