Ignoring them doesn’t work.. The way these few posters go about their trolling completely derails the thread, -and since the ignore feature only removes that OP's post and not the people quoting him it's more of a hindrance than anything. Even more confusing is that if you use tapatalk it doesn't show their post at all (rather than showing it but flagged as 'ignored') so you just see the quarreling back and forth and have no idea what started it... So you just leave the thread without helping since it's just not worth the drama.
Furthermore, once the troll has done this most of the regulars have been crapped on or called out by troll and the thread is essentially dead - so the OP doesn't get their question answered since the regulars won't (can't) reply to the troll and thus just avoid the threads that have been derailed.
Without specifically calling out the members doing this, it's always a carefully worded first post that derails the entire thread. Take a look at the Audi R8 billboard thread, and see if you can pick out the post that caused it. These same few posters use the exact same 'derailment topics' (their specific car we're all beyond sick of hearing about, or the difference between US and UK vehicles) and get the EXACT same results every single time. In OT or even the tech sections of our forum this isn't a huge deal and can actually promote discussion. Specifically in the garage it ends up diluting the content and resulting in our regulars not participating and helping. This is, to me, a very sad thing.
All of this being said, these few select posters have gotten so bad lately that they've created an atmosphere for themselves where it's clear that we don't want them here in the garage. No one wants to see their posts, even if legit, after all the baiting and harassment and talking down of our extremely helpful regular members. They've shown a pattern of providing no substance and only using the garage as their trolling playhouse, so when they actually need some help they're essentially run off.
Now, the real issue is how to deal with it. In my opinion these specific posters do need to be watched closer than the other members, and TRULY punished when they obviously derail a thread... A 2 week+++ ban from ATG every time a thread is even seemingly intentionally derailed would put a stop to it quickly and more importantly force them to stop this trollish posting style.
I feel like the current solution of making everyone else ignore the one troll is similar to telling a bunch of high schooler to ignore a bully. It just won’t work.. We have too many members that come in and out who just don’t know about it, and too many regulars who are fed up with it.
In my personal opinion these 1 (or 2) specific trolls should be banned from ATG, decided on by either the mods outright or a vote by a few of the regulars (jlee, dunlop, I know I'm missing a bunch but we have 10-15 really good regular posters that could serve as 'board members' or something for the vote).
There is nothing at all wrong with our moderation or posting styles, nothing wrong with our content, language, or anything else. This is a great place and I think it would be a terrible thing to say we "have to stay 100% on topic" like L&R or create ANY other 'rules' just to stop these few select people from ruining the forum.
Edited to fix font size problem
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