Troll here!

Sike jk this is a funny thread, but on topic the easiest way to rid yourself of a troll would be to ignore them. They are only looking for attention so take away that which they seek.

Originally posted by FUH_Q
Troll here!

Hello Mr Troll!

I have never minded seeing trolling behaviour in a thread, sometimes trolls can spice up the argument a bit, sometimes they can be quite funny and it is always interesting to see how other people react to them.

But yeah! Ignoring them is obviously the best solution if people find them offensive and disruptive.

Originally posted by Majic
Some people just get their jollies from tormenting other people.

In other words, trolls are sadists and deviates.

I'm sure that's so in more extreme cases, but there's also the scenario of people letting off steam and real-world frustration by attempting to goad a ''username'' rather than a person.
Of course, everybody knows that the username belongs to a real person, but I think that it's psychologically far different gaining pleasure in attempting to wind-up ''anonymous'' than it would be doing it face-to-face with a ''real'' human.

I also think it's an ego thing for some people, who want to see whether they can ''win'' a point that they don't even believe in.
Ultimately, testing themselves and trying to get the better of other people to boost their own fragile ego.


What is annoying on ATS, though, is when some posters throw around the term ''troll'' towards anyone that disagrees with them.
There's the danger that inaccurately overusing the term gives the term less credence, devaluing the meaning, and lets the real trolls slip through the net.

But what when troll evolutes to the
UBERTROLL?!

Selling cheap, if you're an ATS member in good standing it's free, just keep the spray away from your keyboard.

Thought this would add to the thread.

And when I tried to reply to Gary Simons's post "I didn't have permission to post on that thread"

What the heck

Maybe we should take a leaf out of the intelligence services books and do what they do with hackers.

Find the Trolliest Troll in the world wide web and turn him on his clan!

I can't help but have a little bit of respect for trolls when it's done right. Some people are just way too opinionated and sure of themselves. A little comic deflation can work wonders IMO!

My X wife would fit in to this topic.

Trolls can be counter-trolled, but it's not recommended for those who don't know what they're doing. The ideal strategy to handle trolls, obviously, is to ignore them, but on a forum like ATS, where there are people who apparently hold very controversial and, at times, offensive views to be true, this can lead to people who are simply belligerent, instead of actual, deliberate trolls, being mistakenly identified as a troll. In most cases, I think the best solution is simply to ban controversial opinions and arrest anyone who professes them, regardless of whether or not they believe them. It's fine to discuss ideas which aren't popular, but attempting to argue in favor of absurdities like the existence of the Illuminati or a 9/11 conspiracy should not be allowed under any circumstances.

Originally posted by March of the Fire Ants
I can't help but have a little bit of respect for trolls when it's done right. Some people are just way too opinionated and sure of themselves. A little comic deflation can work wonders IMO!

Likewise. I occasionally troll on another forum I'm a member of (not telling which!) and I always do it with arguments that both somewhat offensive (in that people will find them dumb and annoying, I don't do things like say, "we should kill all the Jews, that'll solve the economy!" or whatever) and superficially logical, so people get annoyed and try to debate me, without exposing the obvious flaws. My whole point is just to keep people on their toes and keep their reasoning active, because I feel like a lot of people just sort of absorb information and don't really try to think about it critically in any kind of effective way.

[edit on 15-8-2010 by pr3l33t]

a "troll" is at heart a "false flagger" because they usually impersonate the opponents they wish to demonize

examples:

A religious troll: "Do all Christians like myself worship the statue of Jesus?"
(atheist troll) "Do all atheists like myself enjoy butchering small animals?"

political troll: "I'm a democrat, but even I think Obama is a muslim extremist."
or: "Hi, I'm a tea bagger, do you, like myself, hate people of inferior races?"

etc, etc.

Originally posted by JAK
After a very recent thread, I made this in case I am unable to get the message across any other way.

If you would like to, please feel free to use it wherever you see fit!

Jack

[edit on 5/1/05 by JAK]

I did and my post got removed as "off topic".

I have youtube videos and I get a number of trolls responding to my videos sometimes. I would define as troll as a person who quite simply is a simple person who makes judgements too quick, not taking the time to see the whole picture. Most people are like this on earth!!
Most people like to waste their own time remarking badly on the creative ideas an imaginations of others. These people are unlike a pecimist who seeks to debunk something with rational science and logical discussion. A troll will more likely just repeat the same thing over and over in different words until you're so tired of reading their garbage that you block them.
For instance ; I told a troll in disguise how leedskalnin's device would defy gravity in a 30 ton stone using resonant ion orbits that repel magnetic fields... I'm sure he never read the note sent him, he probably scanned throught it in 2 seconds and had this to say,
"We're all just really sick of you, plenty of theory but no hard evidence, you never prove anything."
This dude has no brain. Perhaps I will have to build a wheel and prove that it can roll before he will believe it also. People like this I am now learning to play with. Using psychology you can respond to trolls with ultimatums, which seems to work better than anything.

I have a confession to make. I used to be a troll. I once was an attention seeking troll. It wasn't on this forum in particular but also on a lot of other forums I would go to. I had an absence of communication with my peers in real life and I used to have trouble with friendships so I would take out all my anxieties and paranoias on the internet. When a lot of people responded to me I felt good about myself. I would like to provoke controversy, not because I believed in the views I espoused, but because I felt like people were communicating with me.

This how I passed my time. There were times when I would go to forums not for discussing anything but just to seek affiliation with other people. I've reformed quite a bit... and now I don't do that anymore, but it's just how I was. If a troll is an attention seeker you don't feed the troll and maybe they'll wake up to it. I woke up to what I was doing and now I just try to use internet forums the way that they're mean to be. But before I would do everything because I really needed attention. I was just going to all the wrong places to get that attention.