What is 'trolling'

[aaron1867]

or a 'troll'?

People have so many different views of what it is & I have seen first hand the many different types of this, which would be considered trolling

is it abuse? or to start an arguement? is trolling merely these days a difference of opinion? is is all or something else?

[kinboshi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29

Generally means posting with the intent to upset someone or start an argument.

[theprawnidentity]

Generally means posting with the intent to upset someone or start an argument.

no

[TightEnd]

Sigh, lol

can be hijacking a discussion, can be a lot worse than that (threats, abuse) as we have seen recently in the news

So few people these days are able to have a differenne of opinion in an adult fashion that these differences often descend into trolling online

[OverTheBorder]

This could be epic if a regular troll, sets up a topic on trolling and then trolls it, HYPER TROLL, the holy grail of trolling

Probably what Dan said, and Tomsom trolled for comic effect, although non serious trolling can be pretty funny (unless your a mod), some of the internet stuff is just bleurgh

[Woodsey]

A lot of it is just a matter of opinion anyway. Many times people get called a troll just because the name caller does not like what they are saying, no other reason.

[BangBang]

Yep, I've seen it a few times on this forum, where instead of debating/arguing a difference in opinion someone gets labeled a troll.. Trolling is usually classed as posting something that is off topic to provoke an emotional response.  This can be relative depending on the topic of discussion but usually narrow..

[RED-DOG]

Example


http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=61977.msg1824557#msg1824557

[Sheriff Fatman]

We actually have some guidelines on this from long ago.  It used to be stickied, but the forum layout has been revised multiple times since then.  Probably could doe with being re-stickied though.

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=25383.0

[redsimon]

or a 'troll'?

People have so many different views of what it is & I have seen first hand the many different types of this, which would be considered trolling

is it abuse? or to start an arguement? is trolling merely these days a difference of opinion? is is all or something else?

And they say satire is dead

[bobAlike]

I miss Smashedagain

[theprawnidentity]

I would have taken the under on 10.  Someone missed value.

[Acidmouse]

Pretty sure the modern day "trolling" we all see, read and encounter started in the mid 90's on the early forums/chat sites and online gaming. Sites like WBS.net was pretty much the biggest chat site at the time and within a few months of it kicking off it was apparent there was a need for some mods, to keep things running smoothly. As first I could not understand why people would go on there with the sole intention to stir shit etc...Over the 3-4 years I chatted on it '95 onwards the problem become more and more an issue, lurkers, spoof profiles, general people being arses.

Around the mid nighties I was playing Ultima Online and Subspace, both of which took the trolls to a new level, people would simply login to those games and just chat shit 24/7 looking for people who were weak or not with it and rip the shit out of them. Over EQ, WoW and right upto now online games have a much tighter set of rules and its hard to really troll people on them without getting bans. It kinda meant that first class trolls moved to forums/chat sites as it was easier to get around mods.

I remember being called a "troll" at the time of the first Iraq invasion, the Everquest server I played on was a USA server and had a huge forum that had 50,000 active users, I swear to God I took so much shit for saying America was wrong to invade Iraq I was called all sorts, as long as you voice different opinions in sensible ways I don't see that as being a troll. (I was proved right anyway, even though i was called communist, socialist freak etc at the time ).

Forums these days are full of people who just do not know how to debate without venturing into being confrontational or unpleasantness.  Deliberately planting bombs that know to set off a sparked debate. Obv. we have low level trolling displayed by some banned peeps on here and one or two of the current posters, but it can go right up to the subtle and not so subtle nature of one or two who have a way with words so it can get through the mods. Trolls that are constantly pushing the rules and popular are always most difficult to control, always asking why? why you do this and that? sure can be draining for everyone and this forum went through years of it, until most of them grew up and realized what utter jerks they were/or perm banned.

Today I kinda fear for my young girls growing up with so much crap online.

[rfgqqabc]

Its certainly not sending death/rape threats via twitter.

"Trolling" started as a terminology for someone who regularly posted in a frustrating manner in order to annoy or wind up other posters.

