Pray tell, what is a troll?

yinyang

yinyang

Joined
Jun 16, 2004
Messages
657
I am rather confused on the specifics of trolling. Since I don't care to be accused of something that is looked on with disdain, could someone hook me up with a definition? I searched to no avail. Thanks-

Kyle
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
Internet_Troll.png
 
Rat-

Thanks, I think. I have AD/HD and that was rather long!
If I understand it as it pertains to the forums here, stay on topic, and don't push others buttons? More or less? I see off topic rants and wild tangents on whine n' cheese and the political forum, but it seems o.k. there? Am I missing anything important? Am I trolling for answers?

Kyle
 
The term troll comes from a mischievous figure in scandinavian folk lore. For the internet it is someone who posts just to be annoying and cause trouble.They are not nice people and get banned !!
 
yinyang said:
Am I trolling for answers?
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No, you are trawling for answers. Look it up, http://www.dictionary.com.


The definition of trolling varies somewhat from forum to forum. Basically, it is someone who stirs up controversy and agrument deliberately.

This can be done by making obviously infamatory remarks obviously intended just to upset people. For example, going into the balisong forum and declaring, "balisong knives are stupid and anyone who owns one is a idiot." Let us say that you do have some questions about the legitimacy of the balisong. You can ask those questions and express those concerns in a way that is not inflamatory.

Trolling often takes the form of bringing up obviously-controversial topics without making any contribution, just to restart an old argument. I often refer to this as tossing a piece of meat into the pen because you enjoy watching the dogs fight over it. An example would be going to the political forum and asking, "Hey, what do you guys think about abortion?" You could answer that question by using the search function. This is where it can get a bit situational. In the political forum here at bf.c, we consider the so-called copy-and-paste post (just copying an article from somewhere else) and the so-called link-and-run post (just giving a link to some outside site and saying, "Here's an interesting site. What do you think about it?") as forms of trolling because you're not making any form of contribution. In other forums, these would be acceptible.

Basically, a troll is someone who likes to start a fight for no reason other than that he likes to watch.
 
Gollnick said:
Basically, a troll is someone who likes to start a fight for no reason other than that he likes to watch.
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This is one of the shortest and best definitions I've yet heard. Great!
 
Trolling comes from the fishing term where one fishes [for a response] by dropping [many] baited lines.

The verb is trolling and the noun is troller. This was later condensed to troll because the folks who were originally on the net were geeks, and we all know geeks don't eat fish :)
 
I guess I started my thread in the wrong spot...but the answers are still helpful, regardless of location. Thanks fellas!
 
yinyang said:
I guess I started my thread in the wrong spot...but the answers are still helpful, regardless of location.
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Actually, I believe that you've posted your question to exactly the right place.

Here, they are giving you definitions, and elsewhere, you might run into actual examples.... ;)

GeoThorn
 
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