"Internet Trolls Really are Horrible People"

[rjshae]

So do you accept that there are good troll posts?

 

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.

[Hiro Protagonist]

 

So do you accept that there are good troll posts?

 

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.

Edited February 18, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist

[BruceVC]

 

 

So do you accept that there are good troll posts?

 

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.

 

 

The view I have is that "bad trolls " have caused so much animosity and consternation through the years that the concept of a "good troll" is foreign to most people. If you publicly announce that you are a troll most people  will immediately assume you are there to disrupt discussions and can offer nothing positive. That's the reality we live in and its understandable

[Hiro Protagonist]

The view I have is that "bad trolls " have caused so much animosity and consternation through the years that the concept of a "good troll" is foreign to most people. If you publicly announce that you are a troll most people  will immediately assume you are there to disrupt discussions and can offer nothing positive. That's the reality we live in and its understandable

 

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?

Edited February 18, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist

[ManifestedISO]

A good troll pokes the self righteous, self important and self serious streak everyone has, and commits the worst crime imaginable to those people- making them look silly. That isn't always possible to do with impeccable logic and Socratic method.

 

Good trolls ... drolls?

[BruceVC]

 

The view I have is that "bad trolls " have caused so much animosity and consternation through the years that the concept of a "good troll" is foreign to most people. If you publicly announce that you are a troll most people  will immediately assume you are there to disrupt discussions and can offer nothing positive. That's the reality we live in and its understandable

 

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?

 

 

"prejudices and don't have an open mind"...ouch . Someone got out of the wrong side of bed this morning, what happened? Did the pet kangaroo go on a rampage and upset your  sheep from there daily frolicking in the outback?

 

 

I thought my view on trolls was unequivocal..unequivocal !!!

 

All Trolls are bad and need to be sent to some jungle prison camp for hard labour. We must aspire to eradicate this world of the menace of the Internet Troll, once this is done liberty and freedom will reign !!!!

 

 

PS : After reading some of the comments about what a "good troll" is, like what Zor said, I have to concede there is such a thing. I just don't think I have experienced it.

 

[Hiro Protagonist]

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.

[BruceVC]

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.

 

I hear what you saying, but to be honest I only changed my mind after reading all the points around the concept of a "good troll". So I needed to be convinced

[alanschu]

[quote name="Hiro Protagonist" post="1419446" timestamp="139 

Nice little attack there with my 'perspective' alan.It's not an attack. I'm making the supposition that your definition is not the same as the one being applied in the article.

 

Perhaps that you infer it as an attack is a large part of the problem of the internet. For some reason you assumed I was attacking you.

 

Or do you think that your application of the term "trolling" is consistent with that put forward in the article? Admittedly I actually wasn't sure if "perspective" was the right word as I wrote it, but all I'm saying is that I think you're taking the study's conclusion and applying it to a larger, more generously applied label than the study itself does.

 

 

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.

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'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.

 

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 )

[alanschu]

That's the thing, though, for any forum member other than moderators the proper response is ignoring the troll, outwardly, anyway.  Reporting the troll to the moderators via report button is also proper, though no one will outwardly ever see that (other than the moderators).  Trolls generally crave attention.  Responding to them is giving them exactly what they want, especially if the response is a negative one.

I know you pointed it out, but I just want to focus on the idea that reporting a post is definitely not indifference. It may not seem, outwardly, like you're doing anything about it (though some people will respond to other posters to not engage), but I don't think it needs to be an outward thing. Even if a 3rd party observer could not tell if anything happened, that doesn't mean that nothing did.

 

 

 

A Troll is basically someone who has several dysfunctional mental traits.

[citation needed]

 

Case study example

 

Now... is this me trolling? Does this define me as a troll? Would it be fair to say that Allan's most enjoyable act on the internet is to troll people and that he prefers trolling as his favourite thing to do on the internet?

