I've tried.... really I have

wisteria53 · February 2011

First I tried not reading any threads started by Tollington Tom.
Then I tried to avoid any posts started by others where Tollington Tom had added his comments.
I even tried weaning myself off StroudGreen.org (didn't quite last a week as had to have a peek to see what the regulars were up to).

Tollington Tom's posts stand out as weird and alien. They have shifted the balance from the eclectic, anarchic and informational community website postings (sometimes wildly off-topic) to odd fantasy ravings that often stop conversations completely.

Come back Slabber, all is forgiven? Or maybe it will be me getting banned from the site for getting personal?

Sad (and driven crazy), but I ♥ N4 still
wisteria53

miss annie · February 2011

I wish that there was Facebook style 'like' box that I could click on here. You have captured my feelings in a nutshell. I'm also very jealous that you can make little hearts @wisteria53.

Brodiej · February 2011

I don' think there are any rules are there? As far as i can see, he hasn't been particularly rude (if at all) while others are regularly. Yes, the posts are really quite random and half the time i'm never quite sure what he's getting at (and i think thats intentional)....but, all you have to do is filter off what you don't want to hear or aren't interested in....its a skill that this site develops for you i'm afraid.

A typical discussion before TT would go something like "i like Porchetta", "no, i like Papagone", "the staff are rude", "we had a great time", "please read the 500 threads discussing the merits of pizza shops on SGR before posting", "well f*ck you, i didn't know there was another post", "does anyone know where i can find a good plumber".....blah, blah, blah. I'm guilty of boring everyone to death about parking charges. TT managed to link my tirade to an episode of the flumps...which while was lame, was mildly creative

TT is a prolific poster, and SGR isn't that an interesting a place....i'm sure he'll get bored. However, the olympics aren't until 2012 so you never know! :-)

Kreuzkav mentioned bullying on here earlier in the week. Don't think thats the case, but it does feel like the new kid has entered the playground has got shit clothes, pink hair (by Vitor), and smells a bit so we don't like him and he's weird. Not ok for kids, not for adults either. Grow up everyone.

ShaunG · February 2011

@brodiej - surely that's a bit harsh. If you were to ask me which of the posts in this thread had a bullying tone, it would be your one. But sg.org is a resilient and i think tolerant community and can generally cope with these episodes (slabber as mentioned, TNH, and others no doubt) without having to hound people out. Mind you, if anything were to drive me over the edge it would be another bloody flumps reference.

emine · February 2011

Can I make the opposite case? I ALWAYS read posts or comments by TollingtonTom, which invariably make me laugh out loud. Slabber was antagonistic, TNH unreadable, but I think TT is charmingly bonkers.

I mainly use this site for news about SG and local information; I include boring stuff about CPZs and numbers for plumbers in that category. (Although now I come back to check what TT has been up to.) Others like a whinge, others like a chat, others want YOU TO EAT BEST PIZZA IN AREA, others like to shoehorn references to the Flumps in to every thread. I think there's room for us all.

Emma · February 2011

I do try to filter out TT posts - I appreciate some may find them funny, but I just find them boring. I think the idea is to wind people up, so in that sense it's working. People, eh.

andy · February 2011

What Emine said. Personally, I find the some of the long undergraduate political point scoring (oh you've read Derrida, well I've read Foucault * 2000 words) a bit wearing on posts about where to get my shoes fixed. But other people like them, so I'm not sure who I am to ask it stop. No-one is to everyone's taste and I'm sure we'd rather be inclusive rather than cliquey.

checkski · February 2011

I agree with Emine. Especially as TT is NOT a bully, unlike many another poster here - although he did once offer a neat retort to Miss Cara's - what shall we call it? - criticism, but since it was in Latin nobody, including me, understood it. It was worth a google.

His posts are immensely entertaining, and refreshing, after all the usual stuff. He IS bonkers, delightfully so, but in a different register from eg Philistine's craziness. TT is subtle. He slyly persuades us that he has a wife called Dorcas, a son (-in-law?) called the same, but minus the first and last letters, a brother-in-law who is a Chinese vet, that Checkski is a woman. Recurring oblique references to Lorne Road, Flumps (whatever they are), St 'Meltius' (deliberate misspelling?), St Marks, festivals, etc, are, I'm convinced, the outposts of his inner fantasy world. Only the saintly Vitor has some substance.

For TT is a fiction writer, and a bloody good one. He can swell into eloquence,but with his tongue, as ever, firmly in his cheek. He is always cheerful and good-natured. And funny. We are lucky to have him.

Emma · February 2011

Also, I think it can hardly be called bullying to voice an opinion on someone who only comes on here to make joke posts - it's like saying you're bullying Ali G, it's a persona. Not a very funny persona, that's all.

