GB You're making the assumption that a person is either a troll or isn't.
It's not that clear cut.

you want to know why the sopsych thing lasted so long, it's because people wanted it to.
I was perfectly happy answering his questions, if others were annoyed by his posts they had no reason to respond.
The mods are always being asked to be held up to a standard, I see nothing wrong with expecting it from members too.

Shan't.

We're adults and I will continue to expect and encourage us to act like them in the face of obvious schoolyard behaviour.

It is vital that we examine our own behaviour and make changes to it to account for the fact that we can't affect the behaviour of anybody else. That's how change works. It comes from within.

So people wanted 40 pages of shitstorm? Really?

If they didn't, they'd have stepped out of the thread and ignored it or tried to mediate it, which as many people did as didn't.

Oh please, why else would people keep coming back to that thread.

I see you post in these type of threads more often than any others with massive long detailed posts, you can't tell me the reason for that is 100% because you care so much about this place.

You like a bit of verbal sparring, everybody does that's why we're here. It doesn't matter if it's about music, or totally pointless. And getting to act all self righteous afterwards is just a bonus.

dude sopsych was a blip on the radar, it was one thread of a forum filled with thousands i am sure this forum has seen worse, lord knows ive seen worse elsewhere

I must have missed the memo that a crowd full of people telling someone to shut up, is actually a secret code for "Please, by all means keep talking, we're enjoying this"

That wasn't exactly what I was suggesting. Ultimately, there was a better way to deal with the situation, which I think many people participating were aware of, but chose not to undertake in favour of publicly disproving/shaming the user as punishment instead. People don't enjoy drama, they enjoy being right.

Not to mention both of your solutions seem to be "Don't worry, let this person turn a formerly productive thread into page after page of crap. As long as you don't respond, all that'll happen is that formerly productive thread will die a shithole! But at least we won't blame YOU for it!"

If you ignore them, they'll stop posting. Even if they don't, eliminating half of the arguing reduces the drama by a factor of at least half.