 

To tie in with my discussion with Hiro Protagonist, would the study linked in the OP classify me as one of the 5.6% of people, because of me posting this?

 

 

I would contend that it would not make me a troll, because 211374U and I have interacted several times in the past, sometimes (waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back) in rather hostile manners,* though most times in fairly neutral, I'd say respectful, manners. We've probably both matured somewhat (I'm still hotheaded about various topics, but I disengage a lot quicker now than I used to in the past), but in general when I see one of his posts and some of our prior interactions, there's a degree of understanding by my account. In fact, my perception is why I feel I can safely link to his profile, whereas at this point linking Hiro's would give me greater cause that it may not be taken the same way, based on me learning that my previous post was taken as an attack on him and that that may colour how he reads into that post. It's not that I think Hiro is less capable of taking a joke, but just a perception I have on our forum interactions in this thread.

 

Context is important, and the biggest question mark of the study is how it addresses context. But if it was a random person on the internet asking the question 213374U put forward, I likley would not respond with a link to the poster putting forth that question. Even if I was intending for it to be a joke, that intention is irrelevant if all it does is anger the poster. I'd err on the side of caution and would only do something like that after building up a rapport through repeated interactions.

 

 

 

*IIRC there was some stuff with him about my use of the word predisposition when discussing piracy or something or other.... it was probably 7-8 years ago now, and helped convince me I needed to take a break from the forums to which some thought that I had been banned/suspended from the forums! Maybe that was someone else, but my (getting older...) memory makes me think it may have been him.

[alanschu]

Apologies for posting in sequence, though I bounce back and forth between walls of huge posts, and several posts to keep it easier to digest.

 

 

[quote name="Zoraptor" post="1419612" timestamp="139267 

A good troll pokes the self righteous, self important and self serious streak everyone has, and commits the worst crime imaginable to those people- making them look silly. That isn't always possible to do with impeccable logic and Socratic method.

 

People need to be trolled, on the internet and in real life. Everyone needs their fundamental beliefs challenged at various points, if for no reason other than to affirm that you still believe them. And if your fundamental beliefs include the sorts of trivialities that people typically get trolled over then... well, a bit of self examination would not go amiss about whether Pikachu really could take Darth Vader in a fight is a truly important argument to have.

 

Pikachu distraction aside, is taking up Devil's Advocate a "trolling" position? Is use of satire or irony trolling? I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread, but it does seem that the term gets used by a lot of people for a lot of different things, so maybe it's one of those words that is starting to lose its meaning.

 

I don't know if I'd agree that a discussion where one has their beliefs challenged means that it's a trolling discussion. For instance, your post here challenges my beliefs that a post where one has their fundamental beliefs challenged is trolling! But your post isn't what I would consider a troll post at all. Do I apply the term differently than you?

Edited February 18, 2014 by alanschu

[alanschu]

Hmmm, one more post. Seems as though part of my first reply to Hiro was not posted (I moved it to a different tab mid post...)

 

 

Nice little attack there with my 'perspective' alan.

I just wanted to make sure it was clear that when I typed that word, I wasn't sure if it was the correct word to use. My intention was more just to ask whether or not the application of the term "troll" was more selective by the study, than compared to what you were applying it to.

 

The intent was certainly not to "attack" and I apologize for it being taken that way.

Edited February 18, 2014 by alanschu

[Hiro Protagonist]

 

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.

 

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.

 

 

 

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.

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?

[213374U]

 

That's the thing, though, for any forum member other than moderators the proper response is ignoring the troll, outwardly, anyway.  Reporting the troll to the moderators via report button is also proper, though no one will outwardly ever see that (other than the moderators).  Trolls generally crave attention.  Responding to them is giving them exactly what they want, especially if the response is a negative one.

I know you pointed it out, but I just want to focus on the idea that reporting a post is definitely not indifference. It may not seem, outwardly, like you're doing anything about it (though some people will respond to other posters to not engage), but I don't think it needs to be an outward thing. Even if a 3rd party observer could not tell if anything happened, that doesn't mean that nothing did.

