I love coming across threads that are moving along nicely when they're suddenly derailed into a stupid argument about some nonsensical premise.

Why do I love this? Because it tells me that, once again, mute has saved me from having to waste my time reading an idiot.

I used to log out every now and then to see what I might have missed, but I could usually gather what the post was about by seeing the responses, and the posts were invariably either totally without merit, an obvious deliberate troll, or written by someone who is incapable of backing up their viewpoint.

"But Strat", you say, "what if the moron has a good point for once?"

Would you let a millionaire sodomize you five or six times a day on the off chance he'll drop a $20? There are so many *good* sources of information that it's hard to keep up with *them* - continuing to put up with an annoyance solely because they might not be annoying on occasion is just silly.

"But you let them win by ignoring them. "

Actually I don't. The people in ignore invariably crave attention, either because they're trolling, they feel a Duty to Educate the Ignorant, they derive pleasure from negative attention, ect. The most effective way to irritate them is to *not take them seriously*, as they believe they are worthy of attention. Writing their little posts and getting zero feedback is like... Writing a five paragraph offer of alliance to a power in diplomacy, and being completely ignored. It's frustrating, it makes them feel they're wasting their time, and it makes that little insecure voice they all have in the back of their heads remind them how unimportant they are - and likely always will be