Energy Creatures are not interested in contributing to a community or a conversation, they are only present to suck energy from. This is how they exist, by sucking the energy out of a room or a board. Thus, if you Do Not Feed the Energy Creature, it will die of malnutrition and go away. In theory.

eta: I think the original reference was to an episode of the original Outer Limits, in which a creature from the fourth dimension, pure energy, slipped into this dimension. It fed on any sort of energy, electrical, biological, etc., killing wherever it touched. Scientists discovered the only way to stop it was by suspending it in a vacuum, where it could not feed, and either died, or slipped back into its own dimension.

I just did a search for "feed 'energy creature'" on Google and got tons of useful hits.

[link] is a Star Trek comic in which the EC appears.

This guy gives the following explanation:

An Energy Creature is a person who posts messages that are stupidly provocative, who will say almost anything with the sole intention of arousing anger, sadness, or other forms of pain. It is inspired by the old Star Trek (original series) episode where an "energy creature" trapped a bunch of Klingons and Federation crewman on the Enterprise, took all their advanced weapons away, and prodded them into constantly fighting in hand-to-hand combat. The Energy Creature then fed off their anger and rage and pain. They only defeated it by laughing at it and ignoring it.

Aha. Similar creatures, then, but different series. Interesting.

We called trolls "bezoars" at the Bronze, after the creatures in bad eggs that latched onto a host's back in order to control the host.

Hmmm, guess I'm slacking as a Trekkie here. I always assumed the "energy creatures" nomenclature derived from the id-controlled energy monster in Forbidden Planet.

We called trolls "bezoars" at the Bronze, after the creatures in bad eggs that latched onto a host's back in order to control the host.

It's an appropriate Buffy ref, but I've never been able to get over the names of the creatures in the ep since the word "bezoar" basically means "hairball".

Not that that's a bad term for trolls either, now that I think of it.

The Star Trek thing makes a lot of sense though, what with the feeding off the conflict aspect.

EDIT: If we want a Buffy-specific reference, it should be "Do Not Feed The Yoko Factor [Creature]".

We called trolls "bezoars" at the Bronze, after the creatures in bad eggs that latched onto a host's back in order to control the host.

And then a bunch of ex-Pat Bronzers coined the phrase Pfisters after Norman Pfister (one of "The Three") in What's My Line - because it more aptly described those pests that aren't strictly trolls or bezoars. The Pfister looks human, and can even act human, but he's really just a pile of maggots underneath, and sooner or later, after he makes his way into your home, he's going to devolve and get in your hair, up your ass and even duct tape won't keep him out. There's not enough Raid in the world...

Do I get bonus points for knowing that the name of the original Star Trek episode with the energy creature is "Day of the Dove"? No?

I just wanted to add my perspective on how I use the board. I basically have used it for discussion of the shows, since the highly literate discussion has encouraged me to crank up my rusty critical faculties. I try to follow what's going on in Natter, but have never been able to really participate much, even back in the WX days, because I could never keep up. Now that is even more true. I just try to keep up with the show threads these days, and the Two Towers thread, since I am such a Tolkien fan. I don't feel that I'm on the outside looking in, though, because the right-side threads keep me updated.

FWIW, I first came across DNFtEC on GEnie. I think it's a good policy.