As everyone knows (or should know), I am very hostile to the trolling rap. For me it needs to be a deliberate mischaracterization of the facts that riles folks up, or taking an opinion, where by evidence close to beyond a reasonable doubt, demonstrates a poster is taking an "unreasonable" position that they don't really believe that riles up other posters resulting in acrimony. The latter almost never happens. The former happens rarely.
Which brings one to Beet (I hope he won't mind me bringing him up). Who knows if his rapid political transformation is real or not. But the old Beet and the new Beet take positions that are not obviously so absurd that someone of his intelligence and level of knowledge (high, obviously) could not possibly believe them (putting aside his transformation). So I no action all reports that levy a trolling charge against him.
Heck, I have changed my mind on some stuff (along with changing avatar colors). Am I trolling?
Oh yeah, I remember when some posters called me a "concern troll." I had no idea what that meant. I looked it up finally, and realized it was a term that Daily Kos invented, and some posters decided to weaponize it against me. I just ignored them by and large. I really didn't care whether or not they thought I was a troll, concern troll or otherwise. Why should I?
Ah, DeadO, HG was punished mostly for spam (there was one awful post in another category, but that was just part of the mix), not trolling. As a practical matter, he was never going to go down for mere trolling. See above.
