How Disruptive is Trolling To You?

Equality 7-2521 wrote: It's an essential part of the online ecosystem. You may as well find Earth's nitrogen cycle disruptive.

Except that we could get rid of the trolls without damaging this "ecosystem"...

Equality 7-2521 wrote: False

Kamoulox.

colorofmoney91 wrote: I think it's mostly irritating, but sometimes people can pull it off well and actually be funny.

I sort of agree with the invasive policy that is emerging whereby sites identify you with your real name, stats and image. It probably helps mitigate uninhibited trolling. Then again, Ｉ abhor the invasion of privacy, it is very important to be at least a little anonymous. Maybe there is a compromise, whereby your identity is affirmed to the site but not the public per se.... It seems a difficult task to really make internet conversations high quality, so even this tactic may be a waste of time.

zappaholic wrote: Snow Dog wrote: The problem is that trolling and internet bullying and intimidation have become to mean the same thing. Yeah, it looks like in the eyes of the media, "trolling" will become synonymous with bullies and stalkers and what not.  They already did the same thing with the word "hacker".  In the computing community, a hacker was a programmer or computer enthusiast.  Then the media decided to apply the term only to malicious vandals.  The programming community lost that battle resoundingly.

Henry Plainview wrote: zappaholic wrote: Snow Dog wrote: The problem is that trolling and internet bullying and intimidation have become to mean the same thing. Yeah, it looks like in the eyes of the media, "trolling" will become synonymous with bullies and stalkers and what not.  They already did the same thing with the word "hacker".  In the computing community, a hacker was a programmer or computer enthusiast.  Then the media decided to apply the term only to malicious vandals.  The programming community lost that battle resoundingly. The bigger problem with the word hacking, I think, is that they apply it to things like DDoSing and tricking people into giving you their password (by asking).

Edited by stonebeard - March 21 2012 at 20:29

tragically misunderstood, e.g. :  I like pizza.

I mean was that so bad?   I'll give you another:  Bruce Lee kicked ass.

what's the problem?

I won't front, it pisses me off. I don't want to relegate brainpower to figuring out whether somebody is being a malicious idiot or just a regular idiot. 

Personally I enjoy trolls. Mainly because some of the bizarre reactions they provoke. Great fun to watch.

My favourite is the furious "keep calm, people, it's only a troll, don't get provoked" reaction from someone whose blood pressure is evidently going through the roof.

Comparing trolls to spammers is like comparing the Plague and the Cholera.