h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I must admit I nicked this thread from the badscience forum.
But I think it worthwhile discussing here.

Although trolls are the bane of internet life, is there not an angle which is important in which the troll asks all those awkward questions which those with the established view would rather not ask?
Do they not actually prompt us to go off and fully research outr views in order to counter them?

It may be obvious to you that X is not a valid argument. But until someone comes along and deliberately takes the opposing view to antagonise and upset the holders of that view is there not a danger of being complacent and just saying 'well,it's obvious that X is not valid' ?

I guess this is a version of the role of the fool in medieval courts as being the only person who was allowed to criticise the king because, just occaisionally, they may have a good point and even when they don't, they encourage people to delve even deeper and thus come up with even better arguements?

On this American board I have a friend who loudly protests almost everytime they ban a troll-of course you're right-some of them are pretty obnoxious though

Ictoan, can we define 'troll' first ? If it's just somebody asking awkward questions, I don't think this alone makes him/her a troll. My understanding of a trolls is, that they deliberately ask questions/make statements to disrupt a conversation, not for the sake of giving another point of view, but for the sake of annoying others. Trolls may even pick a certain researcher, and follow him/her into all conversations, starting their disruptive behaviour there and making communication next to impossible, because there'll most likely be at least one researcher who will 'feed the troll'.
So to answer your question: a troll like I understand it, does not make people think about their views, they'll disregard what he says right from the beginning and only get annoyed. A troll may have some impact on the community as a whole, though, in that they stick together and speak up against the troll.
I myself tend to leave a conversation once it's being 'trolled' or generally getting nasty, but that's only me.

The trolls I've encountered don't tend to ask questions. They often make statements which are provocative/abusive/irrelevant/inconsistent and do not respond to reasoned debate.

I understand what you're getting at, sometimes we need the provocation to examine our own views and the rationale behind them. Occasionally trolls may act as this spur, but I suspect the posts that do so are a minority.

They are a good excercise in testing our patience & tolerance...

F27584?thread=1

<> (Ictoan)

I have to agree with Teasswill that trolls don't tend to ask questions. They simply behave very badly on threads and do their best to disrupt things.

Of course, as B'Elana said - <>

The other day someone referred to me as a troll. Simply because I posted something that they thought might end up with 'possible future insults' happening on a thread. Well, sure as hell any personal insults wouldn't ever have come from me, but apparently the questions I was raising made this person think of me as a troll.

The House Rules state:

"Trolls say deliberately provocative things just to stir up trouble - it's not polite, so please don't do it. h2g2 is an incredibly friendly place, so please help to keep it that way."

Meanwhile, it seems that some researchers think that anything even remotely provacative that is posted - even without any intention at all to simply 'stir up trouble' - makes that person a troll.

To me, Ictoan, trolls are people whose main aim is to disrupt a thread in any way they can. They are not participating, they are simply posting inflammatory cr@p, usually over and over again, to get attention.

In my vasty experience with *real* trolls here on hootoo, you cannot actually reason or debate with them. That's not why they are there. If you do respond to them it 'feeds' them so they have something else to reply to in a totally nonsense and often abusive manner.

So I guess I'd have to say that the role of the troll is simply to disrupt and destroy.


az

Yes, my opinion exactly. Nowadays, people are too quick naming somebody a troll, just because they differ in opinion.

I don't have any experience with h2g2 trolls as I rarely come over here, I can only speak from my BBC MBs experience.

We had, until recently, a couple of posters on R3 Classical who if you disagreed with their opinions immediately labelled you as a troll.

However, in the main I have found trolls main interest is to disrupt the MBs and cause havoc. This has resulted in the Weather MBs being shut completely, look at the debacle re 606 (which has impacted on all the BBC MBs with the new rules) R2 MBs have also been badly hit forcing a temporary closure some weeks ago and regular Posters to be driven out.

In my opinion those sort of trolls are the equivalent of playground bullies.

Having said that the BBC failed to get on top of it and let the situation deteroriate. There was a stalking incident as well when R2 trolls followed posters who had defected over to PoV and started to harrass them.

hi Anna,

Good of you to stop by with your input even though you're not an h2g2 regular.

I've actually been harassed and stalked by trolls on my h2g2 email - which is posted on my PS for people who want to add photos to my h2g2 friends photo gallery.

Most unpleasant, to say the least.

I've also had trolls post filth on my h2g2 PS, which happily I can have removed if nobody replies to the first post. So I guess I'm not very patient with these people who choose to behave in this manner.

<>

That's pretty much my opinion too. They don't ever add anything to a discussion at all.

az

"Although trolls are the bane of internet life, is there not an angle which is important in which the troll asks all those awkward questions which those with the established view would rather not ask?"

Asking awkward question or saying something that challenges popular opininion is something anyone can do. The question here is whether or not those holding the established line just label someone a troll to undermine the challenge.

"Do they not actually prompt us to go off and fully research out views in order to counter them?"

Depends on the person. Two examples of arguably less helpful things that can happen that can happen...
Some people will ignore anyone that says something that threatens their ability to easily go about believeing what they want to.
Some people will merely *counter-troll* they will do their best to upset and antagonise anyone trying to express views that they don't like and will stubbornly refuse to meet with the issues of a problematic idea.

"It may be obvious to you that X is not a valid argument. But until someone comes along and deliberately takes the opposing view to antagonise and upset the holders of that view is there not a danger of being complacent and just saying 'well,it's obvious that X is not valid' ?"

Someone trying to just upset & antoganise people holding view is unlikely to be anything but a troll. Someone just trying 'upset the applecart' is different beast and one that runs the risk of being labeled a troll by the squemish.

I've always tended to think that trolls are those people out to take pleasure in making people angry and getting them all worked-up. People that things out of malice.
Maybe that's an old fashioned and limitted defination to today's catch-all one.

I agree with what the general theme, that it seems that asking questions is good, but that it gets labelled as trolling sometimes. So the problem is the definition of trolling is getting too wide. I've gotten called a troll several times for asking a question. I probably was borderline, b/c once it became clear that there would be no answer forthcoming, I should have stopped asking. But I'd rather be borderline, and called a troll, than timid.

I think h2g2 is really strange, are certain people here multiple personalities?

No we're not!

az

There are people here who enjoy a good arguement, and will therefore take a contrary view, and defend the position.

There are people with 'blind spots' who refuse to budge from an indefensible position.

There are people who avoid conflict, and so just run from any negative posting.

There are people - and these annoy me the most - who attempt to inflict their own opinions by using the yikes button, and pulling any posts that either offend their sensibilities or state an arguement they disapprove of.

And there are some people who just try to cause trouble.

Trolls tend to get short shrift on here - insanity does quite well.

sorry, meant to sign my last post

las azes

Sorry, only asked cos Azathoth and Azahar just seemed such similar names.

They might look it but spoken are quite different.
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dict_en_es/spanish/azahar

OK, going now to cook and dr. who

Oh dear, Azathoth (pronounced Az-a-thoth?)

That Yahoo thingy got it all wrong. My name is pronounced 'a-thaar', slight dipthong in the last syllable.

Or else just call me...

az

<<"OK, going now to cook and dr. who">>

Doh, forgot it again. Looks like I'll be watching this week's courtesy of t'internet then.

There is a difference between trolling (e.g. shiftysuggs) and perfectly natural flame wars (e.g. Della versus Cabal).

<>

You mean Della vs Hoo and Dirty Angels, etc. The cabal had nothing to do with any sort of flaming - just a few laughs totally off thread and for the most part, offsite.

az