Web Culture

[metahara]

what is a troll?
what constitutes trolling?
does it occur with certain groups outside the web?
or do trolls come from all walks of life?

edit: this is not an invitation to troll.

Comments

[qhost_coyote]

[ether_bunny]

Oh, man. You gave me a chuckle.

[ghost_coyote]

Wow, I haven't seen a comment from my very own troll in forever! (Notice its Qhost instead of Ghost) I feel loved having my very own troll =)

[vampiresetsuna]

Troll: 1) Monster that hides under a bridge or 2) someone who visits a journal for the purpose of repeatedly flaming the author 3) a prostitute

Trolling: 1) The act of flaming a journal repeatedly 2) looking to sell/ or / selling oneself (prostitution)

Trolling can't occur outside of LJ, unless you're talking about prostitution. Maybe that's a local slang usage? Or an older use of the word...

[metahara]

thank you and
what inspires trolling? when I asked do trolls come from all walks of life, I meant are most lj trolls from one group or profession, ie, teachers, office workers, R.V.ers...?

[vampiresetsuna]

O.O I don't know about that part, really. I was mostly under the impression that they were young teenagers, looking for attention, though sometimes they're obcessive people who can't accept that others don't share their opinion?

[ex_hestia]

I'd say the latter are just "kooks". The thing about a troll is the ambivalence in their sincerity.

[vesuviokitten]

First of all, I've always felt that counter-trolling was more damaging than trolling. But, trolling can either take an indirect form or a direct form. An indirect troll may not know they're trolling, such as when they throw a controversial, and intrinsically controversial topic into the discussion. Automatically they are accused of attempting to sabotage the community - of being cyber-insurgents - or at least of trying to get a rise out of the more sensitive and self-conscious members of the community. Direct trolling takes the form of explicit, ill-informed, and malicious attacks on either/or individual members of the community or the community itself. For instance, I remember a person on this same board just about six months ago who was making preposterous, new age claims about the evolution of intelligence, diffusionism, etc. etc. It was clear by how they were arguing their point that they didn't believe what they were saying. I didn't react to this "troll" for that very reason

[metahara]

well thought out and described- i hadn't thought of categories of trolling- thanx

[fango]

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/troll.html

You know, I always thought that the derivation of "troll" could have two meanings. First, you've got trolls, which are ugly mythical creatures and not nice and hide under bridges and all that. And internet trolls are certainly ugly. However, it seems more accurate that "troll" be attached to the fishing term "trolling", which means you cast a line out while the boat is still moving and hope that a fish grabs the bait. Since trolling is essentially posting a comment in the hopes that you'll get a lot of people responding to you, this seems to make sense. The Jargon File (linked above) seems to think that the term was derived from the creature, but since there isn't any specific origin of the term mentioned in the definition, I think it may even be likely that the word originally was used as a reference to the fishing term.

[fango]

Haha nevermind, I didn't even read the whole definition from the Jargon File. Seems they did mention fishing. Whoops.

[metahara]

so few people know of fishing terms - i wonder which use it was derived from- intersting point.

[shaych]

I always thought the fishing term was spelled differently - 'trawling' as opposed to 'trolling'. That may just be a reflection of nationality though; I'm sure it could be spelled either way, depending on where you're from.

[kopyor]

looks like you've gotten some helpful comments already, but wikipedia also has some good entries/discussion about trolls and trolling...

[forunlawfulck]

So does Encyclopedia Dramatica.