Slashdot Mirror
Web Trolls Winning As Incivility Increases
mdsolar sends this story from the NY Times:
The Internet may be losing the war against trolls. At the very least, it isn't winning. And unless social networks, media sites and governments come up with some innovative way of defeating online troublemakers, the digital world will never be free of the trolls' collective sway. That's the dismal judgment of the handful of scholars who study the broad category of online incivility known as trolling, a problem whose scope is not clear, but whose victims keep mounting. "As long as the Internet keeps operating according to a click-based economy, trolls will maybe not win, but they will always be present," said Whitney Phillips, a lecturer at Humboldt State University and the author of This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, a forthcoming book about her years of studying bad behavior online. "The faster that the whole media system goes, the more trolls have a foothold to stand on. They are perfectly calibrated to exploit the way media is disseminated these days."
Wikipedia deserves trolls due to their abusive admins and deletionists. I vandalise Wikipedia all the time and encourage others to do the same. Slashdot gets trolls too because Slashdot editors are fucking bastards.
Would be fitting if some troll would comment dont you think?
This judgement is really dismal. I'd like to see what the handful of scholars have to say when studying users interaction with the shitty Slashdot Beta site. They could study the user's extreme boredom as this user waits for the shitty Beta site's page and all its shitty JavaScript and CSS crap to initially load. Then they could capture the trillionth of a second when the person notices that it's the shitty Beta site rather than the Classic site, and the person's anger starts to grow. The photos would progressively show the anger turning into madness, and then finally utter and complete disappointment and despair once the shitty Beta site has finally loaded. The photos could also capture the formation and flow of the very first of many teardrops to cascade down this poor victim's cheeks as the user struggles in vain to read the stories' small text with poor contrast. These trillions upon trillions of frames of total anguish could be examined in excruciating detail, so the awful nature of the Slashdot Beta site could be truly comprehended.
Some people just can't take a joke.
obsoletely fatal,,, these characters seem to rise up from time to time as we enjoy spiritless complacency of fictional deity based corepirate nazi genociders' perfect balance prosperitarianism?
Just respond with a "U mad Bro?"
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Its not worse now than it's ever been in the past. Get the fuck over it
easy way for the 'government' to drastically cut down on internet trolling: stop funding it.
or didyou think that operation mockingbird was a one-time deal?
If you care that much, install Stylish and increase the text size and contrast.
I'm fine with sites regulating trolls. I'm less fine with government curtailing freedom of expression, regardless of how offensive it may be.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Think for yourself. Instead of choosing sides (externally), determine your own side (internally).
Apparently this is easier said than done.
The only reason trolls win is we give them the reaction that they are looking for. If people just ignored them more often instead of getting all bent out of shape, the trend would go away. Trolls would quickly get bored because they won't have an outlet for their frustration. Trolls are nothing more than school yard bullies that never quite grew up.
You're opening this topic up for comments? Really???
The scope of the problem isn't clear, the goal is ill-defined. What, exactly, are trolls winning?
I think the only one "winning" anything here is the author trying to sell her book by engaging in much the same inflammatory business as the trolls she purported to study.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
... is often another person's legitimate opinion. If large sites, the government, and advertisers get to determine what is "trolling", we're toast. So much for the "I may disagree with your opinion, but I will defend to the death your right to express it". The new Intarweb - 100% Politically Correct, no dissent allowed, citizen. I for one won't welcome our new anti-troll overlords.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Fucking Obama and the libtards made this happen. It wouldn't happen if the sheeple would just wake up and elect Rand Paul as king/President. THEN maybe we'd live in a utopian world where we hand out AR-15s to every baby as soon they come out of the birth canal. Gee, that'd be so sweet.
Wait, what were we talking about?
I like the suggestion that's floating around for hard-news sites to actually drop user comments. User comments for major media sites (and Huff Po for that matter) are nothing but pure unadulterated drivel. They serve no purpose to anyone BUT the trolls. Take away their candy.
The best defense is a good offense: publicly identify the IP addresses and all accounts associated with the IP addresses of the most prolific abusers. Make ignoring/blocking anyone so tagged an option for users. This allows the a-holes to continue spewing crap (to support the "we support freedom of speech"), but doesn't force other people to wade through that crap in order to use the site.
The sites effected can easily find out who their top abusers are. They know what accounts generate the most complaints, and they can tell whether those are legit complaints or people trying to game the system (by reading the actual posts complained about). So, the sites can easily tag the IPs and accounts, if they cared to. They don't care to at the moment.
