Trolling

[arvg]

What is and what isn't trolling is fast becoming a heated debate.

Here on Disco, it is an accusation thrown at anyone for behavior or actions that they dislike.

More often than not, the title "Troll" is taken as a badge of honour, usually by people who do anything but Trolling.

I have been reading many articles on the subject, reviewing various methods for controlling Trolls, and managing moderation so that it can be both user firendly and socially responsible.

Here are a few things that struck me.

Trolling is nothing new.

I was around before the Internet, specifically known as "The Wind Up"

It is not, as many people believe, disagreeing with your point and belittling your intelligence for that. It is *intentionally* seeking to get a rise of emotion out of another person with or without actual belief in what they are writing.

For example:

Winding up: Deliberately telling someone that their idea sucks, not because it sucks, but because said person wishes to upset the person in question.

Disagreement: posting a contradictory idea that challenges the used to think, and defend his original statement.

Trolling is not posting in feedback. You cannot troll feedback, you are not a feedback troll if you legitimately have a complaint/suggestion (even if that suggestion may not please the opposing viewpoint)

On Disco, the Moderation Team takes Trolling, real Trolling, quite seriously. As for the other things mentioned above, you are welcome to go at it. Discussion, even a heated one, is good for the community, it provokes thought, and causes a person to reflect on their own beliefs.

I think you will find that conviction is far worse when unchallenged/unquestioned, than a bruised ideological fallacy that couldn't survive scrutiny under a community magnifying glass.

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[DAnvilFan]

I'm not quite sure what the discussion is meant to entail but I'll make this observation:

In other forums I visit, it is okay to say the F word but you get punished if you insult somebody with pure malicious intent (read: bullying or I suppose in this case, trolling) even without cussing.

What severely bothers me about this forum is that F bombs can get you sanctioned but I have seen hordes of malicious, bullying, posts that are ten times worse than a hundred F bombs, get posted without the posters getting in trouble. Certain members of this forum have dealt with the "no foul language" rule for so long, that they've acquired years of practice on how to perfect non-cussing insults. In fact, some have done such a great job that they are able to make insults far more offensive than anything that could come out of a sailor's mouth. Laughter, for example. Laughing at someone is far more insulting than calling him a four letter word. It's often used around these forums to troll and is often ignored by the powers that be (although I did noticed that one got removed in a certain faction dissolving announcement).

Similar to what Justice Potter Stewart once said about porn, I'll say this about trolling: I don't know how to definite it, but I know it when I see it.

I also don't know if Moderators see it as well. But if they do, I sure wish they weeded it out more often.

[Kaghuros]

Let me just make a bit of a description for what I consider to be a more subtle troll, but one that I see quite often around here.

The Red Herring:

The Red Herring is not necessarily a troll in and of itself. Some people are genuinely interested on things that are off topic, and have very little self-control. However, in forum communities such as this one, there are often issues that come up in post threads that one or more parties do not wish to be discussed, or persons that one or more parties wish to discredit. An easy tactic to do so is simply to derail their threads with a "red herring," a statement that is intentionally designed to throw the thread off its tracks and cause the moderators to lock it or move it to an off-topic forum, or simply to engage the discussion on another point in an attempt to bury the original point with something new.

This is trolling, at least to some degree. The "herring" poster is fishing for a response from other parties and the moderators in order to shut down a particular mode of discussion with a malicious (or at least poor-mannered) intent.

[Loken]

I have certainly noticed that a lot of people around here think that someone disagreeing with their opinion is trolling.

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[DAnvilFan]

This is trolling, at least to some degree. The "herring" poster is fishing for a response from other parties and the moderators in order to shut down a particular mode of discussion with a malicious (or at least poor-mannered) intent.

Right, I've noticed this one too. In some forums I've visited, this is monitored pretty sternly and threads with such posts simply have the posts removed instead of the thread getting locked.

But I've seen way too many long discussions where eventually somebody threw in, as you say, a red herring. The discussion proceeds as before until suddenly you see a post with "om nom nom nom nom" followed by some random picture of a kitten with some stupid subtitles such as "epic fail kitten is epic," followed by something equally dumb, until a few posts later you see that the thread got locked.

Meanwhile, said discussion is never properly finished and the OP still doesn't have his questions/concerns answered.

[arvg]

yes there are many questions or ideas that are "drowned out" by noise.

It is something the Moderation team are trying to monitor, tricky though because a lot of the time the thread is either too far gone to be saved, or it is just lost to the noise.

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[Azan27]

May I suggest that Trolling can also come in the form of people disingenously agreeing with the trolling victem, but doing so in a unintelligent and controversial way that discredits both the trolling victem and the subject they are discussing in general.

Basically, some people will intentionally lolwut up a person's point of view in order to make them seem stupid by association.

Edit: WHY CAN'T I SPELL IN THE ENGLISH???

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Let it burn.

[SA_Scavenger]

Would you guys agree that there is a subtle difference between the 'trolling' to be harmful to a person and 'trolling' to be lighthearted or funny? There is also the time when someone can actually genuinely get confused and thus come off as if they were trolling.

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