Internet Trolls- Where the Fairytale Ends

[rooster-red]

Trolling is a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players. The troll attempts to pass as a legitimate participant, sharing the group's common interests and concerns; the newsgroups members, if they are cognizant of trolls and other identity deceptions, attempt to both distinguish real from trolling postings, and upon judging a poster a troll, make the offending poster leave the group. Their success at the former depends on how well they — and the troll — understand identity cues; their success at the latter depends on whether the troll's enjoyment is sufficiently diminished or outweighed by the costs imposed by the group.

Trolls can be costly in several ways. A troll can disrupt the discussion on a newsgroup, disseminate bad advice, and damage the feeling of trust in the newsgroup community. Furthermore, in a group that has become sensitized to trolling — where the rate of deception is high — many honestly naïve questions may be quickly rejected as trollings. This can be quite off-putting to the new user who upon venturing a first posting is immediately bombarded with angry accusations. Even if the accusation is unfounded, being branded a troll is quite damaging to one's online reputation." (Donath, 1999, p. 45)[

 

[ozark hen]

whoa, that is what I get for not reading past the first page before posting a response

Your O.P. should be a sticky, you can leave the rest out.

 

[rooster-red]

Quote:
But the rest is also a good example!

 

[rooster-red]

A monster in the Munchkin card game is named the Net Troll. It is described as having "no special powers, and is really mad about it."

 

[the1much]

i think the whole thing should be stickied,, ole Nifta showed more restrain then most of us in his position would of,,, not only is it a "troll" lesson,, its a lesson that words from a TROLL shouldnt make you do the same,,,, i tip my hat to ya nifta,,, her title would of been "flown the coop" after the first post of the "simpleton"

 

[ozark hen]

yes, I agree but it will end up being locked.

 

[Imp]

Gosh! I've been ignoring this thread all day thinking it was about unicorns and rainbows. Now I know the chickens are smarter than me. I'll have to pay closer attention in the future. Glad I'm just an Imp.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Quote:
Thanks buddy. I don't think Beth meant anything negative. I even was looking at her first posts (search by username, leave the keyword blank, and select show results as posts) and she's been very helpful and friendly.

I think some just got caught up in the excitement which I've learned (the hard way) not to do.

As I posted in another thread:

So much is lost (tone, body language, etc.) in written communication. Per wikipedia:

"Some researchers put the level of nonverbal communication as high as 80 percent of all communication. More reasonably it could be at around 50-65 percent. That’s exactly what Mehrabian discovered in his communication study. He found that only 7 percent of communication comes from spoken words, 38 percent is from the tone of the voice, and 55 percent comes from body language."

So, you can see that in cases where people are posting replies to a comment, especially one that has a lot of emotion, a LOT can be lost or miscommunicated, which is how about 80% of the problems start which cause a thread to be locked or removed.

We encourage everyone to be VERY careful as they reply AND read posts that solicit emotional responses.​

 

[rooster-red]

From Wikipedia:

Application of the term troll is highly subjective. Some readers may characterize a post as trolling, while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial. The term is often used to discredit an opposing position, or its proponent, by argument fallacy ad hominem.

Often, calling someone a troll makes assumptions about a writer's motives. Regardless of the circumstances, controversial posts may attract a particularly strong response from those unfamiliar with the robust dialogue found in some online, rather than physical, communities. Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a troll is usually to ignore him or her, because responding tends to encourage trolls to continue disruptive posts — hence the often-seen warning: "Please do not feed the trolls".

Frequently, someone who has been labelled a troll by a group may seek to redeem their reputation by discrediting their opponents, for example by claiming that other members of the group are closed-minded, conspirators, or trolls themselves.

 

[DuckLady]

Quote:

Pot...kettle....black