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Journal the_mad_poster's Journal: Why Trolling Is Not Inherently Negative 10

Journal by the_mad_poster

We will briefly deconstruct the recent LGF troll so as to explain why the "classical" troll is not necessarily a destructive force bent on destroying otherwise intelligent conversation.

"Trolling", in the classic sense, is posting an opinion or statement which you either do not necessarily believe, or have greatly exaggerated for the purpose of creating a certain level of noise.

When posted to an otherwise thoughtful, intelligent thread of discussion, a troll is typically ignored. In some cases, however, if the victims are not terribly savvy, they will mistake the troll for a valid opinion and go into a hysterical fit over it.

However, when a troll of this type is posted to an idiotic, mundane, typified discussion thread that already has little or no value, there's nothing to lose, and the discourse that can result from the massive confusion can actually turn out to be more valid than what the thread was originally aiming for.

Take, for instance, the LGF troll.

Note how in my AIM transcript with CyranoVR I mentioned that I was intentionally trolling for racists on LGF. LGF is full of psuedo-violent racist windbags who honestly believe that genocide, forced sterilization, and discrimination against Arabs is a good idea.

Further, note how once Charles posted his story about the troll to the site, a few LGFers actually sat up and started talking about the fact that LGF does, in fact, shelter some rather grotesque racism.

In addition, the story hit LGF Watch after the blogger took notice of the comments chastising LGF and Charles for ignoring the racism in the comments rather than confronting them and distancing the site from them.

In the end, the troll did create some noise, yes. But it created noise in a place who's most impressive feat to date was getting a long-standing news anchor out of work after he broadcast a story he didn't write. Even if the troll had created ONLY noise it wouldn't have made any difference.

Instead, in the end, it created some honest discourse on a serious problem with the site and forced a few people to actually address the fact that, yes, LGF has a strong contingent of people who are bigoted against Arabs and it and Charles do nothing to indicate that they feel these comments are invalid or that LGF should distance itself from them. To the contrary, Charles has made statements and taken actions to indicate that he SUPPORTS these types of comments (note that while people Bigel were NOT banned for making ultra-racist, violent, and potentially illegal remarks, I was banned for posting a single troll that eventually generated valid discussion despite attempts by the site's maintainer to ensure that didn't happen).

Trolling is not about crapflooding or general harrassment. Trolling is about trying to bring about a change in discussion by flagrantly calling out stupendously moronic comments and stirring up stagnant subjects. Injecting a properly crafted troll into a stagnant discussion can be like injecting caffiene. Although many of the direct replies will likely be flamebait and assinine discourse, it helps to identify the truly clueless while providing bases for more intelligent, informed discussion to develop.

The next time you see a good troll, just sit back and have a chuckle at the expense of the biters. Odds are pretty good, if you think about it, that the troller is just having some fun, and the only people who are really hurt by it deserved to be hurt anyway.

This discussion was created by the_mad_poster (640772) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

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Why Trolling Is Not Inherently Negative

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