"Jeff Grippe" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Tom you really don't need an example of a Troll do you? If it isn't
obvious to you it is to most of us here. If someone on there own tries
to destroy conversation or berates other users he is a troll! better yet
here is the Webopedia def: (v.) (1) To deliberately post derogatory or
inflammatory comments to a community forum, chat room, newsgroup and/or
a blog in order to bait other users into responding.
butbutbut [1], what about the gray areas? It is all too easy to step
over the line and over moderate a discussion, where the moderators
take on condescending and/or authoritarian airs. I believe there are
sufficient well known examples of this that I need not post an
example.
You seem to be using "troll" as a noun, e.g., "Following his purchase
of a bottle of Livingston Cellars Red Rose, the troll retreated to his
4th Avenue hovel". There is also use of "troll" as a verb, e.g. Johnny
Sunset trolled alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent by contending that an ISO
305-mm front wheel combined with an ISO 406-mm rear wheel is the ideal
combination for a user friendly lowracer. The latter is on-topic, and
would not by logic be considered disruptive or destructive to the
group, yet it is still a troll, since it is attempting to elicit
responses.
Tom, you are selecting parts of the def that you want to and ignoring
others. It works great in debates or politics but here it only serves to
obfuscate.
"To deliberately post derogatory or inflammatory commenats to (laundry
list) in order to bait other users into responding"
All usenet messages are an invitation to respond. If you post something
that is not derogatory or inflammatory then you are not being a troll or
engaging in troll like behavior.
But you know this already. Don't take the second half of the sentence and
ignore the first half. Talking about ISO 406 mm rear wheels on a lowracer
is not trolling. If you were to say instead "Only idiots and morons would
use ISO 406 mm rear wheels on a low racer." and then follow it up with
some remark about where the poster is from or their ethnicity, political
views, or gender. Then you've trolled.
Jeff
In the noun sense (not nonsense) a troll is a grumpy figure that lives under
bridges and eats little children, or some such folk lore. In the good old
days when I owned a two cycle, three cylinder, oil injected SAAB 96, I had a
decal supplied by SAAB that said...Made in Trollhatton by Trolls, and I had
a little troll doll hanging from my rearview mirror. It was three inches
high and had blue hair and a pot belly; not very grumpy at all.
In the verb sense, troll is something fishermen do with small quiet motors
on their boats to slowly drag their bait and attract fish.
In the Usenet sense the verb part seems to be to toss out a post to attract
discussion and the noun sense attracts grumpy children eaters not only to
take the bait, but to attack the fisherman. Usenet is a bastion of free
speech, but not so a dictum of decorum and friendliness, but the
participants can be decorious and friendly. We can ignore posts and posters.
We can choose to be part of a friendly community and we can choose
participate in kind.
What helps to maintain civility is to accept posters foibles. Critism of
style is largely useless. Maintaining a civil discourse is not necessarily
easy, but that is the measure of Usenet's power and attractiveness as
opposed to the Stepford wifeness of moderated boards. Those have their
place. Personal attacks and verbal denigration are enforced by the
particular prejudices of the moderator. Many participants seem to be overly
sycophantic and react like Bushian Republicans to any deviation from their
preconceptions of the high prupose of living the recumbent life. Personally
I visit there, but then I like to visit here where I can let my hair down,
drink a beer with friends and pass that spliff around.
--
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