Why not make trolling illegal?

On Mon, 9 Jul 2012 15:19:00 -0700 (PDT), M Wicks
wrote:

The newsgroup uk.rec.cycling is suffering from a trolling problem
which has gone on for several years. The trolls seem to mostly occupy
two groups. Group A consists of the more vicious and abrasive trolls,
who are quite open about being on uk.rec.cycling to 'wind up cyclists'
and 'destroy uk.rec.cycling'. Quite why anyone would be sad enough to
spend their free time doing this is another discussion, but that is
the situation at any rate. Group A trolls include 'Dave' and 'Judith'.

While trolling is fun, the trolls of uk.rec.cycling have made the
group unusable for people with a normal interest in cycling. They have
therefore crossed the line from trolls to anti-social ****s.

M Wicks wrote:

The newsgroup uk.rec.cycling is suffering from a trolling problem
which has gone on for several years.

Yes, the names of the trolls include Doug "Don't Call Me Bollen" Bollen,
SquashedFlea, Guy "s/u/a/" Chapman, Phil W (anchor) Lee, Ian "Whacko"
Jackson and Simon "Slimeon" Mason. Now it seems that you want to add
your name to the list.

What is it about getting on a cycle that reduces the users IQ to a
single numeral?

pensive hamster wrote:

And what does "Cyclists VOR" mean? "Cyclists Velocipede On Road"?

Clearly it is Cyclists - Vermin On Road.

On Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:19:00 -0700, M Wicks wrote:

It occurs to me that these 'harassment' accusations are not the way to
do it, firstly because it is difficult to make them stick, and secondly
because it does not seem entirely honest to accuse someone of
'harassment' of individuals when really you're trying to punish them for
trolling newsgroups. So it seems to me that the best solution, at least
for uk.rec.cycling, is simply to make trolling illegal.

If only there was some way to have a group just like this one but
moderated.

"Deux" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:19:00 -0700, M Wicks wrote:

It occurs to me that these 'harassment' accusations are not the way to
do it, firstly because it is difficult to make them stick, and secondly
because it does not seem entirely honest to accuse someone of
'harassment' of individuals when really you're trying to punish them for
trolling newsgroups. So it seems to me that the best solution, at least
for uk.rec.cycling, is simply to make trolling illegal.

If only there was some way to have a group just like this one but
moderated.

What a brilliant idea! Oh, hang on .....

"Cassandra" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 9 Jul 2012 15:19:00 -0700 (PDT), M Wicks
wrote:

The newsgroup uk.rec.cycling is suffering from a trolling problem
which has gone on for several years. The trolls seem to mostly occupy
two groups. Group A consists of the more vicious and abrasive trolls,
who are quite open about being on uk.rec.cycling to 'wind up cyclists'
and 'destroy uk.rec.cycling'. Quite why anyone would be sad enough to
spend their free time doing this is another discussion, but that is
the situation at any rate. Group A trolls include 'Dave' and 'Judith'.

While trolling is fun, the trolls of uk.rec.cycling have made the
group unusable for people with a normal interest in cycling. They have
therefore crossed the line from trolls to anti-social ****s.

So start a new, moderated, newsgroup.

On 10/07/2012 19:32, Steve Firth wrote:
pensive hamster wrote:

And what does "Cyclists VOR" mean? "Cyclists Velocipede On Road"?

Clearly it is Cyclists - Vermin On Road.


:-) Nice!


--
Dave - Cyclists VOR. "Many people barely recognise the bicycle as a
legitimate mode of transport; it is either a toy for children or a
vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange," Dave Horton - Lancaster
University

On 10/07/2012 19:07, Cassandra wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jul 2012 15:19:00 -0700 (PDT), M Wicks
wrote:

The newsgroup uk.rec.cycling is suffering from a trolling problem
which has gone on for several years. The trolls seem to mostly occupy
two groups. Group A consists of the more vicious and abrasive trolls,
who are quite open about being on uk.rec.cycling to 'wind up cyclists'
and 'destroy uk.rec.cycling'. Quite why anyone would be sad enough to
spend their free time doing this is another discussion, but that is
the situation at any rate. Group A trolls include 'Dave' and 'Judith'.

While trolling is fun, the trolls of uk.rec.cycling have made the
group unusable for people with a normal interest in cycling. They have
therefore crossed the line from trolls to anti-social ****s.

I take that as a compliment.




