[Chicka]

I'm gonna go with abacab here. See, you might think that these people are stupid, but really that is not the thing that defines their condition at all. People can be really really smart and yet be anti social to an extreme, some of the biggest assholes I have met were also smart.

Take this to the geek level. Geeks are not necessarily nice timid folk folk that you can bully, especially when you find them on the net. YOU ARE IN THEIR WORLD NOW.

So, trust them when they say you cannot stop them. It is true, all that can be done is to limit their exposure, and that my friends, is a sorry ass job that I do not envy our unpaid, and overburdened GMs.

As far as forums go, well, you know, the best method I have ever seen for dealing with trolls is to silence them. Not ban them, silence. What this means is they can post away, but the only people who ever see their posts is them. It takes a while to figure out.

In game, as in forums, free is the home for the cheater and the griefer, free online means infinite lives to those people.

My very first steps in online play was chess. That fine game of intellect, strategy, tactics, and yes, no small amount of memory for book opening moves. How could that be belittled? Answer: bots, players with chess programs, players who messed with timers just before games began, you name it. A game of dignity reduced to trash on the internet. A game where once at a certain level, good opponents are few and far between - the internet was a godsend, and then ultimately a massive disappointment.

More wine please, at least one more bottle.