What is a Troll?

RHawes said:

Depending on your definition of a "troll", I both prohibit and encourage "trolling" on my forum.

If you're taking "trolling" to mean the posting of controversial messages with the intention of provoking an argumentative response, I have a discussion and debate forum on my community where I actively encourage members to be controversial. I've often found that heated debate and discussion, between mature adults, with clearly defined boundaries, can provide for some stimulating conversations and thus in the interests of stimulating debate I would encourage trolling in that forum alone.

However, I've also seen examples of "trolling" where the member attempts to stir up ill-will between members or between members and staff. This is, for obvious reasons, expressly forbidden.

I suppose it all comes down to intention. Presenting a controversial view with the intention of opening a discussion or debate in the appropriate forum can be valuable, depending on the type of community you have. Posting with the intention of stirring up trouble or provoking drama certainly isn't desirable.

Would I ban a "troll"? That depends on what they said, what their intention was in saying it, what the result of their statement was and in what forum they said it. As a general rule, I don't think I would ban someone for trolling in the first instance, but I can see myself banning a persistent offender if he/she was disrupting the community.

Rob

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Good post. I take a similar line. If someone deliberately sets out to wind people up - say by posting malicious abuse - they'll be dealt with, but not for 'trolling' but for posting malicious abuse.

But if someone posts something controversial in good faith, i.e. it's legal and within the rules of the site, there's no way they should have a manager sniffing round after them. Indeed, if a member accused them of 'trolling' and demanded disciplinary action against them, that member should be in trouble.

This fits with something I see frequently on bulletin boards and it's a bad habit which both managers and members get into.

Say I post something controversial now, this instant. I'm sincere - I believe what I say to be true. I back it up - I produce arguments to support it, I give reasons why I believe it to be true. My claim, and my arguments in support of it, are legal: no one's libelled, I've not breached copyright, I've not threatened national security - and are within the rules of the forum.

Then someone pops up and says they find my claim, or accompanying arguments, 'offensive'. They don't agree with them. They get upset. They accuse me of 'trolling'.

But I've not tried to upset them. I've done everything right (law, rules etc). The fact they've become upset is their problem, not mine. At that stage I usually point this out to them and may encourage them to seek anger-management counselling depending on how upset they are. This tends not to go down well. Tough titty. LOL. It’s a bulletin board not a group encounter session for people with eggshell personalities.

When the 'troll!' accusation is used as a censorship/bullying weapon (because that, at root, is what the above person is doing) they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. A good forum management will put a stop to it. But often it’s the forum management who are the worst offenders.

If managers are confused about the meaning of the word and take disciplinary action against people who aren't really trolls (perhaps because the upset person is a favourite, or mounts a report-post campaign, or threatens to flounce - an activity otherwise known as 'blackmail' - ) then the forum's in trouble.

This was an awesome topic, and we have many new members here on site who I think would love the read. It's come up with me this time because one of my members recently took a turn for the worst...and it just seemed like every second word that came out of his mouth was negative. After a few posts of him always taking what seemed to be annoying counter positions to well stated and researched points of view constructed by others, he would always, to counter their personally qualified answers, come up with grand sweeping generalizations, with the words "I am being realistic"

Well, everything is kind of realistic to me, but some points of view are lazier if not outright, made up fallacies that are good to fall asleep too

We had to finally put his account on probation today, with nice, very long pm from me (ugh, this always takes so much time to explain everything) explaining that while the sentiments that he is expressing COULD have some value, the vein which he writes them in, a mocking tone, are just too negative and are now beginning to distract from the productivity of our community which is our mainstay and my delight.

We're upset, he was such a nice person but he got bored...

Boredom begets trolls?



gogo

I defined a "troll" as "one who engages in repeated flaming of another user" but I plan to expand it to cover anything that is detrimental to the well being of my forum (posting porn, insulting members, etc.)

I do not consider controversial topics (unless they are worded in an intentionally provocative way) trolling.

Trolling actually has no useful meaning in my book. Under different context a single post could either be a flame-bait or not.

Think of it this way. If somebody has a history of deliberately stirring up controversy and using that as a means to viciously attack others and shows blatant and unwarranted disrespect of a person or persons including entire groups of people or ideas, then that person is a troll. Nothing short of that qualifies as a troll in my book.

Everybody gets annoyed on occasion and posts something they should not. That doesn't automatically mean that they derive pleasure out of insulting people.

It is something of a fine line. We have a couple of members who are fairly controversial in some of their views but they present them in a clear and concise manner and do not breach our T&C while doing so and thus I have no issue with their posts.

The fact that some of these missives result in other people getting upset is rather more the readers issue than the writers and while we keep an eye on these threads it is only to ensure that the respondents stay on track.

Genuine trolls, on the other hand, do not present anything like a rational argument to support their chosen (often radical) stance and are dealt with accordingly.

We had to give up dipping them in honey and staking them to ant-hills (sadly) as the ants didn't like the bitter taste.

