All of this activity by brookside has me wondering how many people, if any, trolled while they were TBM's, but then became exposed to information or ideas from this site or elsewhere that ultimately led them out of the Morg. Does anyone have any firsthand experiences to share?

Nope I've never trolled, as a tmb or as an apostate. I define trolling as going to a site with different beliefs from mine and either annoying them or trying to convert them to my beliefs.

I do go to the local paper's website and put my two cents in each time mormonism comes up. I suppose many mormons would think of that as trolling, but thats just telling the truth in a neutral forum as far as I'm concerned.

I've never actually TRIED to troll, though. :)

What I find interesting is I never even thought of searching the web for mormon info. I guess I went inactive before the internet was so easy to navigate. I worked on a computer, but didn't know anything else about one. Barely knew how to write e-mails when I first went inactive.

I would have NEVER found RfM if I wasn't already long out and my therapist told me to check it out because I had fears about temple issues.

So--to me, anyone who comes to something like RfM and they still believe has more going on than just curiosity. NONE of the TBMs I know would EVER venture onto an exmormon site.

I once was on a site and genuinely was asking questions and was accused of trolling, but it wasn't intentional.

The site was about Bigfoot. Now THERE'S a religion for you. LOL

he came back and apologised, having decided to exit Mormonism. He was here -as an exmo- for several years until he quit posting, saying he felt sufficiently recovered to no longer need RFM.

Before SLDrone was born in 2000, I posted here as Voice of Reason or VOR for a couple of years in the 97-99 timeframe. I wasn't so much trolling (by my definition) as trying to engage in conversation while still holding on to the last remnants of my faith.

Then in 2002 through 2005 or so I posted frequently at Zion's Lighthouse Ministry (and intellectual board inhabited most by FAIR/FARMS folk and their detractors. I spent a few years beating my head against brick walls there having nonsensical pseudo-intellectual "discussions" with Daniel Peterson and that lot.

In neither case did I ever misrepresent myself. But it was my experience at ZLMB that led me to write "Solitary Journey". In the road out of Mormonism, you can't lead a horse to water, he has to find the pond on his own.

These days, I take an occasional swipe at the Church in the Trib, or more fun the Provo Daily Herald or the Ogden Standard Examiner, and I guess that's trolling because I do it knowing I won't dissuade anyone. In the case of the Trib, the comment boards are only slightly less forgiving to the Church than RfM itself.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2011 02:20PM by SLDrone.

When I was lurking, you were among several posters whose material I really enthusiastically read. So you were instrumental, in my opinion, in my having the courage to approach the bishop and DW and tell them I needed to resign. So for my part, I thank you. I hope you don't drift away too far from RfM. As a side note, you really are a VOR, especially when so many others on here get too aggressive at times. You never do that

I trolled here on and off for 10 years since 1997/98 (not exactly sure). Got my ass kicked several times; I still remember a discussion with Randy Jordan about Max Weber (don't ask).

I usually identified myself as a TBM but considered myself very rational and critical - LOL. Never got in trouble, though, because I always tried to keep things civil. The only time I was flamed was when I shared an analysis of people's reasons for leaving the church based on the 120 exit stories that were up back then.

Bouts of posting at RfM never lasted more than a week or so for me, because I would get physically ill from engaging in these discussions. Cognitive dissonance at work.

Thank you RfM, even though I was a slow learner...

Never trolled on purpose. There was another forum I was on when I was younger. It was on rpgs like dnd. And there would be people there talking about their bi-furry girlfriend vestigal member. As most of the audience there was highschool to some early college. I kinda got on them about it. If playing with a vestigal member is your thing. Bully for you, i dont need to know the details in a post on Orcs. I got banned for exposing a woman trying to collect donations after she said her bf was killed in Iraq. She flew to america from germany and back in a little over a 2 days having spent on the ground in america 9 hours between 9pm and 6am. When called on the bs of midnight funerals she claimed more bs. A cascade of lies called on and they banned me lol.

I've never trolled.

