Earlier this week I wrote a diary called "MyDD has officially gone to hell" in which I lamented what has happened to the conversations on this site.  I said in that diary that it is no longer possible to make civil political arguments without being personally insulted and troll-rated. And I said that it was getting worse.

That was Wednesday.  Well, it's worse now than it was on Wednesday.

Before approximately one month or so ago, in five years of posting on DK, this site, and Open Left, I had literally hundreds of up-ratings and had never received a single troll rating on any of the three sites.  Now I have received so many troll ratings that I have lost my Trusted User status.

I haven't changed.  I still make a strong effort to write and communicate civilly.  I'm not perfect at it, and some people are better at it than I am, but I'm pretty damned good at staying calm and rational.  I know I am not earning most of the frequent troll ratings I am getting.

The most irritating thing about losing my long-held TU status is that I no longer can see who zero-rated my posts.  I have a problem with that.

Check out Jonathan's front-page post this afternoon on "birdgate."  The troll ratings on that diary are absolutely ridiculous, not just as applied to me, but to a lot of other posters.  Dissent is not allowed.

Please, mods, please--either get serious about policing this site or just disable comments.  It's open war out there, and for sure this is hurting both candidates.

Let's see if My DD members act like DKos members would to this post!

CHUM 1 "ch um" informal, noun: a poster that seeks out controversial diaries or comments in order to make inflammatory statements and then troll rate anyone who stands up to them. Often seen impersonating a Progressive, they can be found in packs, usualy kissing each other's rectums and convincing themselves that they are not acting like a NeoCon. CHUMS are well known for being given a tiny amount of power only to abuse it on a consistent basis.

Well, the abusive CHUMs at DKos have managed to troll me right out of there. At least it appears that way. I can't edit my own diaries or post comments. BooHooHoo. I'm curious to know from the users here if many have had the same experience when they've stood up to the small group that seems to feel they can do as they please because they have the power (virtual though it may be) to troll rate. I don't care about not being there, I was rarely there as it was and so lost my Trusted User Status. But I have noticed a pattern from my first days. Someone posts a comment or a diary that people don't like. Not one that could be considered trollish as defined by Dkos, and then the CHUMs show up. These are those on DKos that are the true trolls. They troll around and seem to gravitate toward the diaries that are getting the most hits, most often than not because of a flame war created by these same sycophants.