That's really the problem: there's no monetary incentive for them to give a damn. Make it cost them money, and a thousand interesting solutions will pop up.
A troll is still a person, and you can beat a person with a sack full of oranges.
TFA didn't target the random goatse cluttering up comment systems, but they've targeted real evil trolls harming people, obviously a reaction to Zelda William's quitting to twitter.
For me, its funny when a companies naming competition gets trolled, but targeted campaigns against innocent people are truly too much even for me.
Inflammatory comments draw more responses. It's easier to illicit an emotional reaction in a reader via such comments. Once you react emotionally you are more likely to engage with a troll.
Unfortunately unless you truly know the motivation of the other person is to piss you off you can to be sure they are trolling you. Sometimes just having a different opinion on a hot topic like climate change will label you a troll no matter what your aired views are.
On the internet a person could potentially have exposure to many thousands of times more people than they could ever hope to know and so trolls get the attention they so crave/desire.
As people we are hardwired to notice things that do not fit patterns. Social patterns, behaviour etc. In fact when we are displeased or angry we tell more people about it than when we are happy.
Don't blame so called "trolls", they will always be there.
In many ways this is an exercise in social maturity; the collective intelligence not to feed the trolls.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
This problem is already solved. It's called the "ignore user " button. Push it and you no longer see the posts from the offending troll. Troll can see your posts, but you can't see theirs. So troll has unpleasant (for a troll) experience of seeing a conversation carried on as though what he was posting simply didn't exist, because it didn't for anyone who regarded him as a troll.
If a troll is like porn, we know it when we see it, then this solution works very well. Everyone sees and ignores the troll, depriving the troll of their motivation for trolling in the first place.
The only problem we have is sites don't use the available technology.
I have been on sites where this virtually eliminated the troll problem. FO course the automated accounts that are spamming viagra require something else, but that is not what the article was complaining about. The article was complaining about civility.
I really have to wonder if there are ulterior motivations at work here. Trolls are the new "we must save our children" rallying cry, an argument designed to force people into ID ing themselves, tagging themselves as "legitimate" so they can be better tracked and monetized. I feel like these pieces are set pieces, ready to roll out as soon as their beneficiaries and creators think their might be some temporary, rising sentiment against anonymity on the web.
Current example- Robin William's daughter's recent Twitter experience.
Sure, a troll gets one off but that is all anyone will see of him.
There is no free speech without anonymity and giving it up because some asshole made someone cry is ceding my freedom to assholes. That wont' be happening.
Because we wouldn't anyone meddling with the tweets of our latest small-c celebrity (don't upset the beliebers!), or mocking human interest stories about heroic talking dogs, or critiquing instagram posts of various culinary abominations or leaving snide comments on your facebook page. Because that's the "way media is disseminated these days", and this is what generally passes for social communication and interaction, apparently.
It always comes down to insults unless you will agree that Adm. Rickover was a traitor.
"This legitimate point offends me, therefore you are a troll! Troooollllll!!!!" Dont act like this doesnt happen all the time.
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
This problem is already solved. It's called the "ignore user " button. Push it and you no longer see the posts from the offending troll. Troll can see your posts, but you can't see theirs. So troll has unpleasant (for a troll) experience of seeing a conversation carried on as though what he was posting simply didn't exist, because it didn't for anyone who regarded him as a troll.
If a troll is like porn, we know it when we see it, then this solution works very well. Everyone sees and ignores the troll, depriving the troll of their motivation for trolling in the first place.
The only problem we have is sites don't use the available technology.
I have been on sites where this virtually eliminated the troll problem. Of course the automated accounts that are spamming viagra require something else, but that is not what the article was complaining about. The article was complaining about civility.
I really have to wonder if there are ulterior motivations at work here. Trolls are the new "we must save our children" rallying cry, an argument designed to force people into ID ing themselves, tagging themselves as "legitimate" so they can be better tracked and monetized. I feel like these pieces are set pieces, ready to roll out as soon as their beneficiaries and creators think their might be some temporary, rising sentiment against anonymity on the web.
Current example- Robin William's daughter's recent Twitter experience.
Sure, a troll gets one off but that is all anyone will see of him.
There is no free speech without anonymity and giving it up because some asshole made someone cry is ceding my freedom to assholes. That wont' be happening.
I would argue that some amount of trolling in society is necessary to keep the sanity of the society as a whole.
1. Place immature people (of any physical age) in an anonymous, no consequences environment.
2. Give them the ability to address people whom they would never have the opportunity to approach outside of a virtual environment.
