Yikes! -- I don't get it. I rarely comment on here, I just read and learn. It seems whenever someone holds a different opinion or something that can in any way be construed as slightly to the right of left, they are called a troll and attacked. I kind of expect it on HuffPo, but not here. Yikes!

Yikes. An explanation, and a suggestion, ok? Take 'em as you wish.

The simple explanation is the site was sortof quietly wandering along, at a lower & quieter level of discussion, after the election. The main topic of conversation for these past weeks has been... single payer health care. Every day, that's been the main topic. With a lot of people learning, writing letters, posting on other sites, etc. Since your Zinn quote seems to back that, I'd assume you'd be interested in the debate.

About 2-3 weeks ago, a rather sticky troll arrived, and was eventually replaced by a seeming twin. They made many references to violent acts, like shooting deviate/perverted gays, where to get ammo & conceal licenses, penning up illegal immigrants in large open camps, Jews being blood-sucking banking vampires. They kept up a steady drumbeat, pretty much every day - and everyone was waiting, assuming they'd be banned, and be back under another avatar.

They went quiet for 3 hours today, and... YOU landed. You locked horns on one post with a couple of people, fine. But you need to know, anyone here was LOOKING for the return of the troll under a new name. So when you then went, within the first hour, to the very post discussing that troll, and made that "bwahahahaha" joke - it looked EXACTLY like a 3rd incarnation. I know it certainly sent my feelers up, when I went to that post, right? My bad - but I hope you can see how it happened.

THAT was the context you landed in, right or wrong, and people are reacting as much to that as to you. All of which excuses nothing. Just, hopefully, it helps explain it. My suggestion is just one thing. Slow down a tad. That's all. Lay out your views at slightly greater length in comments, so they're harder to misread, and people can get a broader sense of what you're proposing. Make a series of contributions or arguments, over a period of days - and meanwhile, the other troll stuff will get sorted. It always does. After that, if people call you Republican or whatever, have at 'em. Just, dude... it's only been a few hours, alright? Walk along for a bit, ok?

One background story. The reason I can't help laughing at this is that I was the target of every suspicion in the book - especially as being the alternate avatar of someone else - for the first 3 months I was here, and the site had one of its largest blogs ever, discussing what to do about the problem. Huh. Funny, turns out "I was me, and not someone else." Sound familiar? ;-)

Now, if you're a socialist like you say you are, you can expect a few people to shout at you, etc., the usual. But the troll thing will go away, unless you decide to start hurling the sort of racist stuff they were. And I'm not saying that you have, ok? I'm just saying, that's the most obvious rule that TPM has, in their Terms of Use. Otherwise, bring your ideas, insights, stories, arguments, jokes, whatevers....

Not sure this helps, but for what it's worth. Have a great evening.

...oh, I'll forgive the poem about Boomers. No sweat and, I can't help when I was born and the fact that I really liked the music of my youth.

You are welcome here.

Welcome, YIKES

I, too, had suspicions about you being the troll regenerated one more time. It is for this reason I was ignoring you as I awaited making the determination for myself.

Please stick around. I appreciate Zinn and Chomsky, but probably more in theory than in practice. They (Chomsky, especially) constantly seem to butt heads against the fact that we do not have a parliamentary form of government here. Makes it tough to expect "perfection" among the leaders' ideology, but it is nevertheless interesting to study what "perfect" is from these guys. This will perhaps serve as the basis for a disagreement or two, and I look forward to your contribution to the discussions here. Welcome aboard!

Lessons I learned from moderating elsewhere in the past:

Trolling is very destructive of a forum website for precisely the reason of what happened to you.

Someone like Renaye is not here to discuss "in good faith," he/she is here just to have fun by irritating and getting a rise out of people. (It's extremely clear if you look at the record of renaye's comments.)

Then you as a newbie write one comment that is irritating to a group discussing on a thread, a group that has already been purposely irritated by renaye, and they assume that it is renaye using a new avatar.

The way out of this is for groups being irritated by a troll is for them to judge the content of individual comments and not get personal about the avatar doing it. Why? Because other people reading the thread don't know the history of renaye's comments. And if renaye makes a rare thoughtful comment or criticism and the group reacts badly, they look like bullies and an insular clique to others not participating with such regularity who do not know renaye's history.

It is always good to try to remember that this place is not a private chat room, that everyone is writing for a big public, because they are. There are tons more lurkers than participants, and what you write affects whether they might participate or not. Too much "personal," and they will feel like it is like a clique at high school, a gauntlet that they don't want to have to run through. Respond to others as if there is a whole world of readers out there reading you, because there are.

I do think management is at fault here for not handling the troll. But there will be others, and regular users' reactions are also important to prevent the forum from becoming too cliquish and foreboding for new users. You end up with a dead forum, no fresh blood. (Even excessive friendliness within groups is hurtful this way, it is hard to handle well. User "barefooted" is very skillful at doing that with her threads, always inviting to outsiders, but not everyone can do it well.)

Another thing that is very destructive is the use of multiple pen names by regular users who know the group(s). Lots of times it is done all in good fun but it is still very destructive. Why? Because it is purposefully done to play with a situation where everyone has gotten too personal. If people weren't getting so personal, there would be no need to switch your name to say something. (And when someone does it purposefully to play with people's heads, like a certain "blue man" once did here, it gets insidious, a kind of strange space where no one can be assumed to be posting in good faith, and it is all a game.)

