You do talk some bollocks, Dart.
Let's try to keep this on a reasonable level.
In the first place, if you have someone antagonising or bullying people for their own amusement, do you really think that having others laughing and encouraging them is detracting from their fun?
I don't know what you're talking about here. I'm talking about trolls. People who try to get a rise out of people - and who don't necessarily mean anything they say.
Declaring that you think they're not doing much harm and that they're fun in their own way is discouraging, not encouraging.
It's extremely basic psychology. They want to get a rise out of you - but instead, you deflate the situation and play along in a very limited way. That's frustrating and quite the opposite of what they're looking for.
It might be the case that if a troll gets no negative reaction from anyone at all that he will lose interest. But, as you are so fond of pointing out, people are human, and if you antagonise them enough, someone is going to respond eventually. You might consider that stupid, but it is also stupid not to predict that it will happen. Once the troll has even one person's feelings to feed on, a gang of others providing even more attention by providing praise and laughter is hardly going to deter him. No, it's not rocket science - it's psychology. A disturbed person seeking attention doesn't really care what form that attention takes.
As I said, not making it into a big deal and remaining calm is, in my experience, the best way to discourage this behavior.
You've changed "he's fun in his own way" into "he's entertaining" - because you missed the context. To me, it was obvious that Myrthos was saying he was a harmless little troll that was occasionally a bit amusing. That's discouraging - and I'm willing to bet that if CelticFrost and people like you would react the same way - it would be very discouraging.
I don't remember saying "praising and laughing" was a smart way to do it, though I'm not clear what situation we're referring to here.
But yes, people are often stupid - and as such, stupid things are going to happen.
There's no solution except to not be stupid in those situations, but that's not a guarentee.
Part of Watch policy is to be quite lax and tolerant, and that means some trolls have more leeway around here. I like that, because I haven't seen any alternative that's better for my preferences.
So, until such time as I see a better alternative, I willing support that position.
Secondly, a strategy of completely ignoring a troll and starving him of all attention may be your best option - if you are stuck with him. But, if you manage the forum, why would you not simply shut him down, when it is so obvious that someone is going to get upset sooner or later, and the ignoring strategy will fail?
Because Watch policy is to be tolerant.
If you shut people down for trolling ASAP, you're going to have a lot of grey area situations that will get shut down prematurely or unfairly - and there's a real risk the Watch will turn into a rigid place with a much less colorful set of posters.
If you want that to happen, then I can see your point.
CelticFrost had a major reaction which was obviously based on a very current personal experience.
Is it ok to let him, personally, decide who's going to be shut down - or should it be a moderator decision influenced by the majority?
That said, once a troll crosses the line - which is currently a moderator decision - then I think it's absolutely correct to shut him down. They've done it many times before - and they'll do so again when they think someone crosses the line.