 

 

 

A Troll is basically someone who has several dysfunctional mental traits.

[citation needed]

 

Case study example

 

Well played, sir. Well played. (I am taking my meds now, OK?)

 

That kind of back and forth with users you are familiar with can only be considered trolling if the prospective troll knows beforehand that the recipient's reaction will be one of RAGE!!! and the sole intent behind this action is to get a rise out of them. So a troll is only as good as his audience. Context also very much makes trolling. The above joke is really tame by RPGCodex standards, but is probably unacceptable and likely a bannable offense at physorg. As a result, I don't think a universal definition of troll can be agreed upon, unlike definitions of mental disorders. I think that may be a fundamental flaw of the study.

 

People are questioning whether there are actually "good" trolls, but as with comedians, opinions are going to differ; in my experience, facing the business end of a troll's antics is going to paint the troll negatively in the eyes of the recipient, as is usually the case with being made the butt of a joke. But as others have said, that's more an issue with people taking everything and especially themselves too seriously. Personal preferences notwithstanding, a troll's trollish net contributions can be evaluated and if the outcome is positive then you have a good troll, regardless of the quality of their "regular" contributions, if any. Take lof, for instance. His threads were always popular, and encouraged interesting discussion for a while yet devolved into poo-slinging contests almost without fail. I think the community is less interesting without him around, yet most regulars would agree that he was actively trolling most of the time.

Edited February 18, 2014 by 213374U

[Zoraptor]

Pikachu distraction aside, is taking up Devil's Advocate a "trolling" position? Is use of satire or irony trolling? I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread, but it does seem that the term gets used by a lot of people for a lot of different things, so maybe it's one of those words that is starting to lose its meaning.

 

I don't know if I'd agree that a discussion where one has their beliefs challenged means that it's a trolling discussion. For instance, your post here challenges my beliefs that a post where one has their fundamental beliefs challenged is trolling! But your post isn't what I would consider a troll post at all. Do I apply the term differently than you?

 

Trolling is like art, you know it when you see it.

 

Which probably sounds a bit glib, but it's about as accurate and categorical a statement as can be made about it. To be more specific, satire may be trolling and most good trolling involves a very large dollop of satire- but it's usually satire that is presented as being a serious position or statement. Same with either irony or sarcasm which for these purposes are just subsets/ techniques of satire. Trolling doesn't have to challenge a person's beliefs (beliefs is perhaps slightly the wrong word anyway) and certainly more regular techniques can be used to do the same, but I'd argue that good trolling has to have an element of that to be trolling at all. After all, if nobody cares then nobody responds, and that isn't really a troll.

[alanschu]

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.

 

I know you didn't bring it up.  I did, since the way I read your original post made a comment regarding people that do it for fun and giggles.  As someone that has definitely teased a person (probably several) for "fun and giggles" only to later learn that it wasn't actually being received that way and that I at times was taken hurtfully, I was pointing out that "trolls that do it for fun and giggles without actually hurting someone" as a segue into the point that "there's also those that do it for fun and giggles without realizing that they actually are hurting someone."

 

 

 

 

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.

 

It's cool.  At this point I think things have been made clearer.  Cheers.

Edited February 19, 2014 by alanschu

[jillabender]

 

A good troll is a thing of beauty. It speaks to the human condition, it illuminates the darkness and is an integral option in ecommunication. A good troll is satire, it is well thought out, it is intelligent. A bad troll is a pointless exercise in futility; lazy, facile and worthless. Of course, you can say the same thing about any style of post on the internet, they range from a potential "oh wow, Road to Damascus the scales fall from my eyes" to "please give me that 15 seconds of life and 20 IQ points back".

 

A good troll pokes the self righteous, self important and self serious streak everyone has, and commits the worst crime imaginable to those people- making them look silly. That isn't always possible to do with impeccable logic and Socratic method.

