Monday, July 22, 2013

Don’t feed the trolls

The definition of a troll is rather fluid and subjective.  After one or two comments from an anonymous commenter who has read one or two points but didn’t finish, and almost 10 years of blogging,  plus 5 years on Usenet Forums, I can spot them.  No explanation satisfies a troll, s/he usually just proceeds with the whining, accusations, name-calling, so I don’t give them cheese with their whine and I don’t call them a troll if I know their identity.  Trolls usually don’t bother with my recipes, book reviews, health reports, etc.  Abortion, Obama, and environmentalism seem to bring them out from under the bridge.  Most recently deleted have to do with their not reading the evidence on the Martin Zimmerman trial.  From Wikipedia:

As noted in an OS News article titled "Why People Troll and How to Stop Them" (January 25, 2012), "The traditional definition of trolling includes intent. That is, trolls purposely disrupt forums. This definition is too narrow. Whether someone intends to disrupt a thread or not, the results are the same if they do.[3][4] Others have addressed the same issue, e.g., Claire Hardaker, in her Ph.D. thesis[4] "Trolling in asynchronous computer-mediated communication: From user discussions to academic definitions",[9] and Dr. Phil. Popular recognition of the existence (and prevalence) of non-deliberate, "accidental trolls", has been documented widely, in sources as diverse as the Urban Dictionary,[10] Nicole Sullivan's keynote speech at the 2012 Fluent Conference, titled "Don't Feed the Trolls"[11] Gizmodo,[12] online opinions on the subject written by Silicon Valley executives[13] and comics.[14]

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