3. Supply a conduit such as Twitter or Facebook or email that requires very little effort compared to writing and mailing a physical letter.
The result is completely predictable.
There have always been more art critics than successful artists. Apparently everything that anybody disagrees with online is termed "troll" now, from patent trolls to opposing views. Actual trolling is mostly harmless. It's a vaccination for online communities: They either develop an immunity or they don't. If they don't, they will succumb to worse influences. In a disembodied world of pure information, not taking every bit of information at face value is a critical survival skill.
There is a need for trolls. Otherwise people get away with garbage.
It's like they (should) learn you at school and in that fantasy book, the bible. Turn the other cheek.
I For One Welcome Our New Internet Troll Overlords!
Thank goodness we don't have any here, otherwise they'd jump all over this.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
But rickrolling is still OK!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/...
It's not as much a problem of trolls as it is a problem of people being incapable of simply filtering out stuff on the Internet, ignoring things selectively, closing the tab, closing the browser, moving on to some other discussion or thread, hiding/filtering/muting posts if a function so allows.
It's a much an obsessive compulsive behavior by victims to BE victims and consciously eat up that trolling and let it influence them, as it is with trolls being trolls.
I'd say trolls are natural selection, those that sooner or later learn to ignore them and become better than letting the trolling influence them, those who become desensitized, are far more valuable than those living in a hugbox.
They get to act out fantasies and have no repercussions because it's all anonymous. As long as it's anonymous people will continue to treat it like a game and go hog wild.
There is just as many trolls in real life as there is online, the only difference is that they can troll multiple communities at the same time from the comfort of their home.
Trolling is necessary evil and the last line of defense against monolithic group thinking. Humans are hard-wired to seek consensus and to avoid conflict, both are beneficial traits, but when combined can and do lead to worst kinds of groupthink. Our ideas and understanding, be it social sciences, morals and religion, or even hard sciences are only as good as out ability to question it.
For example, Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a trolling organization, but almost everyone here would agree that what they do can be categorized as "greater good".
Intolerant pricks these days have become intolerant of other peoples' opinions. It's funny that the NYT would publish this considering their left leaning stupidity. Yeah if you don't agree with us, you're a troll. Fuck that, I haven't lived all these decades to just to the party line. Don't like it? Too bad.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
This has been going on for 20 years. Perhaps more if you include Usenet news groups.
I'm not going to argue that all trolling is good, but some of it definitely is - trolling is the internet's means of self-regulation. For instance, the article mentions people harassing Zelda Williams on twitter. Does she deserve it? No, she most certainly doesn't. However, what the idiots sending her pictures on twitter don't know is that 4chan likes her (and /v/ reveres her as a goddess ever since the time she posted there), and 4chan also likes her father and his work. I would not be surprised in the slightest if those people wind up doxxed, because they've done something assholish enough to pick up the attention of the internet hate machine. That's the internet regulating itself.
The reverse is true for Jezebel - they're a website run by a company (Gawker Media) that thrives on "click-baiting" and "nerd-baiting", writing overly inflammatory articles about how much they hate men in order to get men (and the angry, militant, extremist feminist sect and tumblr SJW that are Jezebel's typical readership) to click on their articles and comment on just how stupid they are. This is how they make money. Assuming the gore flood isn't Gawker themselves trying to drum up more attention (and thus more clicks and more money), it's the internet regulating itself.
No matter what they do, there will always be internet trolls. There is nothing that can be done about them, short of going full-on 1984 and requiring surveillance cameras and ID cards to access the internet - and I'm not sure even that would stop them. There are always going to be assholes, online or offline, but they always get dealt with eventually.
... Charge to comment. Even at just a penny per comment, You could easily discourage a number of Trolls.
I don't know if it's a cause or an effect of our politically divided culture, but the bigger problem seems to be people's hyper-sensitive reactions to everything.
You can't disagree with someone spouting the conventional wisdom on many topics without screaming about race, gender, class, political orientation, etc.
Pretty much everything gets immediately turned into a "kill topic" where you're judged to be racist, homophobic, a Nazi, or some other person whose opinion and reasoned disagreement is to be suppressed, not debated.
