Hiro Protagonist

Decided to go back and finish SGU. I remember getting halfway through Season 2 before I dropped it. Went back to around episode 16 of Season 1 to get back into it and now at the start of Season 2. I think I have more appreciation of SGU now than when it aired, but there's still a lot of problems with the show.

Alan, you were asking for an example of a good troll and since I posted a good troll with Leeroy Jenkins, do you now accept that there are good trolls? because you seem to be still evasive and haven't answered my posts or questions about there being a good troll.

I posted the Leeroy Jenkins troll. It was a troll thread on the WoW boards which nobody can deny. And it's not satire. That's an example of a good troll. A quick google search by me came up with a lot of great examples. It depends on what you're searching for. I thought I would go with one of the most famous that most people would know. At its core trolling is trying to get a response, regardless of what that response is.

Leeroy Jenkins is a good troll. Clearly, it's an obvious troll thread created on the forums. Presumably, no one was hurt or took offence. And if they did, then I'd say they're probably looking for things that aren't there.

I spent more time reading and enjoying a lot of the comments to the article than the actual article itself.

At this point you're being overly defensive because I'm not attacking you. I'm saying that there are people that think they're just kidding around when in fact they're doing bad things. In fact, many of these people don't even fully realize that what they're doing is hurtful. Especially long term. If you're not talking about the bullies that are doing it for the fun and giggles, then we're not talking about the same thing and I don't think you're talking about the same people that the study is. No, I don't think that someone rickrolling me is a bully. I also don't consider someone that rickrolls me to be a troll, even if the act can be considered "trollish." I also don't think that someone that rickrolls someone once is a troll. I think that if someone has an established pattern of rickrolling people, preferably those they don't know, purely for the intent of seeing people get upset in response to be a troll. If a person I have never met rickrolls me one time, I have limited history with said individual and it will compromise further interactions with them. If a person I have only just met has 20 interactions with me, and each and every one of them is a rickroll, I likely don't interact with this person anymore (I doubt I'd get to 20). If someone is a friend of mine, with an established history and rapport with me and a host of other things for me to draw upon, a single rick roll doesn't measure a blip on the radar. Though if that friend decides that the bulk of interactions with me from now in is to rick roll me (or otherwise "troll" like behaviour), then it will start to compromise our friendship. I don't think it's a stretch that we will let friends and those we care about much greater leniency in terms of receiving the interactions. It's possible that you feeling that my post was an "attack" is a reflection of this thing. I certainly didn't intend for it to be an attack, though if it was taken as one I do apologize since good intentions doesn't absolve me of doing something I didn't mean to do. I think you're being overly aggressive alan. And I was never talking about bullying. So I don't know why you keep bringing it up and taking it off on a tangent. It's a red herring for you to take it off in another direction that I wasn't talking about and continue to do so. And I'm saying two people who can play practical jokes or troll each other and can laugh about it is not bullying. Because both get the joke. Why you keep taking what I say out of context and changing it to suit your agenda baffles me. And pointing out my 'perspective' when you didn't need to put that on the end of your statement was not needed. The sentence you had could have had that removed and would have had the same meaning concerning the study, but you did put that on the end. It was a subtle personal attack. And it's a bit laughable to say I didn't know what word to use. You've admitted on these forums that you get angry, so it wouldn't surprise me that this was more of a Freudian slip than not knowing what word to use. And I'm asking, is this the type of behaviour that the article is is referring to? I am disagreeing with the notion that any instance of trolling makes one a "troll." The same way that someone that loses his temper once isn't someone that would be considered hot headed, or a guy that trips up a guy in hockey one time isn't immediately labeled a dirty player. I'd say most people enjoy poking fun from time to time (supposition - no data). But the study found that only 5.6% of all respondents identify as having "trolling" as the thing they enjoy doing the most on the internet. Even if we remove the 41.3% that don't participate, that number only moves up to 9.5% of active participants. I wouldn't consider this "most" and unless my assumption is way off base, I think that the study's application over who would be considered a "troll" is a lot tighter than the application you are giving it. I disagree that the graph is saying "if you do any type of trolling or prank at all, then you're a bad person." The graph lists the "Favourite activity when posting comments online." It's not talking about single occurrences of a particular behaviour. (link to the graph: http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/health_and_science/climate_desk/2014/02/140214_CDESK_MachiavellianTraits.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg ) This thread isn't just about the study but also about trolling in general. After five pages, one can see it's more about the study andl about trolls, trolling, different types of trolls, etc. Nice try to move the goal posts back to the study. Also, any instance of trolling makes one not a troll? A troll is one who will post a reply, usually to bait people. If you're baiting, then you're trolling. And there's a lot of it on this forum to see all the baiting posters do. You don't have to look far to find it. And if you're trolling and baiting, then at that time you probably know you're trolling. The person who loses their temper once may not be a hothead but we may never know if he does lose his temper more than once, so the point is moot. The ice hockey example is obviously an accident so the example doesn't mean anything because it's an accident. Or are you going to use accidents like a car crash to make out a driver is a bad driver? Even I wouldn't use accidents to try and get my point across. That's just reaching. So I'll ask you these questions that I've asked others. Do you think there are good trolls alan? Or are you going to be evasive too?

