Ah yes, the typical troll profile.
Male
Young-ish
Shite
Except LineRunner I'd call you on that. There have been frequent times on here, that I have felt like trolling. I wouldn't be surprised if MN has a significant number of married older female trollers - way above the norm. I've never felt it on any other forum. Just this one. Have I? Nope as tempting as it is at times.
And it seemed a shame the threads got deleted so the advice was lost as a communal resource
This is why I always try and take posts seriously. As you don't know who is reading and identifying with the thread even if it is an enormous amount of steaming doggy do.
There are a lot of people who do come on here looking for support or to 'feel normal'. Sometimes 'normal' happens to be crazy!
The posters who bother me most on MN are not the trolls. They are the ones who give advice by obsessively project their situations onto others even when it clearly isn't remotely like the OP or lack any sensitivity whatsoever on certain serious topics/sections (eg relationships, bereavement, childbirth).
There is a lot of damaging stuff that gets put on here. Hence my feeling like I want to troll these people. I don't suspect I am alone either (probably just the only one foolish enough to admit to feeling like this).
There is a mix of "inane" and "really fucking heavy stuff" here. There is a different to me. I try and act accordingly. (Probably failing once in a while) But calling troll where it could fall under the "really fucking heavy stuff" is a dangerous game in my book that I don't want to play. Hence I avoid completely the thread, or focus on comments made by other posters in the thread, or try and guide the conversation to a 'safer' more general related area to the original post though not directly addressing it. And I don't have any time for derailing as its as bad as the troll hunting tbh. Just certain people get around the troll hunting rules by doing it. Doesn't make it any less bad for the OP if they ARE real.
And so fucking what if it IS a journo looking for a none story or a hysteria story. If there are points of view that are expressed they are real POV. They show what people are concerned about. There's already enough completely made up stuff out there in the media. It least if they use MN they have some sort of reality to base it on, rather than just their own mind and experiences.