deer hunting (graphic image)

[Cheese]

Vicious Cycles
The main motive for a user trolling is to disrupt the community in some way. Inflammatory, sarcastic, disruptive or humorous content is posted, meant to draw other users into engaging the troll in a fruitless confrontation. The greater the reaction from the community the more likely the user is to troll again, as the person develops beliefs that certain actions achieve his/her goal to cause chaos. This gives rise to the often repeated protocol in Internet culture: "Do not feed the trolls".

Often, a person will post a sincere message about which he is emotionally sensitive. Skillful trolls know that an easy way to upset him is to disingenuously claim that he is a "troll". On other occasions, a person may not instantly understand, or fit into the social norms of a forum where most users have similar characteristics. As a result, his acting just slightly out of the norm (often unintentionally, and for legitimate reasons) garners him the label "troll". It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between a user who is merely unfamiliar with the social protocols of a forum, and a user who is intentionally trolling; unfortunately, many users react aggressively on a first impression to a perceived troll, which sometimes leads disgruntled newbies to become legitimate trolls.

Thanks for the Wikipedia quote, troll. Did you find out which type of troll you are?

[Cheese]

Vicious Cycles
The main motive for a user trolling is to disrupt the community in some way. Inflammatory, sarcastic, disruptive or humorous content is posted, meant to draw other users into engaging the troll in a fruitless confrontation. The greater the reaction from the community the more likely the user is to troll again, as the person develops beliefs that certain actions achieve his/her goal to cause chaos. This gives rise to the often repeated protocol in Internet culture: "Do not feed the trolls".

Often, a person will post a sincere message about which he is emotionally sensitive. Skillful trolls know that an easy way to upset him is to disingenuously claim that he is a "troll". On other occasions, a person may not instantly understand, or fit into the social norms of a forum where most users have similar characteristics. As a result, his acting just slightly out of the norm (often unintentionally, and for legitimate reasons) garners him the label "troll". It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between a user who is merely unfamiliar with the social protocols of a forum, and a user who is intentionally trolling; unfortunately, many users react aggressively on a first impression to a perceived troll, which sometimes leads disgruntled newbies to become legitimate trolls.

Why am I thinking of internet.news right now?

He acts and gets treated in exactly the same way on quite a few forums. I've witnessed this on here, Soulseek's forums, KL-Tool's forums, Slyck's forums and R&C's (they still going?). Never worked out if he was a victim, a troll, an elaborate rod of epic proportions or just a mental. Or, perhaps, a heady mixture of them all.

[JPaul]

Why am I thinking of internet.news right now?

He acts and gets treated in exactly the same way on quite a few forums. I've witnessed this on here, Soulseek's forums, KL-Tool's forums, Slyck's forums and R&C's (they still going?). Never worked out if he was a victim, a troll, an elaborate rod of epic proportions or just a mental. Or, perhaps, a heady mixture of them all.

I had always assumed it was hobbes having a larf. I thought everyone assumed the same thing.