 

People need to be trolled, on the internet and in real life. Everyone needs their fundamental beliefs challenged at various points, if for no reason other than to affirm that you still believe them. And if your fundamental beliefs include the sorts of trivialities that people typically get trolled over then... well, a bit of self examination would not go amiss about whether Pikachu really could take Darth Vader in a fight is a truly important argument to have.

 

If I'm understanding you correctly, you seem to be suggesting that deliberately provoking people can sometimes be an effective way to make a point, because it can make the other person aware of their own self-importance – the goal can be that the recipients will work themselves into a frothing rage, and then be forced to recognize how ultimately unproductive their rage really is. I do think that's a really interesting idea for discussion, but I'm not sure I agree.

 

I definitely agree that it's important to be able to step back from online disagreements when we find ourselves getting overly wound up and self-righteous. But in my experience, deliberately provoking people isn't necessarily likely, in itself, to make a person realize that they are being silly. If I were to deliberately say something outrageous to provoke someone, and that person were then to respond with a lot of blustering, incoherent anger, it would be easy for me to congratulate myself for having made them look silly, but I'm not sure it's likely that either of us would actually learn anything. In fact, I think that deliberately provoking people can create an environment where there's so much hyperbole that it's hard to have a really honest discussion.

 

That's not to say that snark can never be an effective way to make a point, but I do think that snark is different from deliberately provoking people. I think it's possible to make a point in a snarky way while also conveying a sense of awareness that the joke is on you as well as on the people you are snarking, and I think that snark is far more likely to get people's attention in a productive way if the person doing the snarking is able to show that sense of self-awareness and to make themselves a little bit vulnerable.

 

I think it's also important to be aware that when we're talking with people online, we don't always know what experiences people have had, and deliberately provoking someone about an issue that's caused them a lot pain personally can be incredibly callous and hurtful – no matter how much it might appear to you or I that they are overreacting.

Edited February 19, 2014 by jillabender

[alanschu]

 

Pikachu distraction aside, is taking up Devil's Advocate a "trolling" position? Is use of satire or irony trolling? I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread, but it does seem that the term gets used by a lot of people for a lot of different things, so maybe it's one of those words that is starting to lose its meaning.

 

I don't know if I'd agree that a discussion where one has their beliefs challenged means that it's a trolling discussion. For instance, your post here challenges my beliefs that a post where one has their fundamental beliefs challenged is trolling! But your post isn't what I would consider a troll post at all. Do I apply the term differently than you?

 

Trolling is like art, you know it when you see it.

 

Which probably sounds a bit glib, but it's about as accurate and categorical a statement as can be made about it. To be more specific, satire may be trolling and most good trolling involves a very large dollop of satire- but it's usually satire that is presented as being a serious position or statement. Same with either irony or sarcasm which for these purposes are just subsets/ techniques of satire. Trolling doesn't have to challenge a person's beliefs (beliefs is perhaps slightly the wrong word anyway) and certainly more regular techniques can be used to do the same, but I'd argue that good trolling has to have an element of that to be trolling at all. After all, if nobody cares then nobody responds, and that isn't really a troll.

 

 

Can you point me to one?  Simply for reference. 

 

It's come up in this thread in other places regarding a "good troll" but in all honesty, I'm not sure I agree there is such a thing as a good troll.  Mostly because my application of the term trolling is behaviour that is set to be malevolent, with the purpose of disrupting discussions and antagonizing other posters.  Because I don't consider the application of things such as satire, devil's advocacy, sarcasm, and so forth to really be "trolling" though.  A quick google search for the term "trolling" mostly comes up with actions that are done specifically to provoke a anger and frustrate others while seeking for a response.

