[Recoveringhobo]

We have this debate over and over again in r/berkeley, a community which I used to be an active part of. Essentially, every time Berkeley makes national news the sub gets brigaded by TD. Some of those trolls stick around and then post tired tirades anytime there is something remotely political on the sub. And some of them even try to pose as Berkeley students.

Almost everyone on the sub is tired of the constant brigading and would like more active moderation of the trolls. The main moderator refuses to do anything and has similar views to your own, thinking that we should welcome them with open arms. This has the effect where Berkeley students and residents can't even talk about things affecting their community as they get drowned out by the mass of right-wing trolls. And this usually comes at times when its most crucial for there to be an avenue for Berkeley students/residents to have a platform to speak with each other (e.g. protests, riots, local political issues).

[Zak]

I had similar issues running /r/ronpaul where there was a sustained, concerted effort by opponents to disrupt the conversation. One of said opponents went on to found /r/the_donald.

It's fairly hard to ban people on a site where account creation is as easy as it is on reddit. Moderator tools have improved a little since, but remain inadequate for dealing with sustained brigading.