I have always been all for management here banning people even when I didn't think they made a wise decision, because of all of this. You have to have "rule of law" to have a truly open and wide forum. If you leave it totally up to "the people," you will end up with mob rule, censorship via exclusive clique, all because of the purposefully destructive nature of trolling. I have actually seen cases of those unfairly banned sometimes learn a thing or two from being banned and turn up elsewhere (or even in the same place after a "time out") with an adjusted posting style that it to their benefit. (And again, I think it is better if other users who don't have the power or tools of management try to judge each comment rather than to user names, unless they have a long record to look at and mention that record for the benefit of lurkers who may not know it.)

Your comparing a political solution (Kennedy drawing a paycheck -- and I never said "despise" just as I never said "hate"), to TheraP who made a PERSONAL attack on me is simply disingenuous.

I responded to your identical taunt here but will repeat:

I never said "hated" Democrats or Republicans. That's a stupid word to use here.

Do you know whom I "hate"? I hate the drunk driver to hit me and killed my son. That's an appropriate use of the word. Okay? So let's not dilute words' meanings.

I identified myself as a Socialist. You know, the word that even scares Democrats.

Go read about Brian Moore who ran as a Socialist. He used to be a Democrat. That's a third party. It should be the party that you belong to as well, if you are really left of center, but that's a topic for another day.

The fact is, I bet I'm more open minded than you about different political views. Maybe because I've often been in a room (like this Internet site )with enough like-minded people that I could afford to be lazy in my thinking because it's just so easy to use the power of the group to get my point across.

I call people like you Lefties ironically. Because you are only left of the Republicans, you aren't left at all. That's the one thing Fox News gets right... er... correct.

If you sincerely want to be educated, why not read Howard Zinn's A PEOPLE' HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES and see why he (and Noam Chomsky) don't fall for "the Democrats being all that different from the Republicans" mind trick.

And let me go further: I didn't complain, but pointed out other ways. I said on that other thread (and self-identified in my profile) that I was Socialist. It shouldn't have been that hard to figure out whom I thought was beneficial.

I am already reading about how the Democrats have backed down from the Republicans on the stimulus package, they are looking at too much bipartisanship, etc. etc.

Well, the joke is on you. YOUR WHOLE PARTY BACKED DOWN LONG AGO. And now you cower with the usual excuse that well, my two choices are "very right" and "a little bit less than very right".

No wonder you feel like you are always conceding!

If you really want the country to move to the left, then it will take real guts.

And don't dis Zinn and Chomsky. If more people read them, this country would have more of a chance of moving to the left. You see, THEY aren't concerned about getting reelected, so THEY can actually think through issues.

Welcome to the nuthouse here at TPM, Yikes! (which happens to be one of my favorite words!)

I can tell you from personal experience, coming into a community like this can be a daunting experience. My arrival here was met w/ mixed reviews. I've now been here for 6 months and, although I hold a minority opinion much of the time (I'm a recovering Republican and a Christian - not one of the whacko ones!) I think I make a positive contribution to the group.

At risk of sounding condescending, you ask "What am I to do?" so I'd like to offer a couple of suggestions.

First, you might pick someone who appears to be friendly and "follow" them. This will make your dashboard work. On the dashboard page there is a list of the most followed people on the site. This isn't a list of the smartest, and certainly not the "rightest" and occasionally someone gets on (like me!) where you shake your head :-) but generally speaking, it gives you a guidepost for who people want to keep track of. TheraP happens to be at the top of that list by a country mile. We may not always agree with what she says, but we want to read what she writes, and she has earned our respect.

Second, if you click on the red name below individual comments, you will be directed tot hat person's blog. There you can read their writings and comments, and get a feel for who they are. Numerous times I have been initially offended by some comment a person makes on my blog, go and read a few of their blogs, and realize that they probably didn't mean to be as obnoxious as they sounded, then it is easier to go back and respond less harshly than perhaps I would have if I knew nothing about them. More than once I've read their work and know that we'll just need to agree to disagree...

Third, if you want to be taken seriously, try not to take a hardline right off the bat. Most of us are here to learn as well as to teach. This requires a dialog, and it is hard to have a dialog with someone who comes off as brash or as a know-it-all. I admit that I have been off the boards for a few days, so I am unfamiliar w/ your commenting style directly, but generally speaking the people I have seen questioning you on this thread are people I respect, so I have to assume (and you know what that means!) that you may have come across a little harshly.

The "spric/renaye" thing has been a huge pain in the booty around here, and you came in at a time when we are still trying to figure out how to deal w/ it. That is certainly not your fault. Real "trolls" just take the fun out of being here. They have the ability to completely derail threads and can be very frustrating. I'm sorry you got caught up in the middle of it. Perhaps a blog introducing yourself and giving everyone a feel for who you are would be helpful.

I've been accused of trying to "mother" people around here, and that is probably a fair comment...I just love TPM and want to see everyone who joins in have a successful time here.
So, I hope you will find my comments useful, if not, ignore them. They are meant to help, not lecture or condemn...Once again, welcome!

I know what Howard would say.

He would say that while the Democrats are preferable to the Republicans they aren't much better. And he is right about that. He would point out that pressure would be required to make the Democrats do the right thing and he's right about that. Look at Obama's shameless flip flop on FISA and retroactive immunity for telecoms last year. Look at his pro-insurance industry health care proposals.

Howard would say that the only way we will get anything out of the Democrats other than hot air is to push, cajole, demonstrate, protest, and otherwise shame them and demand that they do what is good for the people. If we don't, they won't do the right thing.