 

 

Is it a case where the word "trolling" is applied very liberally?  If I make a playful sassy comment to a coworker, and he jokes that I am "trolling" does that make me a troll?  Because to me the crux of trolling is to post in a way to continue to intentionally antagonize in order to frustrate a poster and solicit responses (most likely of the heated kind).  So with that in mind, it'd seem like the only way a "good troll" would exist is if someone were trolling an organization/group of people that would be deemed "appropriate for trolling" by some sort of supposed mass appeal.  Like when Something Awful would go and intentionally derail a pedophile website or something.  But if fine trolling is like an art form, I suspect you more mean "high quality trolling" as opposed to what SA did, since the posts that SA made were more akin to fairly standard inflammatory posting.

 

Are you referring to "noble trolling" (for lack of a better term) or "high quality trolling" when you say "good trolling."

 

 

EDIT: Before I duck out to volleyball, I think another challenge is that trolling is pretty much the embodiment of Poe's Law.  Which is what I think some people may consider "good trolling" though I'm not entirely sure either.

Edited February 19, 2014 by alanschu

[jillabender]

 

Trolling is like art, you know it when you see it.

 

Which probably sounds a bit glib, but it's about as accurate and categorical a statement as can be made about it. To be more specific, satire may be trolling and most good trolling involves a very large dollop of satire- but it's usually satire that is presented as being a serious position or statement. Same with either irony or sarcasm which for these purposes are just subsets/ techniques of satire. Trolling doesn't have to challenge a person's beliefs (beliefs is perhaps slightly the wrong word anyway) and certainly more regular techniques can be used to do the same, but I'd argue that good trolling has to have an element of that to be trolling at all. After all, if nobody cares then nobody responds, and that isn't really a troll.

 

 

Can you point me to one?  Simply for reference. 

 

It's come up in this thread in other places regarding a "good troll" but in all honesty, I'm not sure I agree there is such a thing as a good troll.  Mostly because my application of the term trolling is behaviour that is set to be malevolent, with the purpose of disrupting discussions and antagonizing other posters.  Because I don't consider the application of things such as satire, devil's advocacy, sarcasm, and so forth to really be "trolling" though.  A quick google search for the term "trolling" mostly comes up with actions that are done specifically to provoke a anger and frustrate others while seeking for a response.

 

 

Is it a case where the word "trolling" is applied very liberally?  If I make a playful sassy comment to a coworker, and he jokes that I am "trolling" does that make me a troll?  Because to me the crux of trolling is to post in a way to continue to intentionally antagonize in order to frustrate a poster and solicit responses (most likely of the heated kind).  So with that in mind, it'd seem like the only way a "good troll" would exist is if someone were trolling an organization/group of people that would be deemed "appropriate for trolling" by some sort of supposed mass appeal.  Like when Something Awful would go and intentionally derail a pedophile website or something.  But if fine trolling is like an art form, I suspect you more mean "high quality trolling" as opposed to what SA did, since the posts that SA made were more akin to fairly standard inflammatory posting.

 

 

"Trolling" is one of those terms that's very loaded in that it has so many possible connotations and shades of meaning – people generally rely on context to gauge whether "she was trolling" means "she was being sassy and irreverent," "she was being deliberately outrageous and provoking," or "she was outright bullying people." I do agree that saying "he is a troll" generally carries a far more negative connotation than saying "he was trolling."

 

I agree that it's hard to imagine a situation where antagonizing people just for the sake of antagonizing people could be seen as a positive. I think that when people say there is such a thing as a "good troll," what they're referring to are harmless pranks and silliness, or satire along the lines of "A Modest Proposal."

 

I do find it a bit odd to characterize either of those things as "good trolling" – I can't help but think "If the prank is genuinely harmless, or the satire is genuinely clever and insightful, why does it need to be justified as 'good trolling'? Wouldn't it be less confusing to simply say 'I thought it was harmless/funny/insightful and not malevolent'?"

 

I think where I'm confused by people using the phrase "good trolling" is that it's already pretty common to use the term "trolling" in a playful way, in a context where it's clear that nothing actually malevolent is being implied, so I'm not quite sure why someone would feel the need to further qualify something as "good trolling."

