"Drive By???" Topic

Okay, maybe I'm not one of the hip kids, but what exactly is a drive by?

Sorry to show my age.

It's kinda like a drive-by shooting, but instead of leaning out the window and spraying bullets before driving away, the poster leans out his window and types up a few inflammatory posts before driving away. Frequently from a disposable user account or a spare/lurking account awakened just for that purpose.

If your talking about generally, it's a reference to a drive-by shooting that sprays bullets with a good chance of injuring innocent bystanders as well as an intended target and shows a distinct lack of juevos. It is looked down upon by hard core incarcerated prisoners and people who are locked up for this behavior are often treated very poorly on the inside. In regards to a site like this, I would imagine it references someone who joins, makes post of highly questionable nature, and disappears.

Oooooo, beaten to the punch!

You would think if they were just a few stupid inflammatory posts that had no merit they would just sit there with a few responses and then the thread would die on its own.

When we're talking about issues such as hate speech and invasion of privacy, even "a few stupid inflammatory posts" are too many.

We've already had three drive-bys this evening, but they were caught quickly and removed.

sigh…

Knuckleheads with too much time on their hands.

Another forum I go to, which isn't a business and so isn't as rapidly moderated, suffers from frequent drive-bys.

It's a pain – people pop up make a few ugly posts and go away, then come back for more a month later and so on.

Basically their fun seems to be (a) stirring up an angry response and (b) trying to ruin the forum. If a small forum regularly has a spate of highly offensive messages or just junk which clogs the forum then the regular users tend to drift away. And someone somewhere chalks up yet another hollow victory.

I imagine their victory celebration looks a bit like this.

As of 6 minutes ago, I am unshackled.

It's getting rather difficult to participate in the TMP community.

Things are locked during my prime posting hours. I'll be over on /r/wargaming if this keeps up.

And Mr. Elmo's response is the kind of response these drive-by-jerks are looking for.

Glad to see the definition of "drive by" in this context…

Mr. Elmo, I admit it does suck. Unfortunately, people feel the need to try and publicly humiliate others, thus leading to this lockdown. I think if people would just talk and honestly try to help others it would be a better place for all involved.

I hope these lock downs won't happen on a regular basis. I also usually post at that time.

Now he doesn't even need to actually post here, he can just threaten in another forum and shut TMP down? Sounds counter productive.