Dealing with trolls on the internet is good practice for dealing with them in real life. Think of it at the next meeting where someone is trying to distract you from the argument you're making by going for an emotional reaction. Incivility may or may not be increasing, both on the internet and in real life, but it's better to develop the social skills to deal with it than to always be protected from it. Additionally, trolling trolls is good practice for being able to make your points in real life when encountering such obstructionism. It's called "helping them dig their own grave." Never interrupt your nemesis when they're making a mistake, and all that.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Whatever dude. There's no such thing as trolling. It's thin skinned treehuggers like you that go and complain to thier facebook "friends" that are the real problem with the internet. Grow a pair or go back to facist Nazi-Russia. And take Obama with you. We don't need him spreading any more lies and ebola to our children. And another thing, Janeway was twice the captain that Kirk ever was.
For Christs sake... stop misusing the word "Troll"
It's has a very specific meaning, but everyone uses it now as a derogatory term for anyone on the internet they disagree with. That is not what a troll is.
A Troll, very specifically, lurks, and posts to try and get you to over-react. A troll will rarely overtly offend you. Often a troll will be on your side! Egging you on, to get you to blow up at others. Sometimes a troll will simply IM you to point out other people that are deserving of your rather. A troll is an instigator, troublemaker, rabblerouser, etc...
What a troll is not, is a contrarian. I'm a contrarian, I like to argue my point. I seek out those I disagree with or subjects I feel are incorrect (Like this post!) and I argue my point. I like having people disagree with me, and like to refine my arguments. It's something I enjoy. Contrarians enjoy debate.
Trolls do not care about debate, they care about the emotional anguish of their victim. I rarely, if ever, see a real troll anymore. There used to be clubs of them all over the net, but not really anymore. You can find them on Reddit at times. A troll, for example, may be African American and go to an African American forum and argue for white supremacy. Not because he supports it, but because he knows that's what will get a reaction.
And in regards to the main point of this article... It's total BS. Argument and Debate are good things. The internet is still relatively new. People that couldn't talk before, can now. That's great. By its very nature internet debate is non-violent, which is fantastic. Let the debate continue.
If Jezebel or NYT writers receive such communications, it's because mixed in with reasonable articles, they post clickbait, articles that they know are going to be offensive to many. It's both a business strategy (it generates lots of clicks) and an in-your-face political tactic (presenting radical views as if they were mainstream). If you make lots of people angry (i.e. you "cause them emotional damage"), don't be surprised if some people express their anger. This doesn't just happen to feminist and progressive web sites, it also happens to fiscally conservative and Christian websites.
I don't see a problem here that needs fixing. These sites (on the left or right) can choose to stand up for what they believe in and/or engage in a clickbait business strategy; in that case, they have to accept that they are offending many people and people will vent their anger; or they can choose to tone it down and write in dull, rational prose and arguments; in that case, the angry responses will stop.
...feeding the trolls! Geeze people, this kind of headline is just what all those internet trolls have been waiting for. Now they'll be even more relentless!
Seriously folks, on the internet, you gots the trolls. Just look the other way.
Stop building bridges and the trolls will have nowhere to live under. And what is with no https for slushdot??? May think you need some more downtime, eh??
Provide a common forum without restrictions by having a two-tiered forum: Serious Discussion and Peanut Gallery. How sites impliment this is optional, but it does allow for both the serious and the silly, the thinkers and the trolls. Requires quality supervision and moderation, yet here is the rub -- sites which either don't want to moderate their forums or do a really crappy job of it (Slashdot, this mirror is for you) are the ones that have the most trouble with trolling.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
Is this troll on a government payroll?
TFA assumes all 'trolls' are doing so just for the "lulz"
that's certainly not the case...these articles written by tech illiterates are ruining our industry (or at least making it difficult by not covering the problem properly)
Public Relations and other media companies pay grey-hat contractors to "boost their social media presence" meaning post fake comments by fake accounts or just by having paid monkeys doing it
Disquss & the facebook.com plugin for sites both have this problem
even here on /., look at a thread about Uber, there will be many high UID comments from random-named Google+ accounts linked to /.'s system
if you're examining online "trolls" and you don't factor in sock puppets, you're missing half the problem
Thank you Dave Raggett
If people just ignored them more often instead of getting all bent out of shape, the trend would go away.
Some might, but in many cases they'll just increase the level of trolling to intolerable levels. It's like a certain "church" in the U.S. that trolls funerals, they troll whether if you feed them or not, but if they're ignored they'll just do even crazier/nastier stuff.
