Posted on 07/31/2009 2:44:02 AM PDT by Scanian
Construction sites warn drivers of danger ahead, proceed with caution. Cyber sites have now become hazardous terrain at reader forums, and it bodes well for readers at American Thinker to be aware of the often elusive pitfalls of Trolls at Work.
What is a Troll, you ask? According to Scandinavian folklore,
"... a Troll is ‘an obnoxious creature bent on mischief and wickedness' who lives in hiding under a bridge, ready to strike fear and chaos is the hearts of innocents passing by."
Transplanted from a home under a bridge to the cyber world, a Troll
"is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum... with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response, or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion."
And in the case of a politically conservative web site like American Thinker, the goal is often to "to attempt to disrupt the dissemination of a story, and to demoralize the people who wish to see the story disseminated," in the words of AT reader Lucius Vorenus.
Hmmm? Starting to ring a bell? Modern day Trollism reveals an amazing cast of characters in the World of the Troll. Researchers point out that the virtual world of the Internet frees the Trolls from earthly bonds of body and identity, giving them the power to fly like Peter Pan from the crack of dawn to the Witching Hour. There are no restrictions of time or place. Armed with a laptop and Wi-Fi, an array of Trolls appear around the clock, stealthily plotting to disrupt, disorient, irritate, insult, fool, deceive, and trick the minds of innocent victims in reader forums. Beware, Trolls at Work.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Fortunately, I rarely see a troll on FR.
I did, however, find some borderline trolls today
on the birther thread.
One had just signed up yesterday.
If you want to see the raal world of trolls, try the
Topix forums, http://www.topix.net/us.
That is, without a doubt, the cesspool of trolls and
young neo-Marxist.
“”To Troll” is also to slowly drag bait through the strike zone! “
Don’t forget the trolling motor for your fishing boat.
There’s lots of trolls on FR, very easy to spot. They’re the ones bashing Palin and saying that creepy Socialist ex-Governor from Massachusetts is “our only hope” for 2012.
The first thing allot of us think when we here “Troll” is a DUer disguising themselves as one of us. It happens, but not as common as we may think.
More likely trolls are just Baiters – those who get off on posting topics that cause people on forums to go head to head in verbal battles. These topics generate lost of replies, sometimes a couple of hundred, more so than the average breaking news topic.
Topics on FR often include:
Creation
Evolution
Taking shots at a Christian denomination
Taking shots at others Pastors, or church leaders, for example, Rick Warren.
Bringing up a third Party name. example, Ron Paul
Anti Palin Post. (Seen lots of these). Some from trolls, but most from RINO supporters
Supporting a RINO for 2012. Worse a pair of them.
The Civil War. Want to see the North and South battle this out again, just post that topic. And this will get worse as we approach the 150 anniversary.
That sounds like someone we know ;)
I have my doubts about some possible trolls, frankly I look more at the ones that are screaming “trolls!” because I know I have done it elsewhere that you need to sometimes post an article under a different or new name or you have to be a new poster for whatever reason.
I had such an event when I could not login for several days, so I started a new name and was immediately called a troll, I have something like 5,000 plus comments under THIS name and near as much under my first name, so just because a poster just signed up does not necessarily mean they are a troll, they could very well happen to be a longtime trusted poster thats been plagued with internet paparazzi and wants a little anonymity.
The reality is that there is most definitely an attempt here at FR to convince people of certain ideas by the use of trolls that have the agenda to to nullify a discussion or to cleverly convert it into a different direction, that is what I see here lately ESPECIALLY the birth certificate threads.
I checked out Topix per your suggestion, picked the cash for clunkers article, and became Troll #1 on the thread. Here’s what I posted:
JimRed
Belmar, NJ
1 min ago
Yet there are many who believe that the same government that can’t analyze and administer a cash for clunkers program efficiently should be in charge of our health care. Amazing!
Just the use of the word “birther”(I sometimes say “birfer” just because it’s un-PC) demonstrates the influence of trolls around here. The term came from DU last fall and now it permeates conservative conversation because we’ve let the creeps on the left define us once again.
Trolls get zotted fairly quickly here.
Thanks to the excellent mods!
the 2nd post was some thread hijacker who was spouting off about how evil microsoft was.
i love the windows/microsoft/mac threads.
the one bad thing I can say about microsoft, which I will continue to hate them for, is they made my Wife's first boyfriend into a young Millionaire, living in a huge home in Vale, Co, skiing 200+ days a year. You just know there are those quite “if only’s” going on in her head from time to time.
however, there is a reason people break-up, and i know i am better off. i am sure she is too. although, 200+ days skiing would be nice. ha! sorry.
Read this last night (2AM) and hoped someone would post it as I don’t know how....good article....
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