Need advice on coping with single-issue flamers spammers.

[UTUSN]

This discussion thread was locked by EarlG (a host of the DU Community Help forum).

I don't want to name the single-issue here because it will spur the couple of flamers to do their thing. Actually, I agree with them on the broader dangers of the subject phenomenon, but there is a moderate side where the main content is not pernicious, but it's all or nothing to the inquisitors. They spoil every innocuous thread, highjack it, flame, harass, and personally attack the posters.

When one of them, who has been well thought of for years, first went on the tirade in one of my posts, I first responded with the moderate explanations inside the public thread, but they kept up the tirade, then I asked politely and privately in a DM that they stop, which only got a LONG conversion type sermon on the topic, so I DMed that they STOP. No, they don't stop, ending with my having to subject myself to the embarrassment of posting it in the public thread. They don't stop.

I have never used the Ignore feature because, for me, it's better to know what's out there than not to know; knowledge is power. And I have tried to use the guideline SKINNER laid out, that we should attempt to negotiate to solve our interactional problems with one another - doesn't work with these. And I seldom use Alert, in this case hard to fit these one-issue things into category - Civility, Spam, Don't Divide Us, what?

Their one issue is *large* and worldwide and not fixable on an internet board by a few posters. The couple of flamers here no concept that they cannot convert (apart from the core agreement) everybody, and relentlessly do long, LONG tirades that will not be read, much less convert.