I feel like there is a very loose grasp of what a troll is. If an oil tanker crashes into a puppy shelter and somebody responds with "THANKS OBAMA" are they being funny or trollish? If this whole ebola outbreak is worrying people and somebody responds with "I'm not sure how this disease spreads. How does it keep spreading to doctors?" are they asking a legitimate question because they want to know, or are they being trollish? Frankly, it depends on the intent of the poster, which is not crystal clear. If something politically embarrassing comes out about a politician and people post on a news site to gloat... is that trolling? Or is it a celebration with part of your community? Am I trolling by even doing this?
The fact that all areas on the Internet are seen as a common area is part of the problem. The Internet itself is only a virtual common area where private areas can be created for a few dollars (sometimes for free). Ultimately, Trolling itself is not the problem. It's the idea that you can go anywhere on the Internet and not encounter trolling. Just like physical neighborhoods, you should make yourself aware of the places you don't want to be "after dark." If you want to be safe from the boogeymen and trolls, educate yourself. Don't go to Iraq and expect a leisurely stroll sipping cappuccinos and eating scones.
i can has post here?
Just tear down all the bridges, then the trolls have nowhere to go.... ;)
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
The role of satire is to comfort the afflicted by afflicting the comfortable, or so Doonesbury said. Trolling does not do that. It is either cheap attention grabbing for shit and giggles, or more often, an attempt to intimidate a certain group of people into leaving the Internet.
If you disagree then explain to me the subtle social commentary of posting photoshopped pictures of Robin Williams' body to his daughter. Or bombarding a feminist website with gore, and rape porn.
The majority of trolling these days is about bullying people of opposing viewpoints into submission. They only seek their victims' attention in order to affect that.
Somehow I knew that this was going to be the NYT complaning about 4chan and uncivil speech coming from certain types of people and not all uncivil speech, of course. If you're at all familiar with the "social justice" crowd, you probably know that they don't believe that the rules of civility apply to them. Asking them to watch their language or to be considerate is usually denounced as attempts to "control" them and to "silence" them. Those who are the targets of their policing, the ones whom they "call out", though, are just supposed to sit there, shup up and listen while the "approved trolls" from the social justice world dress them down. This is of course understood already by many on slashdot. I saw a commenter abvove approve of trolling by followers of the flying spag monster. That's fine actually but I wonder if the commenter is also ok with trolling by the those who wish to defend christianity in vigorous manner. I rethorically wonder, that is.
Society is creating these trolls. Society is sick, it's been under the effects of prohibition too long and the strain is too great.
When a machine is broken and spitting out broken bits of shit... do you hire sweepers? NO, you fix the damn machine!
Controlling trolls created by our current society is as dumb as hiring sweepers to sweep up the effects of a broken machine.
Now you know...
I mostly agree with your points, but I differ on the generalization that Trolls "care about the emotional anguish of their victim". Many trolls, and I have done it myself, are really just there to poke fun by getting a some response, I know I never wanted to cause anguish, and would always draw the line somewhere. I do think words can be violent, as not all violence is physical. If the words are expressly directed towards either a physical violent conclusion, such as "kill all ****", or even are intended to cause psychic pain, such as seems to have been the case recently with verbal assaults on people who have just lost a loved one, then the people responsible deserve opprobrium, which can only happen if, in the context of the medium, the "attacker" can be identified. I rather such people are not identified as Trolls, they may or may not be. Trolling != Violence I see a lot of hate speech out there, and you can play with words and argue that one persons hate speech is another persons "constructive criticism" but is really isn't the case.
People are just becoming bigger wimps. Oh so sensitive! Somebody is really trying to push censorship here.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
"The faster that the whole media system goes, the more trolls have a foothold to stand on. They are perfectly calibrated to exploit the way media is disseminated these days."
This is terribly clumsy, and it absolutely screams of a pretentious reach beyond grasp. Another person who should never write anything.
Fuck Beta. :)
So you say, but what about when you legitimately come up against someone who says something sincerely, that you'd assume was a troll? I was called all kind of nasty names for not being a Socialist when I recently encountered a self-proclaimed Marxist who denied Mao and Stalin were mass murderers. When I told him I absolutely thought Stalin was responsible for the Holodor and more, he called me a Nazi sympathizer.
I couldn't tell at first if he was trolling, but I later learned from a friend he was completely serious. It was like being on a different planet.
The only way to not lose is to not play.
And that's the mistake the people make: they think (and I use the term loosely - there's no actual thinking involved) the trolls matter. They think they can educate people who know full well what crap they'll shoveling. They think they can teach a lesson to someone who knows exactly how much the internet doesn't matter. They think they can somehow win.
And other people try to make a living advising them on how to do it. This entire article is, itself, nothing more than a subtle troll, trying to get people worked up over something that somebody is selling a "solution" to.