 

People can definitely disagree honestly about whether a joke or an attempt at teasing or satire crossed an ethical line that shouldn't have been crossed, but at that point, I think it's probably more productive to simply say "I think that joke was more hurtful than funny," or conversely "I didn't think that prank crossed a line" – I think framing the discussion in terms of whether something is an act of "good trolling" or "bad trolling" is more likely to confuse things.

Edited February 19, 2014 by jillabender

[Zoraptor]

I'd tend to agree that most trolling is negative or 'bad', but that is also at least partly because people tend to label stuff they simply don't like as trolling. If I were to write a perfectly sensible list of things wrong with, say, Oblivion, and then go and post that on the Bethboards a large proportion of people there would think I was trolling no matter what my actual intention was.

 

In terms of good trolling I'd actually go back to the Tali Sweat Analysis post. I don't really know or care what the initial reason for that post was and whether it was intended as trolling, but if I had made that post it would have had two purposes. Firstly, to make anyone who is really obsessive about such things look a little silly by taking it seriously; and secondly to make the people who get upset at other people's obsessions look silly by taking seriously a post that wasn't serious.

 

And yep, I'd say that Poe's Law is a pretty good match for most good trolling.

 

But in my experience, deliberately provoking people isn't necessarily likely, in itself, to make a person realize that they are being silly.

 

I'd say that most good trolling uses 'soft' provocativeness. The internet equivalent of, say, walking up to someone and slapping them is bad trolling, pretty much by definition. I'd view being provocative in this context to be more similar to how films and the like can be provocative.

 

I wouldn't say that trolling is a particularly effective way to get an argument across though, but... when it comes right down to it convincing someone they're being silly, or 'winning' an argument on the internet by any means is usually an uphill battle- and, of course, a matter of opinion as to whether it's silly/ wrong in the first place, most often.

[BruceVC]

Okay I now recognise we get "good trolls" and "bad trolls", but do you get "neutral trolls"?...or is this an oxymoron by definition?

 

Edited February 19, 2014 by BruceVC

[pseudonymous]

trolling involves a very large dollop of satire

 

 

Nope.  Trolling is just willful deception it can serve a purpose or not:

 

 

I am disappointed that a thread about trolling doesn't mention these guys, though.  They are the world's greatest trolls, having tanked Dow Chemical's stock value, been interviewed by CNBC in character, and successfully posed as spokesmen for the World Trade Organization.

Edited February 19, 2014 by pseudonymous

[alanschu]

In terms of good trolling I'd actually go back to the Tali Sweat Analysis post. I don't really know or care what the initial reason for that post was and whether it was intended as trolling, but if I had made that post it would have had two purposes. Firstly, to make anyone who is really obsessive about such things look a little silly by taking it seriously; and secondly to make the people who get upset at other people's obsessions look silly by taking seriously a post that wasn't serious.

Fair enough. Though it's actually not something I would agree with as, technically, if the intent wasn't to simply aggravate and annoy people. But that is mostly semantics and I'll definitely concede that the application of the word "Trolling" is pretty widespread today (which I do not consider a good thing).

 

 

And yep, I'd say that Poe's Law is a pretty good match for most good trolling

I'd perhaps agree with the perspective of "trolling is a good match for Poe's Law" but I would not consider it a symmetric relationship (the wording gives the impression that those that match Poe's Law is therefore good trolling). If I come here under an alternate account to post on this forum as a hardcore fundamentalist about any topic here, I don't think I'd be doing anything that could be considered "good" on this board, though I'd probably be pretty successful at riling at least some people up. I also have reservations that it'd ultimately be that successful anyways, including the Tali Sweat thread. Unfortunately we cannot really quantify how many people stepped back and went "you know, I take things a little too seriously." And I think you can only definitively state it was "good trolling" if that was the reason why, so I guess it's a position of you and I having out own viewpoints on this.

