The M.O. is always the same. Some oh-so-sincere poster arrives on a 9/11 related message board drawing attention to some research.
It usually starts with calls for civility and a ‘fair hearing of the facts.’
But soon it appears that ‘the facts’ are suspiciously weak - and their conclusions and suppositions are even weaker.
The debate usually devolves into a nearly impenetrable and unreadable quagmire of details that seem more designed to create the APPEARANCE of authentic debate, while simultaneously confusing and burying any attempts to focus the conversation on the most salient points. The discussion will invariably widen and widen and become more and more diffused with cross talk and cross accusations.
Whereas most sincere debates usually work towards distilling the key issues down into a few manageable concepts – attempting to focus on the character and disposition of the opposing viewpoints – a shill debate usually does the opposite, utilizing overly verbose responses that seem to avoid the key issues, while introducing multiple unrelated and unnecessary subject threads. These unrelated and unnecessary threads are usually peppered with personalized comments and hot-button topics guaranteed to draw in additional posters and raise indignation and the frustration level of those who are foolish enough to get sucked in.
The shill debater will then play innocent and make over-handed appeals and overtures for civility, and accuse those he has frustrated of not addressing ‘the facts.’
Can we just stick to the facts guys?
And there are usually very few.
There are usually two or three recurring themes that the shill debater will use – such as the 13 witnesses at the Pentagon – which the shill debater will constantly fall back on – yet sidestep when pressed. He will keep using these recurring themes – asking the same questions over and over and over again – while ignoring or refusing to accept solid rational answers and viewpoints.
“If you will JUST address the issue of the 13 witnesses … hrmpff hrmpfff….â€
And then the cycle starts anew. Both sincere and insincere contributors to the thread will agree to engage in a temporary détente, and focus on the issue at hand. They will apologize for allowing things to get out of hand. They will make vows to stick to the issues. The shill will admit to a few minor inconsistencies in his posts, perhaps apologize for over-reacting and insulting others.
The sincere posters will bend over backwards to craft responses that are overly obsequious in their civility and reasonableness. Careful logic is laid out in no-nonsense terms - and specific sources and links are provided.
But the shill cherry picks thru their posts, providing only partial responses to partial statements, and in some cases responses to questions that were never really asked, while once again widening and widening the debate to include peripheral comments and issues.
Once again – instead of distilling the debate down to the few areas of disagreement – the shill will muddy the waters with wider and wider areas of focus. The shill may post 3 or 4 posts in a row, with paragraph after paragraph after paragraph of dense unreadable unrelated details that are designed to sound important, but create an insurmountable apex of semantics for the sincere posters to scale and respond to.
Frustrations flair. And again – the shill asks why people just can’t stick to the facts and be civil. LOL
What’s wrong with you people anyway? LOL!!!
I, for one, marvel at this formula. Threads become 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 pages long – off topic – dense and unreadable – while the shill maintains his little victim routine and the message board is essential hijacked.
Its almost a SPORT. One can imagine these shills congratulating themselves for being able to pull it off – at such great length – for weeks on end – while the posters remain transfixed and mesmerized by their own inability to put their egos in check and accept that there IS NO WINNING at this game.
There will be no ultimate “AH HA!!†moment. There will be no ultimate smoking gun that will silence the shill. He will simply bury you with words.
And you lose – simply by playing the game.
But even worse – visitors to these forums only see the surface – and it is a pretty ugly and embarrassing adolescent display to ride the top of a message board for weeks.
Really.