Since the beginning of this season more and more first time posters, or posters in their first 20 odd posts have started threads where they go negative or less than positive on a situation, game, coach, or odds of getting a recruiting prospect. Two things happened right around the same time, the rebanning of hundreds of past trolls who were given clemency by the change in board format, and a second season of football that fell short of most (not all, but most) of our expectations. If you go negative in your first 20 or so posts, the way that some have, with no history, there is no doubt questions will arise especially after a number of trolls, that had been banned for years, reappeared and were rebanned under their old names.
If you are looking to avoid this might I throw out a few suggestions.
- Introduce yourself. For instance 3 years ago after being a lurker for more than two years my first post was to introduce myself, endorse David Mullaly for board of trustees, and give my first name and year of graduation. Granted, I could have been lying but to go to such lengths, I immediately gained some trust that I was who I said I was.
- If you don't want to say who you are and want to remain anonymous then participate in some of the other discussions before giving a hot take on a controversial topic. Example: there are always threads about what fraternity you were in, what involvement in THON you had as an undergrad, where your freshman dorm was, your favorite game experience, a personal Joe or player story, your favorite downtown bar while you were in school, or your favorite sorority to sneak out of in the morning. Contributing to those discussions goes a long way to ingratiating yourself to the board community and showing your not just here to talk about why Pitt has a better future than us going forward, how we hired the wrong coach, or why we aren't getting XYZ prospect.
- Don't come out guns blazing against a long time member in your first few posts. Respect is earned, not given. If you come out spitting fire against someone we all have gotten to know over the course of many discussions we are going to think, who is this guy and where is he coming from, regardless of what we think of that member. He maybe an idiot, but he's our idiot, type of deal. Follow suggestion 1 or 2 before waging war.
- Realize what it's been like here the last few years. After what happened happened, they come out of the wood work to tell us what they thought of us. The axe grinders finally got to swing their 20-40 year sharpened inferiority complexes in our face. Plenty came back under new names, so when you show up with 10 posts and go all chicken little we pause. In the last year and half it's gotten much better, but there are still plenty of bitter souls that will take any chance they can to take a shot and on a lot of other boards on rivals the falsehoods and outright lies still get repeated as gospel. So whether you are bringing that topic up or not, if we don't know you or you are always telling us why we're failing then there is reason to believe you're just another one of those bitter souls.
- If you follow any of the first 4 suggestions then let me say, please have opinions, let them be educated! If you are informed on a subject and want to give your take then do it, back it up, but realize not everyone will agree with you. Plenty of people have strong opinions people disagree with, who are respected members; Guns, Bushwood, Barry, Judge, Lajolla, Alphabets, and Knocker. Be careful of politics with Roy, Marbles, or Dem. Don't talk about the NL East with Howie or Jim. Don't ever say anything positive about ND to Glov or Pitt to LionLurker. Don't outrage Bob. Listen to Midnighter on TV and Movies. Make sure to catch Ro's sig pics. And always try to get a like from FairGambit.
The thing about all of those people I mentioned above is... they are all recognizable as Penn State fans. No one will ever call them a troll bc they and so many others have contributed their thoughts and passions to the board about a wide range of topics in both positive times and bad times. Look no further than the thread on Sarge. He was often put in the sin-bin, but when he stopped showing up people noticed, because they cared.
If you really aren't a troll then show us you're not, become someone we care about.