 

 

 

One thing I was thinking about on the way home today: can anyone think of a situation where a "good troll" had fundamentally different world view on yourself (open question, not just to Zoraptor)? To tie this back in with you, Zor, I am curious if there's a degree of identifying someone as a "good troll" because their actions are in alignment with what you think is ultimately a productive thing.

 

BIAS: I'll admit that part of me is curious that someone is a "good troll" because they do a particularly creative thing that "Person X" agrees with. In that sense, there's that sense of self-satisfaction of "yeah, that guy really showed him. And he's on my team!" I mean, I can make reasonable predictions over what types of posts will receive "Likes" from which posters and I don't think my estimates would be necessarily poor. I mean, I'm fundamentally against Creationism. Is it at all possible for me to see a "good troll" that is a creationist? Do I have a bias to perceive an evolutionist as being a "good troll?"

 

 

EDIT: As an extra: has anyone ever experienced a good troll that made them change their world view after being trolled?

Edited February 19, 2014 by alanschu

[Hiro Protagonist]

Leeroy Jenkins is a good troll.

 

The internet phenomenon started with the release of the video clip called A Rough Go^[1] to the World of Warcraft game forum in a thread titled "UBRS (vid) ROOKERY OVERPOWERED! blue please.", which jokingly presented the video in a serious context.^[2] The thread requested that other players provide help with strategy and that Blizzard reduce the difficulty of the encounter. The video spread as an internet meme, and Leeroy's response to the other players' chastisements, "at least I have chicken",^[1] was also much parodied.

 

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.

Edited February 19, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist

[alanschu]

The above joke is really tame by RPGCodex standards, but is probably unacceptable and likely a bannable offense at physorg. As a result, I don't think a universal definition of troll can be agreed upon, unlike definitions of mental disorders. I think that may be a fundamental flaw of the study.

That's certainly a possibility, and there's definitely a degree of context that is very important. I mean, people go into comedy shows (an apt, analogy you made) and here things that can often be pretty crude, but there's a mindset of things being more for fun (although a good comic will still know which subject may or may not be appropriate (things like "don't punch down" often come up and whatnot), and if he or she crosses the line will often devolve into more self deprecating humor to make it clear that he or she is open to all things being open for being poked fun of.

 

 

Although, with that context does it just mean that different actions may be considered trolling based upon that context? If so, it may still be definable if we isolate things like intentions and goals, for example. Though I'm just musing at this point.

 

 

 

Personal preferences notwithstanding, a troll's trollish net contributions can be evaluated and if the outcome is positive then you have a good troll, regardless of the quality of their "regular" contributions, if any. Take lof, for instance. His threads were always popular, and encouraged interesting discussion for a while yet devolved into poo-slinging contests almost without fail. I think the community is less interesting without him around, yet most regulars would agree that he was actively trolling most of the time.

I'm a bit hesitant to give a troll credit because other posters prove to be reasonable human beings. I think it understates the contributions of quality posters. To Godwin the thread, it sounds like it could be a bit like suggesting maybe Hitler had a net positive because after all, after the second World War perhaps the world was in a better place than it was going in! Personal preferences not withstanding

 

Though speaking of, a poster like LoF is precisely what I prefer to avoid on the internet. It's not something I see as a particularly creative or insightful way to promote discussion, personally. Though I'll agree that he was probably one of the few people that were likely "genuine trolls" rather than just posters that I feel can be antagonistic in providing their perspectives on topics. Reflecting on my time here, there's probably only maybe 2 or 3 posters that I'd be reasonably comfortable suggesting "that poster posts mostly to just get a rise out of people that read his posts."

 

But as you say, personal preferences. I don't find it very difficult to find perspectives on the internet that I can be all smug and point at laugh about.

 

I think trolls also run a risk because well, if they occasionally have something meaningful to contribute, you run the risk of simply being ignore due to past behaviour.

Edited February 19, 2014 by alanschu