Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! What exactly is a troll. What are the intended purposes of trolls posting that you can think of? Furthermore what is your intended purpose? (A non troll) Entertainment, to learn, to communicate, etc. ? :m:
My intended purpose here is to communicate what it is like to live in an actual freedom from the human condition. However, as I am only partially enlightened/partially free from the human condition, I can only speak from a partially free perspective, which is partially magnificent in terms of descriptive prose.
Its funny if you do it right, hilarious if you do it extremely well. he funniest is to troll a troll. Basically, rather then confronting them, you start bombarding them with insults from a variety of topics. ie, call them a dumb democrat/republican, insult family, insult religion, or beliefs, etc. Eventually you'll hit a cord with the troll, then you focus all your attacks on that one raw nerve. And since everyone knows he's the troll they think of you as the good guy, they join in with you and with a dozen people hammering the troll's raw nerve they practically make him cry. I've been part of that maybe three or four times, and lead it once against another troll. Man, oh man, it is fun to beat a troll at his own game.
Just in case no one else here got it. This is a perfect example of trolling. It's usually a tad shorter and has a lot of "white space" (basically, a long looking post but in reality they just say a few sentences and double or even triple space to make it look larger). Nicholas starts his post by barely speaking about the subject, the closest he gets is "...purpose here" which connects his post to the thread, albeit just barely. Yet he actually says nothing on the subject, instead writing a pompous post. Your first reaction is to insult him, or rebute him, or both while telling him to get out of this thread. Your playing into his hands. The thrill of trolling isnt the namecalling or insulting you get for doing it. Its basically like watching those videos on youtube of people doing idiotic things and getting hurt. And its funny. They are basically making fun of people that they feel are complete idiots for falling for their troll.
I dont consider that trolling so to speak because he is explaining his intended purposes for posting on this site. I think trolls are people who obstruct the intended purposes of a thread. The basis from which being there sheer arrogance that leads them to believe there statements are conclusive. Mix this in with entertainment and the human condition. I believe some people get a "kick" out of making others feel inferior. I dont know why I feel this to be the case but it seems to me (myself included) that there is a self-esteem boost involved in "feeling" "right". When one cant present an argument or become tired of doing so I think is when the "acceptable?" trolling kicks in. Not to say its the same thing as blatant obvious oblivious trolling but its very alike.
I get the impression you have very little sympathy for the victim of a troll. However when I hear the word trolling, I think of fishing. You carefully select your bait for the type of fish you want catch and then you slowly troll and when you feel the nibbles you try and set the hook so the fish can't get away. Then the fun of reeling him in begins. Who knows what a troll thinks about and the worst thing that can happen to him is being banned for awhile so what's he got to lose?
That's precisely why its given that name. There are lots of tricks. For example, as you said, the bait. Its easier said then done. It takes a lot of context. Nich's troll was rather good in this regards. He hits a raw nerve shared by most people here, unashamed pompous arrogance. We regularly rip people apart like that. But the second trick is not to get banned. That means making it seem like the troll is at least somewhat relevent so that the troller can argue that what they are saying is actually relevent. In that respect, nich's troll is rather pathetic.
But why is he doing it here of all places? If you announce yourself then do it at the proper thread. What he was going for as a troll was for people to go back at him and say "shutup you arrogant prick." or even better, get replies that are several paragraphs long. The troll's passage rarely ever gets you off topic. Its the replies that do. If people started replying to him in order to attack and start flaming. He would reply with an even more self righteous post and fan the flames. Then everyone else would creare even more elaborate responses. Then he would reply in kind. That's how a troll gets people so far off topic. His goal isn't to make you feel inferior by insulting you. The goal is to make you look like a total fool by making you keep replying to his posts until the flames keep building up. In every sense of the word, he has full control over you. That's what the term "don't feed the trolls" means. If you ignore the troll's original posts, you prevent him from setting off this vicious cycle. Now look back at nicholas's post. Was there anything he said there that was actually relevent to the topic? Second: Knowing some of the members of this forum, would some people create replies mocking him or flaming him? In essence is his post inflammatory? Trust me joey, the whole purpose of that post was to get people to reply to him. Then he would reply to them with another pompous post, they would escalate their attacks, and he would escalate his trolls. After the second round of trolling the thread would possibly be derailed, and if it wasn't completely derailed by the fourth then its only by sheer luck. By about round 3 a good troll would have won. By round three, even calling them for what they are, a troll. Will only continue to escalate things and play into their hands. At that point, the thread is doomed. Two things can happen, it can keep escalating. Which means the troll wins. Everyone stops replying pretending that they are denying the troll a victory. Which means that in the end the troll wins because he has succeeded in destroying the thread.
You have a good point. I even think a very skillful troll could earn quite a bit of respect and not fear being banned or called a troll. I think to be that kind of troll you first have to be a productive poster and only put in a troll appearance when there is a real deserving idiot mark to be had. I like to think of that as giving karma a helping hand.
Too obvious. A troll has to actually take up space. You want to say as little as possible while at the same time make it seem like your post is actually long and relevent. The easiest and most common way to do this is to have short single phrases and seperated each one with double spacing. Like how I formated this post. The reason is because if I were to compact this it would take up maybe half the space that it does right now.
Its even worse when there are two trolls working together (a rare occurence). Basically there are two ways to go about it. The first is that one troll makes his troll, the second troller will make another troll that supports the first one's. When people begin to respond the two trolls create replies that support one another. The other is what I think of as a double mirror effect. One troll makes his troll statement. The second will side with the other posters and make counter troll statements with the intention of escalating it. The idea is that the first troll starts off, then the second helps the rest of the forum to escalate, then the first makes another, the second escalates. And the innocent people are playing into their hands.
Very good, but a troll and his sock puppet is even better. I just found out what a sock puppet was a few days ago, and for those of you who don't know it's when one individual opens two accounts with the forum and runs with two ID's, and if you can get away with two accounts what's to stop you from having 3 or 4 accounts. That's a real forum gang that knows how to take orders without any misunderstandings.
Dwyddyr and I are actually the same person, but using opposite sides of the brain for each sock. I often talk to myself. No, wait, it would be better to be one with Belelina.
I don't see any reason why your forum gang can't be mixed company, all the better for adding the important trolling distractions when needed.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