Cheers
Russ

russellw said:

We had to give up dipping them in honey and staking them to ant-hills (sadly) as the ants didn't like the bitter taste.

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Poor ants



gogo

From our ToS

ScubaBoard ToS said:

This is a friendly forum based on mutual respect. While the Moderators will do their best to keep it that way, it's impossible for us to review every post. If any post seems to violate the spirit of this concept, please use the Report Bad Post button at the bottom of the post to notify us. All posts are the opinions of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of ScubaBoard. We are not responsible for posts' content, authenticity or accuracy.

No post should exceed a "PG" rating (link). Profane, racial, insulting or mean spirited language is simply not allowed here and this includes any sort of harassment or cyber bullying. Threats of any sort are grounds for immediate permanent suspension; there is never a reason to resort to personal attacks. If you feel that you have been attacked, please do not retaliate; instead use the Report Bad Post button at the bottom of each post to notify us. Trolling posts or off-topic posts (hijacking) may be moderated or removed.

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and

ScubaBoard ToS said:

Terms of Service Definition: Trolling
Exploiting the weaknesses of human nature or of an on-line community to upset people. ScubaBoard includes POV warriors, cranks, impolite users and disruptive behaviour in this definition.

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Notice we don't call them "trolls". We focus on disruptive actions of trolling and not on the personalities involved. Let's face it: we have some fun trolls! People who add spice to our forum are often consummate trolls, but they are funny and are non disruptive for the most part. I have bigger issues with the POV Warriors who skirt the ToS and badger anyone with a differing POV.

annakey said:

I thought you might take a proactive line.

One thing about trolls is the good ones can be hilariously funny - real spit tea on the keyboard stuff. I've a friend who once in a while joins a politically correct forum – usually a Yank one packed with earnest sociology students and dope-smoking trendies droning on about French philosophy - where he adopts an African sounding screen name - say, Mkamba Tajamali or Joseph Kamangeni.

He then posts, slowly at first (he's got it down to fine art) about his wives (plural) how he finds western notions of homosexuality ‘problematic yes sir’ how he's having to change his church because his Pastor's sympathetic to 'shirt-lifters' and how he’s having trouble keeping up with the 'demands' of his youngest wife.

All hell breaks loose as politically correct members of the forum tie themselves in knots. On the one hand they want to lay into him because he's a bigot. On the other hand he's black so can't possibly do anything wrong and anyone who does criticise him must be a RACIST. It's one of the best trolls I've seen, a genuine work of art, but all based on lies and deception so is clearly immoral (as my friend admits).

But does it really matter in the great scheme of things? It’s not like he’s doing anything illegal. Plus he’s holding up a mirror to some quite annoying and confused people and provoking them into displaying the absurdity of their views for all to see. So he’s performing a small social service. But I can see why the managers of those forums might get a bit miffed.

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I don't tolerate trolls - especially those that are dishonest.

There is no truth in dishonesty.

Trolling is whenever someone is clearly, deliberately posting in a manner for the purpose of angering and/or insulting the other participants of the board. Trolling DOES NOT encourage further discussion in the long run, it only encourages personal attacks (if left unchecked).

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Whenever I infract for trolling, I look for the following facets:
--Purpose of the post appears to be to insult or insight anger
--Post adds no value to the discussion

dwf_michael said:

There is no truth in dishonesty.

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Now there's a quote!

The only definition we really use for trolls is a member whose sole purpose on the board is to attack, insult, or otherwise flame bait other members. I don't think being argumentative or disagreeing with popular opinion makes a troll. We have banned a few members within a day of their registration because they made it clear their only intent was to troll, and we have an addition in our rules that covers trolling. One of our way old members turned into a troll, though, and it was a while before we banned him for good- we let him continue for much too long, and I wish we had banned him sooner.

annakey said:

One thing I've seen quite often - and this fits with minstrel's point about feeling in his water when someone's a troll - is when a poster becomes annoyed at a serious view, a sincerely held belief, on whatever subject, and accuses the person holding it of being a troll.

No they're not a troll. They simply honestly disagree with you, have expressed their disagreement, and you've become emotional. Don't confuse you becoming emotional with someone deliberately setting out to annoy you. The state of your emotions is your business, not the business of the person who produced the idea which triggered the emotion.

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These are good points. I have seen people throw the label of "troll" around because of this very dynamic.

In this case (trolling) no matter what you do or you do nothing. The matter is what happens after. It (anything and everything) happens with all of us, but this is not a criteria. The criteria is: what do you do with your... a-a-a... after-eat things; which way you take care of this and what happens after you take care of this.

So... is it a trolling or not depends on number of you have got a fish. Too often compare to the average user (fisherman) - you are a troll. Pretty much like the others - you are OK.

Social... socialism... Well, it is on Internet. Other words the matter is how the community reacts on what you do or even how you do nothing. How the others react? This is a criteria. The rest is just a dust... I mean it's not that important.