How Do You Distinguish a Troll or Poe from an Idiot?

[RonaldReagansGhost666]

From appearance, it seems as if the staff ban some members with radical viewpoints (such as BGChuckLee and Al-Fatifha) that conflict with those of the majority of this community, and many of the staff indentify these people as trolls or poes. Yet, how do you distinguish a troll or poe from a radical?
I'd really appreciate answers from the staff of the community.

[frankiej]

They flip a coin.

[Cinjin]

From appearance, it seems as if the staff ban some members with radical viewpoints (such as BGChuckLee and Al-Fatifha) that conflict with those of the majority of this community, and many of the staff indentify these people as trolls or poes. Yet, how do you distinguish a troll or poe from a radical?
I'd really appreciate answers from the staff of the community.

If those with radical alternative views were banned arbitrarily as you suggest, we wouldn't have a theist on this website.

Trolls, poes and idiots are all lumped together. It matters not, and I will go ahead and clarify the way we as a staff operate: If you continually break the rules, you get banned. Clear now?

[Rayaan]

They flip a coin.

Yeah.

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Head indicates a troll/poe and Tail indicates an idiot.

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[Rev. Rye]

Yeah, I've been trolling a guy on Deviantart. He's written the most vile work of pornography since the Marquis de Sade lost the manuscript to The 120 Days of Sodom, on his DA profiles, he also regales us with tales of being caught having sex with his girlfriend in public, and refuses on principle to spell correctly. He recently turned 15. Large numbers of people insist he can't be for real; I honestly have my doubts.

[Kayenneh]

From appearance, it seems as if the staff ban some members with radical viewpoints (such as BGChuckLee and Al-Fatifha) that conflict with those of the majority of this community, and many of the staff indentify these people as trolls or poes.

That's just it, you don't see anything that goes behind the scenes, e.g. PM correspondence between staff and potential trolls/flamers/idiots. Having a radical viewpoint is not enough to get banned, nor do we want to ban those who aren't mainstream. But when participation on the forums gets disruptive, in BGChuckLee's case it was serious flaming and Al-Fatifha made just copypastas and refuse to interact with anyone opposing him and didn't tone down on the preachiness when asked, then we ban. You don't see the warnings we deal out before a ban, both the official ones and the verbal ones in PMs, because the only ones who get an instaban are spammers really. You just see the ban, you don't know much we on the staff do work before we let the hammer drop, how much we try to resolve the issues in other ways before we go for the ban.

[Tiberius]

BGChuckLee's political views were very similar to mine. I defended him at first (as I try to do with most), but after a while, playing the devils advocate and giving him the benefit of the doubt just becomes too hard to justify.

[Ryantology]

Al-Fatihah trolled around a dozen other forums along with ours.

[Shell B]

That's just it, you don't see anything that goes behind the scenes, e.g. PM correspondence between staff and potential trolls/flamers/idiots. Having a radical viewpoint is not enough to get banned, nor do we want to ban those who aren't mainstream. But when participation on the forums gets disruptive, in BGChuckLee's case it was serious flaming and Al-Fatifha made just copypastas and refuse to interact with anyone opposing him and didn't tone down on the preachiness when asked, then we ban. You don't see the warnings we deal out before a ban, both the official ones and the verbal ones in PMs, because the only ones who get an instaban are spammers really. You just see the ban, you don't know much we on the staff do work before we let the hammer drop, how much we try to resolve the issues in other ways before we go for the ban.

Haha, good luck with that argument. I'm relatively certain that most members think the staff just PMs each other with "Yerp, an idiot! Who wants ta do da banning today, eh?"

[RonaldReagansGhost666]

Thank you for the information, staff of Atheist Forums.

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Al-Fatihah trolled around a dozen other forums along with ours.

May I have some links, please?