Does Anyone Find It Odd...?

I have been working on sorting out what is going on around here the last month or so.

Have you noticed that all these "new" members are answering each others' questions, giving each other BAs and agreeing with each other? Have you noticed that almost all of them have their profile and pulse settings on fully private? What newbie to any section of answers knows to do that? What "newbie" isn't all excited about the "answers experience", getting stars and BAs and contacts? Obviously, most of these low level accounts don't want any contacts, or fans, they know better.

They aren't all anti-catholic either, there are several "groups" of them. Some are posing as Christians, and some as atheists. A few are being polite and just working at leveling all their accounts up, some are baiting the rest of us in various underhanded ways.

You're blocked because that's how they mark you so they can find you easily on the boards if you ask a question. I suggest you make sure your profile AND pulse settings are on private, I leave my email open, but, people have to email me to connect with me and they can't see my "activity".

These dummy accounts that have flooded the place lately are easy to spot, once you know what to look for, I would suggest blocking them back, they're tattle simians looking for people to gang up on.

Think about it, 7 or 8 lower level accounts can take out a level 6 or 7 with a little effort.

Everyone thinks the place is crawling with simians, and that it's "the other side" doing it. When it's really a very few with an organized plan and lots of dummy accounts. In fact, if you find hard evidence of this it needs to be reported. Playing around and getting frisky while using answers is one thing, this sort of organized attack on the structure and experience of the place is quite another.

These people want to drive out EVERYONE they don't agree with or who disagrees with them, or they just plain don't like. They have managed to turn us ALL against each other, it wasn't hard, especially in R&S, we all have strong opinions, that's why we're here. Up till about 7 or 8 weeks ago everything was pretty normal, now we are all, literally, at each others' throats . We have to think about what is going on, put aside our differences for a little while and stand together against this.

Or, let them have their way and turn this in to "their private forum where everyone agrees with them".

No. I hardly come around here anymore because the hate just keeps getting worse on here. I used to come here for mature discussions. There were only a few hacks who tried to interfere. Now, the place is loaded with hatred, report monkeys, trolls, etc. I don't see an influx of Anti-Catholicism. I see an influx of hate focused on multiple groups.

Basically now I just answer questions that my contacts ask or answer. If not, I answer questions from long time members.

I have, particularly with Angry Candy. All the more reason why we come here to set the facts straight (even if it means constant thumbs down to the point where someone has to click the show option because our answer was given a "low rating"). I've also noticed an increase in the number of accusations of us reporting answers ("because we don't want the truth to be found out"). I don't report any questions, even if they are an easy violation. I would rather take the challenge and defend God's truth, and I'm more than happy to do that.

<<Does Anyone Find <snip> last 15 days?>>

Not really.

I've been here long enough to notice that influxes of new anti-Catholics, and flash floods of anti-Catholic postings, happen in cycles.

<<I mean, half <snip> from the question!>>

Either it's the same old customers with new YA! identies/accounts, or it's new people who have been forwarned to block certain people.

<<Has anyone else noticed this happening?>>

I haven't been on here as much lately. I'm still on alot, but not as much. It's summer, I'm outside more, and seriously think even anti-Catholics need to consider getting some rays as well.

It could be a couple of things. The point gaming is, I think, to enable more voting accounts and to do it as quickly as possible.

I have noticed in real life a zeal to convert people to "the true faith" among fundamentalist Christians. A guy I knew who'd never had religion was suddenly the most enthusiastic Baptist you've ever seen in your life and any time he'd convince someone to attend his church, just to try it out, he was emailing other friends from the church, practically ecstatic that they'd brought another soul to Jesus. I have to be really skeptical of things like that. It just sounds way too cultish to me.

And because the fundamentalist mindset is so black vs. white, to quote George W. Bush, "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists." No. There are shades of gray in this world, and just because someone is not a fundamentalist Christian it doesn't mean they're "unbelievers," or worse, minions of Satan.

I mean, they COMPLETELY overlook the fact that there were Christians on this earth hundreds of years before they were. And if you point out that those Christians were Catholics, you're going to get barrages of hate and ignorance fired at you.

Thanks Aleria, I haven't Used YA seriously for half a year, and this question and these answers have got me wanting to defend freedom of speech. There has always been an anti-Catholic Christianity on here and it's disturbing and needs to be rebuked. This is a great freedom of speech forum here on Yahoo Answers and there must be ways to maintain it.

I've only blocked one person ever and it was because what he wrote had a lot of crude language in it. I thought R&S was set up so people of all religions could discuss things openly without judgment.

I couldn't agree with darling Witchy more, pumpkin. There's no influx of exclusively anti-Catholic posters - there's an influx of level 1s who bait and block and report and point-game. I've seen more poisonously nasty posts about atheists than I've seen in a long time recently, and they've been posting similarly horrible crap about Catholics and other groups...and they've been getting a shamefully high number of people willing to participate in their game of slagging off other belief systems.

Very often, these folks will encounter you in a question they've asked or answered under one name, and then block you on all their accounts. They also share information - block lists, questions to vote on and answers to vote for, people or questions to target or report - within their little groups, so you may be on some kind of list.

When they block you, you aren't notified, as you would be if they added you as a contact, but it gives them a way to access your activity - they just have to go to their blocked list, click your profile, and, if it is public, they can see what questions you ask and answer, and they can report them at their leisure, without making themselves as obvious as they would if they had added you as a contact. If your network is public, they can see who your contacts are, to see who else they can block and track.

They are trying to remove anyone they don't like from here, to turn it into their own little ego-stroking, bias-justifying yes-fest.

As darling Witchy says, we can either put aside our differences and resist these people, or we can just hand R&S over to them to turn it into their own little playground.

Personally, I vote to resist.

Well, the resident Catholic-hater "I'm a pastor" Chris (or whatever his name is now) got 95% of his accounts murdered, in the past few weeks, so he's on an anonymous quest to create new ones and increase their levels. So they could be him.

Yes, I have. The Christian position is to be honest and truthful, so, obviously, these haters are not Christian.

EDIT: Lennie gives every indication of being one of our illegitimate pastor's accounts. We seeeee yooouuuuu, Garrett!