Afternoon.
Might be helpful to recap/clarify a few things, to start with.
First of all, as we have (blushingly) admitted on the orig thread, we didn't realise it was a windup. We received lots of reports asking us if the OP was a troll, saw it was Greensleeves, boggled a bit at her crappy baking skills and ranty mood, and then posted to reassure folks that she was a regular MNer and we sure she wasn't a troll.
We also then deleted some trollhunty posts. As we would do, in any situation where we believed a genuine poster was being called a troll.
We then left the thread to go on its merry way.
It was only later in the evening that we realised it was a wind-up.
If we'd realised it was a wind-up from the beginning, we wouldn't have posted. And would probably have replied to those reporting to say the OP wasn't a troll but we suspect it was a regular having a bit of a larf.
We are sorry for not being smart enough to have rumbled Greensleeves straightaway. And we're sorry some folks assumed from our post that we were somehow in on the act.
However, we really do think there is a massive difference between a light-hearted, non-malicious wind-up like this and a 'proper' trolling thread. As several posters have pointed out here, there was clearly no intention to be malicious or creepy/pervy/abusive, and no agenda to persuade people to divulge personal info/hand over money etc etc.
And yes, amillionyears, we have removed one phrase from the Talk Guidelines about trolls (the 'for the hell of it' bit) as we realised late last night that it could be misinterpreted as 'for a bit of a joke', when that's not what we meant at all. It was disingenuous of me not to mention that when I quoted the Guidelines on the orig thread this morning - and I do apologise for that.
There are probably some other points on this thread that we should answer. We'll have a look through now.
We'll also be deleting the personal attacks. Whatever your frustrations - and we can see there are plenty! - they're really not on.