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Interesting read, not that we get a lot of these types in here.  Andthank you all so much for that.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/climate_desk/2014/02/internet_troll_personality_study_machiavellianism_narcissism_psychopathy.html (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/climate_desk/2014/02/internet_troll_personality_study_machiavellianism_narcissism_psychopathy.html)
-Ed

the article doesn't define exactly what trolling is, so I'll ask (seriously) what is trolling?


I thought internet 'trolling' was when one person tried to get as big a reaction as possible from a group of like-minded individuals, by posting an opinion or statement they absolutely knew that group would take issue with - whether that person posting it actually agreed with what they themselves were saying or not.

- for example, an internet 'troll' would be someone going on to a Beatles forum and making a thread called 'Gerry & The Pacemakers are totally better than the Beatles dude!!!!'.


But now, apparently 'trolling' is also defined as someone making a twitter account and point blank threatening to rape and/or kill another twitter user. To me that's just extreme cold blooded bullying. And yet apparently that's trolling as well?

If the definition is so wide as to encompass both the above, then I don't really see how any kind of psychological data can be assessed regarding "The Internet Troll", as an individual.

You know, I sort of lump em into a group of unnecssarily loud and abusive a***oles, who just are mean for mean's sake.  Exploiting the fact no one can actually beat the crap out of them. 

Let's pull from the old wikipedia (nota real source but oh well)...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)#cite_note-IUKB_def-6 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)#cite_note-IUKB_def-6)

"Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment. For example, mass media has used troll to describe "a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families" 

So its sort of up in the air.  Anyway I just thought it was sort of interesting.
-Ed

Isn't a troll just someone with a contrary opinion? Was Jesus a troll?

There's a difference between an internet troll and an attention whore.

Internet troll is like 4chan, Attention whores is ones that gets a reaction from a group

Me too.

I see the example of saying hurtful things on a memorial site as an extreme of trying to stir up reaction, rather than as an attempt to cause additional grief.  The motivation is quite different.


Agreed.

Yeah, Amen to that. They make you wish you could travel thru the phone lines and let them have it on the other end.  And, no big surprise that Youtube is a major ground for these types of offenders, especially in the Music Videos and Favorite Bands sections.

As always, no big secret that the political section has enough trolling going on on both sides for Tom Clancy to write his next major book about (were he still among us.) 

As has been my experience, you can usually separate the trollers from the true debaters and discussionists, while other times, someone who feels they 'lost' an argument or got bested by someone will just resort to all out abuse as a substitute for intelligence.  Like the rest of you I've had my fair share of these types and it's not likely to stop any time soon, unfortunately.  :bluesad:

Interesting article: I think it's worth mentioning that quite a lot of people just go actively searching for confrontation (not sure that is the right term in an internet context) and will actually lie and contradict their own opinions in order to negate ones viewpoint, a lot are smarter than they appear. Also I think the best method has always been to ignore especially if moderation is not at a comfortable level on that particular service, it sort of starves them out of their own needs. Over the years Youtube has got much less trolling in comments at first due to the thumbs up/down system and then arguably later due to the lessening of anonymity (which in principal I don't agree with, it's just an observation). I always find it mildly interesting psychologically when I encounter trolls but then quickly frustrating when decent polite chaps get drawn into a cyclical debate with them.