I said things on the KSL news comments that were totally congruent with my thoughts on this site, and they weren't very well received. I didn't call it trolling, because it was comments on a news story supposedly, not an LDS "church" site.

I know that people here troll the LDS missionary question site, and come back and post their chats. So it's only fair that trolls come here. I just think that they should be run out of town as fast as their are shown to be a troll.

Before I gave myself permission to look at both sides of Mormonism, I NEVER ever looked at any material critical to the church. I totally stayed away from the Bloggernacle. I was more interested in general American history and politics, anyway.

Days after I discovered that the church is not true, while I was surfing the internet, I came upon By Common Consent. I had no clue that there existed Mormons who knew about the church's many problems yet still believed. I couldn't concieve of that.

So, I assumed that the good people on By Common Consent were ignorant of the many issues I had just discovered. Otherwise, they would no longer believe, right?

So I posted a comment on one article informing them of the issues I had just discovered. LOL!!

Immediately I was called "troll" and verbally assaulted and told to go away. What was a troll? I didn't even know.

But I was shocked that they knew what I knew, and could still believe in it all.

I was very naive.

It is not in my nature to be a deceptive, anger-causing, time-wasting attention whore.

+1

I trolled for hotties here for years until Shila came and took me away.

Just sayin'...

Ron

I've been accused of being a troll. I've been banned for being a troll.

I've never actually been a troll.

Edit: Not sure who I replied to. Oops, I just meant to reply to the topic regularly.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2011 10:02AM by snb.

Yes, I often invite the Mormons over, for dinner, feigning intrest in their cockamamie religion, only to engage in pointless trivial intellectual masturbation debates (semantics, cross points, hypothetical moral socratic mumbo jumbo), just to waste their time. They often keep on coming back, until they bore me. But as long as I can keep them away from geniune people they could convert. My work here is done. However, I tire of such immature games though. But oh the questions I'd grill them with, arguing every sentence points the give. Ha ha ha.

brookside Wrote:
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> My story is no different than anyone elses here.

Mr. brookside. Here's the deal.

Most people come here to share information that would be helpful to people leaving the LDS church. Or they come with questions about the LDS church.

Because that is their motives, they are pretty congruent when you compare their comments. There is no hidden agenda.

You on the other hand, are a more refined troll than some. You start out asking questions that seem legit to break the ice and real people in, that is more skillful than some trolls. But then you abandon the seemingly real questions, or information sharing, and start with your real hidden agenda, and start trying to manipulate.

You end up lying, and forgetting what lie you told where. Then when called on it, you offer no explanation for your lies. Then you start attacking someone who points out your lies, and making silly posts like on this thread.

That isn't like everyone else here. It's what a troll does.

You don't treat this site like a place to share information that would be useful for people leaving the LDS church, or ask legitimate questions that a person thinking about leaving would ask. Instead you try to introduce doubt about the quality of life of an apostate in an apparent attempt to make people honestly questioning leaving, have doubts about their leaving.

So not only are you a troll. You are a deceitful, asshole, typical mormon who thinks that any kind of hurtful lying is fine, if it's for the church. You are a scumbag jerk, and homophobic to boot. Fuck off.

I mean, look at the inner "initials" of the moniker... Guy's own subconscious was in there sabotaging him on that one...

And I'm not criticizing, I only just noticed the slip as I was writing an email this afternoon to Brother Timothy on the general subject of trollslaying... He's snowbound right now, and I figured he deserved a "care package."

But "anagrammy as my witness," I pegged "him" after his second post. I even "wrote" a chapter to his "story" (where he introduced the "female romantic lead" and the Temple) before he posted it here...

'Nuff... By the time the "short posts" appeared with silly, "pseudo-challenging" questions, the jury was in for me, and the veridict handed down...

But I kept silent until then...

Cabbies don't have to be rude all the time...

SL Cabbie Wrote:
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> I mean, look at the inner "initials" of the
> moniker... Guy's own subconscious was in there
> sabotaging him on that one...

:)

as the countdown is at 16 minutes left!

He has posted a couple of times on this thread, but admin has removed his comments. What a douche.