Ali · February 2011

TT is okay if not a bit of the wall He did say thank you to me a couple of weeks ago!

David · February 2011

What Andy said. TT is welcome but I reserve the right to tell him he's getting on my tits. I don't consider that bullying. He's most definitely not 'immensely entertaining' but hey, if I hit the banned button for everyone I thought that about this would be my blog rather than a forum, with comments turned off. On a side note, in the new version of Vanilla there is a facebook style 'like/vote' widget thing for popular posts. Something I'll roll out on here once TT has stopped getting on my tits and I consequently have the will to do it.

Brodiej · February 2011

@ ShawnG. I didn't like the fact that people were being plain rude when for intents and purposes TT was just adding his points (be them in a rather unique style, and probably to fire all the haters...i don't know?).

To start a thread about him was out of order, and to me like the analogy about the new weird kid at school.

I'm glad to see he has some fans, because it seemed that everything he said was getting cut down..... not that he appears to care.

I'm still not going to Vitors though

andy · February 2011

Threads about other users are among the very few we've ever deleted. In this instance, I think TT is a big man and would love stirring up the debate, so we'll leave it up. Unless he's not happy. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was the alternate persona of another poster, but such is the internet.

andy · February 2011

I think Kanye says it best:

Screams from the haters, got a nice ring to it
I guess every superhero need his own theme music

tosscat · February 2011

I have a policy of skipping posts longer than a couple of paragraphs therefore skipping the boring political debate, nostalgic whimsy, and what is, effectively, the same unamusing repost.

tosscat · February 2011

I love the use of haters though.

Emma · February 2011

@andy, I think "no one man should have all that power" also applies to this thread.

Kanye is an N4 prophet, clearly.

ADGS · February 2011

KaN4 West.

See also Jesus Walks (Too Slowly In The Station Tunnel).

Emma · February 2011

Everybody knows I'm in motherfuckin' N4.

Arkady · February 2011

Though I tend to strongly sympathise with those who have ‘reserved the right’ to call an arse an arse, and have sometimes exercised it myself (and with poor judgement at times), surely this particular thread is an example of feeding the troll? I had thought that people had started to successfully ignore his ramblings entirely (even, as Wisteria notes, at the expense of allowing threads to wither and die), but that seems to have lapsed in recent days. If behaviour of this kind (pointless repetitive lying) happened in the ‘real world’ you would simply remove yourself from the presence of the perpetrator, and disallow them from returning. Short of an ignore function (which would be very welcome) that can’t easily be done on an open forum. I sympathise with our moderators, who have to balance trying to be objective with wanting to express their own subjective (and sometimes unfairly snide and curiously repetitive) thoughts. I shall return to ignoring the troll.

Ali · February 2011

Arkady I like your comment about "removing yourself from the presence of the perpetrator" because that is certianly what is happening to the LibDems

Arkady · February 2011

*snore*

Ali · February 2011

nothing like a good vibration of respiratory structures

emine · February 2011

@ADGS, see also Drive Slow (by the Upper Tollington Park zebra crossing)

Oh dear, look what you've started Andy!

andy · February 2011

I am So Appalled

Ian · February 2011

I'm in the harmless and just skip over his comments camp. If it were used sparingly I'd find it whimsy and readable. The sheer volume grinds me down a bit, mainly as it breaks up conversations, but it isn't malicious, is reasonably well written. I have a theory he was trying to tempt the local papers into printing made up stories on the basis of "fierce discussions" on this site. We should have let him - they I would have got at least some derived enjoyment from their inability to check facts.

pie eater · February 2011

flump=trump

Philistine'sMonster · February 2011

I skip all comments until I get to mine cos I'm the best. I've got all the Weetabix Doctor Who cards, too. The whole. Fucking. Set.

miss annie · February 2011

Now that is impressive. Do they depict all the Doctors or just recent incarnations?

Philistine'sMonster · February 2011

Nope. Tom Baker. Ends with Baker. Got 'em in the '70s. Typhoo tea did a collection, too. Can never open a pack of Typhoo without being transported back to 1978. Who needs a fucking TARDIS to time travel when you can sniff a box of tea?

kreuzkav · February 2011

I think the forum is great and generally well managed. As someone said on here earlier, there's a place for different views, complaints and humour, among other things. The forum avoids all the text-talk of other forums and the threads are generally well-written, despite what some of the pedantic grammar snobs think.

I think the one thing that irks me is the' self-elected elite' on here. I think a few of them have got off their thrones over the last few months, but others still remain. They have such self-importance and feel no one can transgress their views without a campaign of hate that will last forever. These are the people who need to grow up and get over themselves, not the quirky and mad with life people of Stroud Green.

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