the trolling issue

I agree.

It isn't unprincipled: Trolling is trolling, and it has been defined (and yet people here claim ignorance).


Look it up.

A great many of Sam's posts qualify, such as the one that was referenced in the beginning of this thread. But some people, for their own reasons, continue to want to make this about the content of the trolling and the political positions of the offender. Fact is, there are several notorious right-wing trolls, and I would have no problem calling them as much. This has nothing to do with ideology and positions, and claiming that is just a red herring.
 
Turning to the source of all reliable knowledge (hehe) wikipedia, we find:

troll: someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.​

It's not that hard to spot controversial, inflammatory etc. messages. Discerning intent is more difficult, but then most trolls are quite transparent and helpfully repeat the same pattern over and over again.

It's not rocket surgery to identify a troll.
 
overall it is a stupid word though. sure you will get much of this behavior on the internet because people can get away with being obnoxious.
 
Gustav said:
i read it
sam and bells made both you and baron their bitches

/chortle

run along now, sparky
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the only thing i can say is that you're in love gustav.
can't really blame you though, i've had some rather erotic dreams about her myself.
 
iceaura said:
I don't know. You appear to be ascribing all disagreement with you to cultural bias and ignorance.

How would you find out?

I guess the trolling issue as described in the OP is not very interesting to people, so we will be talking about something else - SAM's posts, maybe. But there is no principled moderation possible without some kind of consideration of such issues.
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Yes, are you denying that this place is free from cultural bias? I may chose not to post in them, but I am reading the threads, iceaura.

How would I find out? I understand and accept that the main nature of all things is change. Like me and my thoughts. I believe, I am confident enough to express when I changed my views or think they are wrong. There is no keeping score, lol.

I don't get this obsession with Sam. I am starting to think that some of you are stalking her, may be even romantically involved as feeling. I don't know, may be, some of you find exotic and sexy that a woman from a different world opposing you fervently? Is this too forward?

Don't you, yourself find your own suggestion of, "people are not paying any attention to the OP, last talk about Sam's posts", weird? I do, also bit creepy actually.
What this forum understands from trolling and what's the tolerance concerning some specific titles are clearly mentioned. It's up to people's personal decision to post their opinion in the manner as they want, surely they know the consequences.

Personally, I have been into other forums before -like the oldest astronomy forum- around 2002, a couple of years. Much more heated times and wouldn't get near some threads with a hundred yard. This is my personal choice, but I also don't invite some other people to another thread to discuss the posts of a specific person. Right after claiming that posting unrelated posts to the subject is trolling.
 
James R said:
Turning to the source of all reliable knowledge (hehe) wikipedia, we find:

troll: someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.​

It's not that hard to spot controversial, inflammatory etc. messages. Discerning intent is more difficult, but then most trolls are quite transparent and helpfully repeat the same pattern over and over again.

It's not rocket surgery to identify a troll.
Click to expand...

Exactly.
 
James R said:
Turning to the source of all reliable knowledge (hehe) wikipedia, we find:

troll: someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.​

It's not that hard to spot controversial, inflammatory etc. messages. Discerning intent is more difficult, but then most trolls are quite transparent and helpfully repeat the same pattern over and over again.

It's not rocket surgery to identify a troll.
Click to expand...

Not often I wants or gets the chance to quote the bible but just for the hell of it here goes:

Shouldn't he who is without sin cast the first stone?
 
James R said:
It's not that hard to spot controversial, inflammatory etc. messages. Discerning intent is more difficult, but then most trolls are quite transparent and helpfully repeat the same pattern over and over again.

It's not rocket surgery to identify a troll.
Click to expand...


i suppose it has escaped your notice that this thread is all about you, right?
put on your thinking cap, read the op and try to comprehend what is being laid out.
 
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leopold99 said:
the only thing i can say is that you're in love gustav.
can't really blame you though, i've had some rather erotic dreams about her myself.
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not at all
she is a bit of a pain in the ass but i have no choice but to defend her right to voice an opinion here. i just prefer if she were given the benefit of the doubt. wait to see how things unfold rather than engaging in retarded preemptive strikes.
 
Voicing an opinion and flaming are not synonymous. One can do one without the other. The issue, and what I stress with this specific person, is when voicing an opinion BECOMES flaming...

Specifically, in the example cited in the OP, we have a poster (Sam), stating an opinion that has nothing to do with the thread it was expressed within. No one is saying she does not have a right to voice her opinion, I think, what is being said is that in order to maintain some level of order -- not to mention overall sanity -- posters cannot simply run about voicing opinions where they are totally inappropriate.

Thus, if a thread is about apples, chiming in about oranges is flaming, in my opinion. Sam does this all the time, and to pretend anything to the contrary is dishonest. Again, I've seen dozens of threads derailed by Sam, who pops in and lobs an opinion totally off-topic (that typically is critical of the United States or attempts to blame them for something). This is flaming.
 
Gustav said:
not at all
she is a bit of a pain in the ass but i have no choice but to defend her right to voice an opinion here. i just prefer if she were given the benefit of the doubt. wait to see how things unfold rather than engaging in retarded preemptive strikes.
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It is still very bothersome that when a person gives his or her opinion according to their knowledge, conscience and without malice , one should not be warned or sanctioned or banned . It is well known fact that not all members are treated the same here and this is a huge issue . For instance if someone gives an opinion about Israel or the Jews and a Jew starts his trumpet about the holocaust and anti semitism....etc; the mods rush to do something while it is okay to bash Christinians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists.......and the rest of humanity . There are some memebrs who keep on telling us some weird stuff in their answers and no one sees it as " trolling ". So we do not have equality here and we do not have the respect we deserve . Favouritism and racism even in a forums site so waht is next ?.
 
iceaura said:
The repetitious impugning by false allegation, of the OP type, that particular combination of ad hom and strawman, seems to be in good faith as often as not.
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Which suggests that the issue there may not be trolling per se, but rather the employment of particular fallacies. So perhaps the appropriate policy is not to approach this in terms of trolling (which introduces questions of motive), but rather to police the fallacies in question directly. That is, if what we want is only to limit the damage, rather than to get rid of various posters entirely.