Eventually, the internet will teach people to stop being so overly sensitive about shit that doesn't matter. If nothing else, those who can't learn that lesson will all have strokes and die.
Theft, rape, and murder are still with us despite millenniums worth of efforts to get rid of them...
Why would trolling be any easier to dispense with?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Maybe if the NYT wasn't a kneejerk checkbox All Hail Obama hamster cage lining piece of shit that it is, people wouldn't hate on it. Until then they can suck cock in hell.
why involve the moderators? if getRemoteHost were reliable (or at least had a more aggressive strategy), you could write an app in a couple days to record the relationship between hosts and posts and drop in a button to 'ignore all from this (poster)'. when it's me filtering my own content from your site, there's nothing to game and it doesn't matter if my opinion is sane or slanderous. distribute the app freely, then host a commercial service (paid for by the server) to coordinate user preferences between sites. proxies and other obstacles would still pose an interesting challenge in the form of: which records do i have to ignore while still being able to provide a valuable service.
alas, as you mentioned, it still requires a lot of financial pressure to realize a minimally useful network.
"To have a more civil society, we must destroy privacy and anonymity. Except, of course, for the wealthy and powerful."
All I am asking for is another season of Magipoka and Spice and Wolf. Do that... Then things will get better.
Trolls who enjoy tormenting others when they might not even realize they are being toyed with? Or know-it-alls who spout off useless nonsense pretending to know and/or care about the subject at hand when neither is true.
I for one welcome our troll overlords
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Attract trolls and then whine about it once they have answered your clarion call. Sounds like a plan.
dagnabbit.
Did these academics even cite the FAQ?
CNN has an article on this too
If a complete stranger offers his/her opinion in a caustic way it really doesn't affect me. Why should it? However, if a friend/family member does the same thing it does affect me. Then we can hopefully discuss the issue and agree to disagree if that's how it has to be. Big difference. If you respect the opinion of trolls enough to get all teary eyed and suicidal about it, you have WAY bigger problems. When it comes to young people dealing with this stuff, I think the way to handle it is to help them deal with the inevitable negativity rather than try to block the trolls and over-protect the little kiddies. I say this as a dad. There are bad people. Bad things happen. Learn to live with it. I'm not saying that slavery, genocide, murder, rape etc. are acceptable - you know what I mean...
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Klan rallies down Main St. are part of the price we pay for free speech. So are rude comments, trolls, etc. Just like in real life, you send the cops in to make sure it doesn't get out of control. This story probably has hundreds of useless comments. They've been modded down. That would be like the cops arresting a KKK guy or a counter-demonstrator who were about to assault somebody.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I disagree with your definition to a point...while I agree that it has gotten out of hand for those folks that use it to define those that disagree with them, the definition can be broadened to folks who like to derail topics with off topic nonsense, the typical "U Mad Bro?" responses that are just there for no reason at all and provide no constructive debate or thought. Message boards all over are full of trolls. I'm not sure why you're not seeing them, but spend a few moments on CNN. The news sites are full of trolls.
Example: Got a story about someone kidnapping a child, it takes all of 10 seconds before someone busts in with a "blame Obama quote and the entire topic is derailed.
Again, I agree with most of your description, but it's definitely evolved to a point more than your second paragraph.
Not your personal army, not Miss williams' personal army, either. Also, rules 1 and 2.
There are no lulz to be had in white knighting.
It's probably good that we are regularly reminded that the world is full of assholes, and that walled gardens are not the sum total of reality. It may be that many people are assholes simply BECAUSE they are excluded from some of these gardens-- no doubt many of those within the gardens are assholes too, just of a different type. And if you can't figure how to deal with assholes without becoming one yourself, you deserve what you get...
To many, especially the waves of young (and often inexperienced and immature) internetters, it's someone who disagrees with you.
Is it really worth investing tax dollars when this is really dumb children or overly sensitive women crying wolf? Or maybe they deserved to be trolled for their stupid comments? Often you're so angry that you don't have any good comebacks that you want to physically hurt the so-called "troll" by making a false report. Intervention at this level is dirty and pointless. This is the sewage level of human kind.
Hit the mute/block button and stop wasting our time already!
they want to control everything. such a sad world for them...
The trouble with the anti-troll, trolls is they end up typing to themselves. Empty chat rooms empty forums and empty BBS boards and so on. The trouble with the anti-troll trolls, is they follow the "trolls" to stop them from being "trolls." Megalomaniacs are destructive their anti-troll trolls ruined newsgroups a long time ago. Also what happened to AOL, ICQ and so on the megalomaniacs were left with nobody to filter.
