Trolls and scrupulous

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nightshade

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I have been visiting CAF nearly everyday since early this year. I am mostly a reader. However, I have noticed so many scrupulous and trolling posts lately. Some of them are one in the same. A poster will post something they are being scrupulous about as bait and then proceed to argue. Or a poster will post something a long the lines of “what is the Catholic Church on X” with “X” being something extremely ridiculous, for the purpose of creating dissent and arguments. Many of these type of posts are also by self described atheists or agnostics amd other non-Catholics. Have these forums always been this way or is it getting worse?
 
School is out. Collage is on their ‘summer break.’ Nothing to do. Let’s go annoy the Catholic Forum members. Don’t worry. August coming up soon, then school or college and then most of them will be busy or we can hope.
 
MaryEstelle2 said:
School is out. Collage is on their ‘summer break.’ Nothing to do. Let’s go annoy the Catholic Forum members.
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Anne Landers, the late nationally read social advice columnist had a similar problem. She would occasionally get really off the wall letters describing all kinds of moral dilemmas. Thing was, they were always postmarked from a given radius of New Haven, Connecticut. She would laugh and answer that the boys at Yale had nothing better to do.

Over time, most serious users of this forum recognize the trolls and don’t “feed” the troll. As to those asking about sin or what the church teaches, some posters will attempt an honest answer, but many will always counsel to talk to a priest, preferable in confession, to get a solid answer based on church teaching. The Catholic Church teachings on sexuality and related areas is substantially more stringent than many of the other Judeo Christian denominations and questions of this nature that do arise, are often a young person or someone finding themselves in a disordered situation seeking advice. Most are referenced to a priest. The trolls, they generally go away sooner or later. They are like the current season, it is warm and pleasant, but there are a bunch of mosquitos around.
 
nightshade said:
Have these forums always been this way or is it getting worse?
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Yes it’s gotten worse since the platform change. This platform is mobile friendly (the old one was not) which attracts more teenagers and young people who say frighteningly stupid things on a public forum. Plus, as someone already said, school is out - and this is the platform’s first summer vacation.

Some other things have changed as a result of the platform change. It used to be that you had to wait for a small window of time in which to become a member. That kept trolls and implulsive teenagers away. Now, someone can start trolling and feeding their anxiety without having to wait.
 
CAF generally gets inundated with trolls during the Summer, Christmas Break and Spring Break.

Sometimes it’s real quiet with the regular posters and the occasional genuine newcomer. Then all Hell breaks loose and trolls galore. It can be exciting at times.
 
I like the word you use “ bait “ -

I love reading the reply “ Ask a Priest “ -
That’s like reading “;troll alert “

I think of Saint Paul - when he says -
  • your still sipping on warm milk -
    when you should be eatting meat -
A troll - is a ugly creature ?
That lives under a bridge - in children’s books ?
 
I’ve been called a troll but that’s incredibly inaccurate.

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My True Form is Loki
 
I think the term troll originally was used in the context of “trolling for fish by trailing a baited line along behind a boat”. So internet trolls are doing the same thing with inflammatory, controversial or obviously over the top posts as the bait and the arguments that follow are what they were fishing for.
 
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