I believe the main troll in the BNP thread is a disgruntled member and he doesn't give much of a shit about the BNP. Just wants to piss off those who pissed him off. Hence, you have the Mudcat multiple identities, the Wikipedia vandal and the Facebook identity thief. Same guy (I believe) with only the motivation that Mudcat wasn't the 'nice' place he wanted it to be.

Max once said something like "Don't get angry. Anger turns to hatred, and hatred leads to the Dark Side". Pinched it out of Star Wars, but it's true. The worst assholes at Mudcat are the ones whose affection for this place and the people here has been turned. Hell hath no fury like a Mudcatter scorned.

As for the 'problem', I think there are two main problems

People think just because they have a right to say something about whatever bothers them, they should. Sometimes, yes, but I wish people would ask themselves if what they want to say will make things worse. Too often these days, I think the reply to that would be "I don't care. I feel like I have to say it, and if you don't like it, you can fuck off."

People also seem to get their buttons pushed with some regularity, and the disruptors around here know it. There are troll sluts here who just lie back and say "Do me... piss me off, baby--I'm all yours." Again, no consideration for anybody but themselves. People have absolutely no resistance, and it doesn't bother them that they're so easy.

I look into Usenet every once in a while. The same attempts at trolling are made there, but people usually ignore them. I wonder why ignoring trolls in a completely unmoderated forum works and Mudcat is so hopeless.

One other thing that helps me: I don't have any control over what other people do here. If I sense myself trying to bitch or whine YET AGAIN over the same people doing the same annoying shit, I remind myself I have no control over them, they aren't thinking of me or anyone else when they post and likely don't care if it bothers me or anyone else.

Some of us have such a big problem because we remember Mudcat being better, and it was. In some places, it still is really good, but it's never going back to the way it was. Max once said that Mudcat is whatever people make it, and we just have too many people here that like all the negative stuff and too many who can't see anything else.