They're spamming this thread with nonsense because they don't want us even discussing it. Check out any thread talking about Snowden or Wikileaks--you'll find plenty of them there, lile cold fjord.
You know what this means? I just won the internet and it only took me 15 years!
Why are you co-opting the term "trolling" - which historically had only negative connotations, and referred to actions such as inciting flamewars or consistently derailing online discussions and actively counteracting efforts to get them back on track - by conflating it with the (much older) term satire, which does neither of those things at all? Those aren't "crusades"-style examples, either; that's actually what the term has meant from its inception in this context of online discussion. Another (relatively minor, given the moderation system here) example is that flood of HOSTS file BS that came through here a few months back.
Seriously, trolling already had a definition (and it doesn't even approximate yours). There's no need to redefine it. What benefit do you obtain by attempting to paint trolling as a somehow more noble or victimized than it is? Do you just get you jollies out of calling what you do "trolling" despite it having a different, well-established, and considerably more positive definition already?
Are you trying to say "Don't call those people trolls; *I* am a troll and I'm not that bad" or something like that? Fine, call them griefers - that's another relatively well-established term, for people who want to cause pain rather than merely anger or confusion - but don't then try to pretend that trolling is some noble but misunderstood practice. It's not, and there's absolutely no benefit I can see to trying to make trolling as a whole more acceptable; it will just grant the real trolls legitimacy.
Or are you just attempting to divert the discussion from the subject of what the people mentioned in TFA are doing, and the harm it causes?
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
On topic is a lie, there is only snark.
Through snark, I gain replies.
Through replies, I gain Karma.
Through Karma, I gain Mod.
As Mod, i get the last word, which is victory.
Though victory, the boards are broken.
Trolling sets everyone free.
Seems to me a "Collective force" against trolling could only be conducted through big business and corporations. I think a clearer definition of trolling needs to be established. I for one do not consider information about x company with x harmful ingredients in it is trolling...but whomever is "studying" this is sure to have defeating awareness of these types of issues top of their agenda... So who polices the troll police?
It's only a reflection on the real world, with a significant percentage of troublemakers.. Of course the 'net would reflect it..
Back when mailing lists and discussion forums with threading and contextual reply were the standard for Internet communication, trolling was less of a problem. It is because of the flat, linear form of the blog that trolls have more power today. It is also why other forms of disruption in blogs lead to self-censorship and even to the premature end of conversation, that the blog, adopted as a standard for its business value, is actually hurting communication of the Internet.
It doesn't take a new academic study to reveal this or why. It is because of the ox being gored that the press wishes to make this much more of a mystery than it really is, and the solution comes from the past. It existed 30 years ago but was dropped by Google and Facebook because their engineers don't know how to use regular expressions :-) The solution to this is to provide more structure in conversations than the blog allows, to reintroduce some of the features of the discussion forum. These exist in Slashdot and Reddit, somewhat.
What contextual reply and sub-treading to do trolls is that they move the distraction out of the main flow of the conversation and the single out the perp. for a direct response. When uses can create a sub-thread by changing the topic line, they can tag the message with something like "Troll-Alert" and what a reader who sees the list of collapsed threads by topic lines does is to avoid the tagged sub-thread. It doesn't matter if the troll has an identity; he is hung by his own petard. His inane remark can be directly and pointed shown for what it is. This approach applies to other distractions, to change of topic and thread hijacking, Because blogs do not allow flexibility in replying, normal tendencies in conversation are blog killers. We must kill the blog to bring back useful human discourse.
This seems to me to be a first world problem. Trolls? Really? I recall back in the AOL days that there existed a button. That button had a name. The name of the button was Ignore. Get over it. Get a life. Ignore trolls.
from responding to trolls and incitement, this would be a non-issue.
A really shitty book by a really shitty psychologist that can not even manage to ask an intelligent question or provide any insight is not really news. It's just business as usual.
Why do people get suckered into having meaningless non-discussion with strangers high on outrage is a far more fascinating question.
Trolls have zero impact on people that just don't care what some anonymous stranger has to say about anything. In the real world, the context of who is saying what is as significant as what is being said.
The internet is an enormous septic tank of nonsensical emoting and projection of the contents of the collective psyche. It is not the trolls that make it un-pretty. It's what humans are that makes it un-pretty and a potentially dysfunctional waste of time and effort.
that they are "winning" ?
should not join discussions, online or offline.
