Herons

In rec.ponds Benign Vanilla wrote:

"Roy" wrote in message
...
Shoot the darn thing and be done with it..
snip

So is this what you consider good advice for newbies?

Hmm, go on vacation, come back to find a troll named Roy has taken up
residence. BV, don't bother replying to Roy. The more people that do reply
to him (particularly "ah" with the autoreply, that's utterly pointless and
just ups the signal to noise ratio), the more he will post. I regular
another newsgroup that has had a resident troll for years. For the most
part, newbies quickly recognize that the person is a troll by the nature
of his postings. The more the regulars ignore the resident troll, the less
clutter the newsgroup has. The threads that have the worst signal to noise
ratio are the ones where people reply to the troll there. Seeing similar
trends here when perusing the old messages for the last couple of weeks.
Just hold to the old "wait and count to 10" adage when you feel tempted to
reply.

Although in this case it is worthwhile to point out that what Roy has
"suggested" is illegal under the migratory bird act. Which is another
point in favor of labeling him a troll.