No, I didn't get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Change Troll to nearly anything that has both good and bad people and you're just showing your prejudice thinking that all those people are bad. For someone who lives in South Africa, I would've thought you would know that. And it took five pages for you to agree that there are good trolls. Well there is hope.

That doesn't really mean anything other than you have prejudices and don't have an open mind. And using sweeping generalisations. So do you think there are good trolls Bruce? Or are you going to be evasive too?

I liked it too but some people are comparing it to FlashForward which I can understand. However, Chris Carter has said he wrote this 6 years ago. I hope it gets picked up. Apparently Bosch has been getting a better response, so I guess it depends whether Amazon is looking for more than one series to run with..

I do remember when Interplay closed the forums, people were going to other forums. I did go to Missy's forum for a while before coming over to Obsidian. The Ye Olde Political forums on Missy's Lair wasn't the same as BIS. It was probably a good thing. Maybe I did know Winterwind but decided to defer signing up and now have simply forgotten.

To me a so-called "good troll" would presumably lie in a grey area of interpretation, so it is unclear if there definitely are such entities. Why are you being so evasive? And it goes back to what I said. "you think there is never a good troll and if there is, it's called something else and not a troll?". So even though you didn't say it, it's what you're implying. And this confirms it. Your posts come across as there is no such thing as a good troll. And consider a few posters in this thread have said there are good trolls (posts), so you basically disagree when them as well. If you open a thread for discussion, holding fast to one opinion and deny the concept of good trolls when there are good trolls and being evasive when questioned, then it truly baffles me. And it goes back to strawman, sweeping generalisations and inherent bias which you seem to accuse me of a couple of pages ago.

So do you accept that there are good troll posts?

So you think there is never a good troll and if there is, it's called something else and not a troll? Is it so hard to accept that there could be good trolls (whether it's a person or post).

So you have no problem with the other 2%?

I watched The After. It's Chris Carter doing his thing. He even said the universe is set in the Millenium universe. There are some needed areas of improvement / polishing. but I was intrigued and would like to see more, it has potential. It hasn't been green lit, so we won't know if there'll be a second episode. Maybe in 6 months we find out if it's been green lit or cancelled.

Nice little attack there with my 'perspective' alan. So if someone rickrolled you, you think they're a bully? And I'm not talking about the bullies who are doing it for fun and giggles. Nice try anyway. I'm talking about the practical jokes that are played on each other and can laugh off. In real life we call them pranks or practical jokes, on the internet we call it trolling. And clearly some pranks are just wrong in real life. While others like we see on TV where people get pranked, they laugh it off. And the audience will laugh too. It's a sweeping generalisation that all trolling is bad and the graph shows that. By the graph, one would assume that if you do any type of trolling or prank at all, then you're a bad person. It doesn't show the types of trolling or practical jokes.

There is no clear cut definition. And there is a lot of disagreement with what a modern day troll is. You're definition is very simplistic. A troll could also churn the waters with compliments, practical jokes, humour, anything to get a response and practices a form of catch and release. Also can use the bait and switch tactic like rickrolling and usually associated with online forums. The word troll has become the big bad of the internet, especially in recent years with bad cases of bullying reported by the media and it seems a lot of bad stuff which isn't trolling gets lumped into it as well.

Why not just say troll. Using other words like pranks doesn't make it any better. Getting Rick-rolled with a link is also a troll. Does it make that person a psychopathic narcissistic sadist? Probably, considering it's Rick Astley. And if I got rick-rolled, I wouldn't tell the person who did it to me that he's a psychopath. I'd say, well done. you got me. And can see the fun and humour in it. And I don't need to go to other forums to know that certain types of trolling is bad. Also reading the linked article, they also include griefing in games as trolling which it isn't. It's griefing. Same as bullying is bullying. It makes me wonder what the authors of the study define as trolling and what they've included. It looks like they've included things that isn't trolling into trolling and the results are skewed.

Much like your thread title and OP post? A straw-man making sweeping generalisations that all internet trolls are horrible people? Or do you have an alternative view that not all internet trolls are horrible people.

^ I thought that was the Codex or Missy's forum after BIS closed. Also never heard of Winterwind.

Totally agree on both accounts. It wouldn't surprised me if the research is a knee-jerk reaction to the media stories over the last few years of internet trolling. The research (and I use that term loosely) seems to paint all trolls with a sweeping generalisation of psychopathic narcissistic sadists. And as Meshugger points out, you can have trolls that do it for the fun and giggles without actually hurting anyone or do it to get people thinking out of their own closed world views.

On the old BIS forums, 6'8 Italian Warlord posted a troll about seeing a Tarrasque in the Oasis in BG2. I never saw that as anti-social behaviour and damaging to society, more like seeing how many people would be naïve enough to believe it. Obviously he was having fun.

I don't like the commercial side of it. I was already going out Saturday night with my partner.

What happened to howling1? I'm afraid to ask. Is he still alive or just vanished like so many other posters.

Same with posters like Caelis. He was funny.