Next time use a rickroll video without GEMA blocking ;).
Whatever dude. There's no such thing as trolling. It's thin skinned treehuggers like you that go and complain to thier facebook "friends" that are the real problem with the internet. Grow a pair or go back to facist Nazi-Russia. And take Obama with you. We don't need him spreading any more lies and ebola to our children.
And another thing, Janeway was twice the captain that Kirk ever was.
Spoken like a true troll lol
Trolling is necessary evil and the last line of defense against monolithic group thinking. Humans are hard-wired to seek consensus and to avoid conflict, both are beneficial traits, but when combined can and do lead to worst kinds of groupthink. Our ideas and understanding, be it social sciences, morals and religion, or even hard sciences are only as good as out ability to question it.
For example, Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a trolling organization, but almost everyone here would agree that what they do can be categorized as "greater good".
I disagree that that church is a trolling organization, they are just making a statement of personal disbelief.
What evidence do we have that more people aren't just legitimately retarded?
Rampant political correctness, SJW feminism, and religion. People have always been dumb as shit. Now they just all have cell phones with internet access.
Ash-Fox had to "eat his words" on saying all apk's posts are downmodded here http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... hahahaha, and so do you posting ac troll posts now.
Do tell us how your words tasted since you had to eat them http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... regarding both yourself and Lumpy by ac (or yourself no doubt) stating apk is always minus modded (when evidences shown involving you no less clearly prove otherwise when you yourself tried stating that and you were shot to pieces for it in a 40:1 ratio by apk's upmodded posts). Why are you avoiding answering that simple question? At this point it's quite obvious you and lumpy are the same person sockpuppeteering too.
See subject: Lumpy said what you did before here (by ac posts which fools no one, or it was you doing it) and he's backing and replying to you here. Talk obvious sock puppetry on your part! Lumpy/you by ac ate their/your words on apk's upmodded posts. So have you, so cut the bullshit Ash Fox. You're so transparently obvious it's not funny. You ate your words on it when you replied to what you did there http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... and the same happened on DNS issues that hosts fix (redirect security ones) http://news.slashdot.org/comme... or was that not you also, chump? Yes, it was. Face facts: You're a done zero in computing "ne'er-do-well". You wish you were apk.
I have no idea what you're even saying any more. by Ash-Fox (726320) on Tuesday August 19, 2014 @02:47PM (#47705463)
FTFY: I have no idea what to say anymore since I use sockpuppets and avoid points I can't disprove after trolling them like the asshole I am.
(Run Forrest... run! Your "TL:DR" crap this started on, regarding you, troll http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... ?
It's weak - just like you! See subject - Mere evasions of a troll, nothing more and as usual for you)
Are you fooling anyone but yourself? No.
Ok. I agree on the subject + You can't prove apk's points wrong on hosts http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... . You fail.
Yet you can read & no you didn't if you used "TL:DR" not disproving apk's points here http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... so you fail (or you are an illiterate ignoramus - take your pick).
I don't see 'apk' on the post you replied to as the account name used. You're hallucinating as was said of you.
Non-sense, everyone knows that "Anonymous Coward" is always APK. by Ash-Fox (726320) on Thursday August 21, 2014 @06:26AM (#47718947)
You not only need to learn to read, but to spell also. That'd be impossible for apk to be every ac also.
Finally: Next time you use "TL:DR" as an evasive "out" in a conversation like you did regarding apk's post on hosts here http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... instead of disproving their points (which you can't obviously) troll?
Don't get roped into a long exchange like this one where you've proven you can read LONG amounts of material as you have in this debate you've just lost badly. It proves your "TL:DR" evasion is just that. Evasion that trolls use. Like you.
On DNS issues vs. custom hosts files on numerous points you had to concede -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... on excess power, cpu cycles, memory, I/O that DNS consumes more than hosts files do, security vulnerabilities it has that hosts files fix, and that your "fix" against dns redirect poisoning DOUBLES your overheads (using TCP vs. UDP the default).
* :)
(Along with the fact you can't show ANYONE ANYTHING you've ever done in the art & science of computing... especially in comparison to myself)
APK
P.S.=> What was even more "priceless" was your "I was pretending" garbage here too -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... where I pointed out fastflux, & dynamic DNS utilizing botnets abusing DNS servers taking advantage of their VERY NATURE to do exploits on users - so the ONLY thing you are "pretending" on, is that you are PRETENDING to know a damn thing about computing, lol & that ALL proves it... apk