More generally, there is no firm distinction between a troll and an energetic poster with controversial ideas. Which brings home the point that not all trolling is malicious, nor is all malicious trolling necessarily undesirable. Any given community has some upper threshold for provocation, beyond which things degenerate (and this particular forum appears to rank somewhere around the pre-teen level), and also a lower threshold for provocation, below which insufficient interest and personal investment is generated to sustain a lively discussion.

The difficult fora to mediate are places like this, which have been left to become trolling grounds. This moves the two thresholds very close together, since the audience is both hyper-sensitive to trolling and disinterested in anything else.
 
quadraphonics said:
More generally, there is no firm distinction between a troll and an energetic poster with controversial ideas.
.
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I thought this was very intelligent and right on the money. If you make a connection that involves some lateral thinking, but in fact revolves around the same issues as the OP, it can be seen as, and has been seen as trolling.
 
countezero said:
Voicing an opinion and flaming are not synonymous. One can do one without the other. The issue, and what I stress with this specific person, is when voicing an opinion BECOMES flaming...

Specifically, in the example cited in the OP, we have a poster (Sam), stating an opinion that has nothing to do with the thread it was expressed within. No one is saying she does not have a right to voice her opinion, I think, what is being said is that in order to maintain some level of order -- not to mention overall sanity -- posters cannot simply run about voicing opinions where they are totally inappropriate.

Thus, if a thread is about apples, chiming in about oranges is flaming, in my opinion. Sam does this all the time, and to pretend anything to the contrary is dishonest. Again, I've seen dozens of threads derailed by Sam, who pops in and lobs an opinion totally off-topic (that typically is critical of the United States or attempts to blame them for something). This is flaming.
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i am assuming you mean trolling. I took up the example used in the OP of this thread in the original thread, here....

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=2374898#post2374898

Your description here makes it seem like her point is random. It is not. She sees an opportunity to 'bring home' how terrorism is dealt with elsewhere in a thread that has no topic/issue, just a fact.

She certainly could have been encouraged to start another thread if some discussion was going to come out of the op along more traditional lines. I am nto sure what that would have been - a few more facts about FBI work in that area, whatever.

But I don't see her post at all as random. She needed the raw data in the OP to make her point. I think it is also stronger if she makes the point in situ, where people

are in their here's how we act at home mode of thinking.

There is an element of guerilla theater in this, but that is very different from accusations of trolling.

It is mind reading to assert that she really just wanted to derail the thread and make people angry.

I think it is more likely she actually wanted people to think about what it would mean if approaches to combatting terrorism abroad came home to roost.

It is uncharitable to assume that disruption was the goal. Disruption of habitualized thinking yes.

And we do not have to agree with her to assume her motives were actually to get across ideas in a novel but relevent way.

If she had started writing about apples or that Israel should give up the West Bank, that is trolling.
 
Gustav said:
not at all
she is a bit of a pain in the ass but i have no choice but to defend her right to voice an opinion here.
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even when those "opinions" are outright bullshit?
you've seen some of the outrageous claims she made in the stun gun thread.
 
When the truth hurts and when reality is hard to swallow some folks see things as trolling . I am sure that this word trolling gives too much power to mods who can silence you any time they wish .
Free speech ?. Just another dream .
Fairness ?. Another dream .
As a person I am benefiting nothing from this site and for an ignorant mod to delete and warm me for saying the truth is both harassment and bullying .
Honestly how many people did learn anything useful from here ?.
If this garbage of trolling continues I will just never come back as simple as this . With my education and three languages some lost soul keeps on telling me this is trolling and this is trolling . It seems we have to cherish and applaud Israel, gays, lesbians, Bush and US administrations or we are trolling....hahaha.
We are adults NOT school kids here .
By the way if Americans know anything about politics they would NOT have elected G.W. Bush for two long and disastrous terms .
 
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leopold said:
how is it unprincipled?
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Because you don't object, on principle, to more severe examples of the same and similar posting style. Youshow no sign of recognizing them, even.
.
leopoled said:
she even referred to the stun gun as a "torture device".
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Stun guns, like cattle prods and water hoses, are familiar and common torture devices.
leopold said:
even when those "opinions" are outright bullshit?
you've seen some of the outrageous claims she made in the stun gun thread.
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I've seen you make far worse posts, including the second post in this thread, which is inexcusable.
eiderha said:
Yes, are you denying that this place is free from cultural bias?
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No. I am calling you on your own.
eiderha said:
Don't you, yourself find your own suggestion of, "people are not paying any attention to the OP, last talk about Sam's posts", weird? I do, also bit creepy actually.
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You missed the point, rather badly. Ask SAM.
count said:
Specifically, in the example cited in the OP, we have a poster (Sam), stating an opinion that has nothing to do with the thread it was expressed within
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Not "nothing". Did you really see no relevance at all? A post about the police response to the terrorist threat in Texas is not relevant in a thread about the terrorist threat in Texas?

quadro said:
Which suggests that the issue there may not be trolling per se, but rather the employment of particular fallacies. So perhaps the appropriate policy is not to approach this in terms of trolling (which introduces questions of motive), but rather to police the fallacies in question directly.
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That seems reasonable - any other takers?
 
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