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So a freind of mine just posted this to my wall. This excerpt is from the acticle to which i have a link posted below.

"I do believe you are right. From my experience, one of the main factors that go into such hateful speech is anonymity. The internet provides the PERFECT place for us to speak our opinions, no matter how shallow or pedantic or cruel they may be, because ultimately there are no real consequences for such behavior.

Going on what you said, if you were to say something cruel or hateful to someone on the internet, knowing full and well that you will probably never meet this person face to face, you would probably not feel about it. You would even think that you were right in saying whatever it is you said and not care what anyone thought about it. Because you don't have to worry about SEEING how you're pissing someone off or making someone feel bad, you may feel there are no real consequences. But taking to the same behavior with a person face to face however, does lead to consequences. Because you may have hurt another person's feelings, made someone feel bad, and you get to see the results of your cruel words. " Xavier Burgess

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/internet-thriving-environment-hate-trolling-opinion/

Its a thread discussing why people are so hateful on the internet. Dakkadakka had quite a number of individuals who really enjoy trolling.

A few months ago i wrote a humorous piece analogous to short fiction conjecturing that trolls whom i reffered to as nerdjerks behaved the way that they do because they were abused verbally as childeren and that the internet was a perfect outlet for them to exercise their personal anger and hatred at being bullied, by themselves bullying others. My thread was immediatly locked by the Mod. Below is a link to the afformentioned thread. I include this link because i believe it is pertinent to the following discussion.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/400911.page

I am curious. Do you agree dakka.

I've trolled a lot of people in WoW out of boredom and have done some jerkass stuff to people in game. Imo, they deserved it, queuing to tank heroics when you're woefully under geared is abusive to the other 4 players in the group. Everyone we (me and a couple guildies) trolled was either under geared to the point of being useless or rude and inconsiderate to us or other group members.

I think many (25-50%) of people who post frequently on any forum have made a troll post at some point. I certainly have, but I don't go out of my way to do it.

I don't know why 'hardcore' trolls go out of their way to harass people day in and day out. People are jerks. /shrug

it's funny sometimes but not always. it's funny when people get mad at an obvious troll. I used to love reading troll threads in anime and on /a/.

when you start sending more than one DM/PM or email, and continuosly do it, it stops being trolling and starts being harassment. I used to get trolled a lot too, i just ignored them, like they say, don't feed the trolls.

I've done it. I think we all have.

It's either they don't know they're doing it, or they enjoy making people raeg.

I think there is a difference between trolling and just being a D Bag. I quite enjoy getting trolled sometimes, I generally end up laughing at myself for allowing myself to be trolled.

When people are just being A holes, however, that gets annoying quick.

SO that this video can be referenced?

And definitely feed the trolls if they are hungry. Entertainment and hilariosity will ensue.

Pff, just be glad GWAR! isnt here anymore. Some trolls make me giggle, others, like him, uhg, just made me wan to board a flight to the UK and punch his face when h opened the door

As Charlie Chaplin said, only the unloved hate. I imagine some people "troll" because they're feeling rather devious at the time, or they simply don't like a certain person. People who constantly troll have personal issues.

In other news, the word troll is terribly abused. These days if you don't agree with someone that makes you a troll.

I spend my entire waking life trolling.
If someone's bright enough to see through it, they've passed the test.

Joey wrote:I spend my entire waking life trolling.
If someone's bright enough to see through it, they've passed the test.

Is that why you're such a miserable sod all the time or is that on your day off?

I'm part troll. I do it because I think it's hilarious and believe strongly in "if they can't take a joke, feth them." Humor can help us approach the issues we normally like to avoid in a way where we can come up with a practical solution because we can stop walking on egg shells all the time.

Also, you're all stupid lonely nerds with no lives and bad hygiene and you're bad and you should feel bad.

Cannerus, my friend, it takes one to know one!

I always manage to hold off on the trolling on forums, well almost always, but can't help it most of the time in the real world.

Trolling, or lulz-seeking, is a fine art. There is something to be said for watching people RAEG for no apparent reason or just making themselves look foolish...

I brought this up here on dakka because i have seen some of the worst examples here that i have ever seen. I'm gonna have to scrounge up a link or two to some of the worst troll threads. The thing i dont approve of is when it "appears" that the trolls are harassing younger users, as the trolls in the first link i posted did. I know on the net you should have a thick skin, but there are still a lot of younger users outhere who have not yet achieved a thick skin.