--
Dave - Cyclists VOR. "Many people barely recognise the bicycle as a
legitimate mode of transport; it is either a toy for children or a
vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange," Dave Horton - Lancaster
University

On 10/07/2012 19:43, Janitor of Lunacy wrote:
"Cassandra" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 9 Jul 2012 15:19:00 -0700 (PDT), M Wicks
wrote:

The newsgroup uk.rec.cycling is suffering from a trolling problem
which has gone on for several years. The trolls seem to mostly occupy
two groups. Group A consists of the more vicious and abrasive trolls,
who are quite open about being on uk.rec.cycling to 'wind up cyclists'
and 'destroy uk.rec.cycling'. Quite why anyone would be sad enough to
spend their free time doing this is another discussion, but that is
the situation at any rate. Group A trolls include 'Dave' and 'Judith'.

While trolling is fun, the trolls of uk.rec.cycling have made the
group unusable for people with a normal interest in cycling. They have
therefore crossed the line from trolls to anti-social ****s.

So start a new, moderated, newsgroup.


They did - and it was terminally boring.


--
Dave - Cyclists VOR. "Many people barely recognise the bicycle as a
legitimate mode of transport; it is either a toy for children or a
vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange," Dave Horton - Lancaster
University

On Jul 10, 4:50*pm, JNugent wrote:
On 10/07/2012 16:25, pensive hamster wrote:

"BartC" wrote:
"pensive hamster" wrote:
On Jul 10, 8:23 am, Dave - Cyclists VOR [wrote]:
Dave - Cyclists VOR. "Many people barely recognise the bicycle as a
legitimate mode of transport; it is either a toy for children or a
vehicle fit only for the poor and/or strange," Dave Horton - Lancaster
University
And what does "Cyclists VOR" mean? "Cyclists Velocipede On Road"?
Google is no help, it just refers back to your various posts to
Usenet.
Voice of Reason?
But then its ungrammatical - it should be Cyclist's Voice of Reason.

That should have been "it's".

The version without the apostrophe is the possessive form. The contraction of
"it is" (your sense above) requires an apostrophe.

HTH.

On the meaning of "VOR":

If it were meant to convey that the writer is the Voice of Reason for just
one cyclist, what you say ("it should be Cyclist's Voice of Reason") would be
true.

If, however, as seems more likely, the gentleman concerned wishes to be seen
as the Voice of Reason for cyclists in general, then it would correctly be
"Cyclists' Voice of Reason".

I wouldn't have mentioned any of this but for your flaming another poster's
grammar.

Ah, but I wasn't flaming another poster's grammar. I was expressing
mild skepticism about an earlier poster's suggestion that VOR might
mean 'Voice of Reason', on the basis that 'Cyclists Voice of Reason'
seemed to be ungrammatical, because it lacked punctuation. My
underlying assumption was that it would have been correctly
punctuated, had it meant 'Voice of Reason', and the fact that it
wasn't punctated, indicated that it probably didn't mean 'Voice of
Reason'.

I did consider the possibility of 'Cyclists' Voice of Reason', as you
discuss, but unlike you, judged it unlikely that the gentleman
concerned wished to be seen as the Voice of Reason for cyclists in
general. It seemed to me more likely that he saw himself as
representing the interests of a sub-genre, the reluctant cyclist.
Cyclists who were on the verge of realising the foolishness of
cycling, and who might therefore be more open and sympathetic to the
message of Dave.

Though his message is a little ambiguous. When he writes: 'Many people
barely recognise the bicycle as a legitimate mode of transport ...',
is he expressing the hope that, in time, many people will come to more
fully appreciate the bicycle as a legitimate mode of transport? Or
not?

And why does he mention Lancaster University? Does he think that will
lend greater weight to his opinions (whatever they are) on cycling?
The more I think about it, the more questions there seem to be.
Perhaps he is pussy-whipped, and his wife forces him to cycle to
Lancaster University every day, while she takes the kids to school in
the car. Is Dave's sig a disguised plea for help? Who knows. There
does seem to be an untold story here.

(p.s. I promise to work on my apostrophes'.)


Unless yours is perfect, it's better not to. As an aside, some would
say that you need to do some work on the use of apostrophes - and on
reflection, you'd probably agree (I hope).

Or maybe it is meant to be: Cyclists - [the] Voice of Reason.
Not that that makes much sense either.

[I have just re-checked this post for typos and spelling before clicking
"send". But we all know what tends to happen with these sub-threads.]