fake threads/trolls

[ghostspirit]

just seen 2 threads removed. so must happen often, Are there really lots of fake threads/trolls.

is there such a thing as a harmless troll?

i was reading one of them threads to! never mind

i can sort of understand when ops dont give the full history as such. sometimes just want some advice/or thoughts on a subject thats just that subject.

but then sometimes other stuff gets dragged up and the op never does get advice on the subject she was talking about.

Yeah, but there's a difference between not giving every single bit of background info and leaving out massive parts of the story - like e.g. "my husband isn't comfortable with me spending time with my old flatmate, aibu?" not mentioning that you had a four-year affair with said flatmate and have children together, something like that.

The thing is that if there is history out there that people can access, then not giving that detail is somewhat stupid, because people do go and check previous histories etc, and if e.g. a poster has posted something and people are giving them advice based purely on that post, then they're not giving objective advice because there's a history missing which isn't actually missing iyswim.

Similarly if posters choose to drip-feed.

I agree wannabe. There was a particularly ridiculous case recently where a poster was claiming to be flat broke and wanting cheap recipes but when you looked at the posting history she was going on a New York holiday and could "comfortably afford private school fees". Her explanation? She was actually three sisters sharing the same mn account. I don't think anyone believed it.

Good thread here. I am useless at spotting fake threads and trolls. Life cane be so much weirder than fiction.

Waves frantically at binders1 I didn't ever post on your threads, I don't think, but followed them. Glad you are back, and hope you are doing well.

The miscarriage troll is back again, just had another thread deleted.

maud im surpised she dont get bored at least change the subject

Troll spotting is an art.

Sock puppets are fairly easy to spot. Usually the thread is fairly unanimously telling op they Abu. Then a poster turns up saying Yanbu and invents loads of extra detail from their arse, also sock puppets tend to target a few posters who gave disagreed with the op.

She was actually three sisters sharing the same mn account. I don't think anyone believed it.

because its so hard to get an mn account?

I know! It was ludicrous. Especially since the "broke sister" claimed she didn't want to admit that she had no money to her "rich sister", even though the whole conversation would appear to both of them on threads I'm on. At least make your lies vaguely plausible if you're going to try your hand at trolling.

luxy me too.

I have to admit I hide those sorts of threads.

purple it's such odd behaviour. What jollies did she get out of reading people's cheap recipes

There is nothing wrong with reporting threads. I have reported a few and mn have come back and said that as far as they can see, it's not. From what I gather they don't just delete threads because they are reported, they have a good look it at it and make a decisions.

I reported one where the poster had a couple of at crash threads. She mentioned her bf of a few months not doing something, on another her dh of several years. Mn came back and said they looked it was a long term poster and her history showed that she did indeed seem to have both a bf and a dh.

So they must have looked the full history and the posts seemed to fit. That was the end of it. Mn still said 'thanks for reporting though rather than saying it on the thread'.

I can't see how reporting is ever the wrong thing to do.

The worst ones are the ones like the one mentioned a few pages back, who work their way in and stay. They go to meet-ups, they form friendships off MN, and then are revealed as fakers. That must feel, to the posters having been taken in, like they've been violated in some way. These people build their stories up for years.

The one I remember from another site was married, 1 child, a moderator on one of the boards. Very good friends with a fair few others, one went to stay with her regularly in Scotland. All came out in the wash when she had a miscarriage. Except she didn't. Because she was a single woman, with a child, living with her mother. When her board friend called her to see how she was after the m/c, her mother answered the phone and said "Oh, so you're X, you're the reason why I get sent to stay with my sister twice a year".

Numerous others like that, and worse, on here. Always at least 2 fakesters going for the long haul at any given time.

And of course, most of the time their stories aren't going to raise any eyebrows at HQ. Why would they? They spin their yarns, have their own support threads, gullible fools (who frankly are so stupid they should have their internet privileges revoked) continue to do the "saviour" thing on the threads.

And it continues to be the trollhunters who get the grief. Mad world.

then I haven't seen any proof of that type of thing happening.

But I certainly suspect it. It's absolutely appalling.

I can't fathom it tbh. People say try are lonely, want attention etc. But if they put that much effort into real life relationships, they wouldn't be lonely.

Enjolrass you're lucky. Took my antenatal group a year to rumble ours. Then the stupid idiot kept coming back. I've had her banned 3 times now She's also been seen on other forums and on facebook peddling her shit.

That said though out of that group I've made some genuine friends who are amazing, so while I'm weary of some posters, I'm not put off either.

the one I mentioned who had been outed on another site I moderated on is a well known member of the VI community. She is somewhat of an advocate for disability rights etc, is generally well respected, although is well known for her outspokenness. She creates persona's who also are VI but who often have an additional disability, and always have depression. But they then befriend others who are in a similar position, form close online friendships with these people, become a part of the online community, and then they commit suicide. she has done this on at least three occasions that I know of. And she goes so far as to create family etc for these persona's. In one instance she befriended someone I knew online, and at the time she died, her parents sent him a necklace which they said she would have wanted him to have. He had a lot of mh issues, but it was only years down the line when she was outed that the pieces of the puzzle fit together for him, little things such as her never wanting to talk on the phone, claiming that she couldn't due to a brain injury etc that made him realise there was something amiss but he would obviously have recognised the actual person behind the persona.

I know that some say these people have mh issues, but the calculated nature of her trolling mean I have absolutely no sympathy for her. I've seen first hand the damage that it does.

And just for reference, I am 100% certain that she is a troll and behind those persona's. It's a very odd feeling knowing that kind of thing about someone whose actual rl name you know.

Enjolrass you're lucky.

I think I am.

There is something wrong with people like that, but I have no idea what.

Glad to hear it hasn't put you off as well.

I do think the good people on mn make it worth while.

And another has been in gone on about 30 mins.

That was the miscarriage troll again. She is nothing if not persistant.

The one about the OP who took her cousin out for coffee and said the head teacher had banned all the pupils from going shopping at lakeside in case of terrorism?

I have no clue who the miscarriage troll is. Puts me off posting on any of them tbh

That's her. She's been combining a totally unlikely scenario (shouting at someone in Iceland, picking up someone's child at a swimming pool and the school thing are the most recent I remember) with having suffered a loss. She also starts lots of threads about having suffered a miscarriage (I never saw these) which apparently are full on emotional vampire. Not nice.

The swimming pool??? I only saw the first posts on there.....didn't spot that at all

I wonder what she gets out of it

The miscarriage troll is weird. A totally irrelevant scenario about some nonsense at a checkout with a reference to "maybe it's because I just had a miscarriage" thrown in. Same MO every time.