KingCracker wrote:Pff, just be glad GWAR! isnt here anymore. Some trolls make me giggle, others, like him, uhg, just made me wan to board a flight to the UK and punch his face when h opened the door

I never understood the Gwar! hate. I always liked him. Perhaps that speaks volumes about me!

I've always found trolling while in multiplayer games is hilarious. Trying it anywhere else gets a tad less funny and more insulting really.

Why not

Its the same reason people teabag in video games. Its funny for that split second, but if he rages then its hilarious

Trolls are generally kids or fethtards who in real life probably just don't say much to any one and release their impotent frustrations on line. I pity them and ignore them, but assume that they will grow up one day. Certainly this seems to be true judging by the above I used to be a troll posters.

Never did it myself but then the Internet wasn't around until I was an adult.

I thought Gwar was a band, and not a single person.

I troll all the time, but more so outside of dakka. I always enjoy a good facebook trolling, because truly, I hate everyone on there.

Isn't the satisfaction of laughing hysterically at your computer enough reason to do it all the time?

Most people ITT are not talking about what I consider trolling. Being aggressive with purposefully bad positions or whatever is not really trolling.

True trolling is about the playful sidestep and letting someone walk themselves into things in an argument. Real trolling is a hilarious act of comedy. Crappy trolling is just someone being mean.

Rented Tritium wrote:Most people ITT are not talking about what I consider trolling. Being aggressive with purposefully bad positions or whatever is not really trolling.

True trolling is about the playful sidestep and letting someone walk themselves into things in an argument. Real trolling is a hilarious act of comedy. Crappy trolling is just someone being mean.

Trolling is doing anything to get an emotional rise out of someone...
If that means you are aggressive over a purposefully bad positions then you do that.
If it means side-stepping them and letting them walk into things then you do that...
If it means going onto a forum where people believe they have past lives as elves or dragons and claiming to be the reincarnation of the Dark Lord Shazalur and claiming to have drained the soul of the Admin's beloved then you do that...

Rented Tritium wrote:Most people ITT are not talking about what I consider trolling. Being aggressive with purposefully bad positions or whatever is not really trolling.

True trolling is about the playful sidestep and letting someone walk themselves into things in an argument. Real trolling is a hilarious act of comedy. Crappy trolling is just someone being mean.

Maybe they've trolled you into making you think that's what they think trolling is?
That's what they'd say if they were as clever as me.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:I thought Gwar was a band, and not a single person.

I thought this too, but apparently it was a user too, and that is why we can't have nice things.

KingCracker wrote:Pff, just be glad GWAR! isnt here anymore. Some trolls make me giggle, others, like him, uhg, just made me want to board a flight to the UK and punch his face when he opened the door

I remember him and none of it is pleasant.

It's the old penny arcade comic (that I can't post due to profanity).

Anonymity makes people stupid.

Even facebook is a place where trolls go because they are
a step removed from being punched in the face.

malfred wrote:It's the old penny arcade comic (that I can't post due to profanity).

I actually just raged a little at the mention of real life being compared to Penny Arcade when PA is nothing but the obvious being stated by angry characters. Topical.

And Gwar! had good intent, he just had an unnecessarily rude tone in an over-the-top sort of way. He wouldn't just say he disagreed, he'd say there's no way that you could have come to that conclusion without purposely cheating or something equally rage-worthy.

I think some people are confused regarding what trolling is. I would personally classify the lulz seeking type of trolling as sarcasm or internet silliness rather than “true trolling”. “True trolling” IMO is when someone tries to negatively derail a thread with negative intent. To give an example, derailing a thread with a humorous internet meme/webcomic wouldn’t be trolling IMO whereas bating someone into a flame war would.

Personally I’ve never understood trolling. What’s annoying though is that the “internet tough guy” style of posting seems to be more prevalent nowadays therefore troll posts seem to be more common (probably due to places like 4chan where trolling is advocated).

Strangely enough Dakka not too bad when in comes to trolls. Once you place the small handful of posters, who frequently troll, on the ignore list, the rest of Dakka is quite intelligent and pleasant to deal with.