A few years ago I posted on a clan forum for an online game. The forum was lively and posts were plentiful, the main public chat had over 100 topics per day at its peak. it was a fun community but as teenagers it could be immature/distasteful at times. People didn't use the word troll at all then.At first things like rickrolling went around, when people would post links to a hilarious youtube video such as; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ Trends like this were funny at first, managed to drag on a touch, but things rapidly got worse.

Then people started to purposely post idiotic/annoying things to provoke reactions. People would post stupid questions about the game in order to troll other users. The humour caught out and it soon began as every post and topic was full of trolling and retrolling.  Unfortunately, as the forum became aware of the darker side of the internet, and places like 4chan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan) They forum slowly got worse and worse, all of a sudden the helpful community became a piss poor attempt at being funny, and as we all know humour isn't everyone's speciality.

NYT: In the late 1980s, Internet users adopted the word “troll” to denote someone who intentionally disrupts online communities. Early trolling was relatively innocuous, taking place inside of small, single-topic Usenet groups. The trolls employed what the M.I.T. professor Judith Donath calls a “pseudo-naïve” tactic, asking stupid questions and seeing who would rise to the bait. The game was to find out who would see through this stereotypical newbie behavior, and who would fall for it. As one guide to trolldom puts it, “If you don’t fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_r=0)

The problem with defining trolling is there is more than one way to provoke a reaction. The same "trolls" on 4chan have a wiki. In one article, they describe raiding a white supremacist radio show with phone ins and other mischief, but later in the same article they talk about a spokesperson who is "a n***** who loves fried chicken"



Cliffs: Trolling comes in many forms. It was the art of winding someone up for humorous effect, now it involves basically anything perceived as negative on the internet. Not rewriting my first sentence taken me fkin forever to write this.

[BangBang]

Pretty sure the modern day "trolling" we all see, read and encounter started in the mid 90's on the early forums/chat sites and online gaming. Sites like WBS.net was pretty much the biggest chat site at the time and within a few months of it kicking off it was apparent there was a need for some mods, to keep things running smoothly. As first I could not understand why people would go on there with the sole intention to stir shit etc...Over the 3-4 years I chatted on it '95 onwards the problem become more and more an issue, lurkers, spoof profiles, general people being arses.

Around the mid nighties I was playing Ultima Online and Subspace, both of which took the trolls to a new level, people would simply login to those games and just chat shit 24/7 looking for people who were weak or not with it and rip the shit out of them. Over EQ, WoW and right upto now online games have a much tighter set of rules and its hard to really troll people on them without getting bans. It kinda meant that first class trolls moved to forums/chat sites as it was easier to get around mods.

I remember being called a "troll" at the time of the first Iraq invasion, the Everquest server I played on was a USA server and had a huge forum that had 50,000 active users, I swear to God I took so much shit for saying America was wrong to invade Iraq I was called all sorts, as long as you voice different opinions in sensible ways I don't see that as being a troll. (I was proved right anyway, even though i was called communist, socialist freak etc at the time ).

Forums these days are full of people who just do not know how to debate without venturing into being confrontational or unpleasantness.  Deliberately planting bombs that know to set off a sparked debate. Obv. we have low level trolling displayed by some banned peeps on here and one or two of the current posters, but it can go right up to the subtle and not so subtle nature of one or two who have a way with words so it can get through the mods. Trolls that are constantly pushing the rules and popular are always most difficult to control, always asking why? why you do this and that? sure can be draining for everyone and this forum went through years of it, until most of them grew up and realized what utter jerks they were/or perm banned.

Today I kinda fear for my young girls growing up with so much crap online.

Maybe because of the the amount of information easily accessible on the internet plus our nurtured believes, we are less tolerant to other peoples opinions, that's why the word "Troll or Trolling" is used more loosely then it should be.  Adding that we have less face to face contact, so less empathy is shown in our posts.

My biggest fear for my kids growing up is that they'll have less face to face contact with their pears, but I'm pretty happy in the fact that they'll grow up in a world that access to information will be at their fingertips...