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On the Internet, troll is a slang term used to describe:
The term has negative connotations, and is often applied as an insult, while simultaneously being claimed as a 'badge of honour' by troll organizations or individuals. Sincere but controversial or naive posters are sometimes mis-labeled as trolls, but the term is generally considered to be correctly applied only to those looking to provoke outrage or discord.
A troll's reactions to being identified as a troll can vary widely depending on the forum in which the exchange takes place. Any person unjustly accused of being a troll may be hurt and express indignation. A troll will sometimes react with verbal abuse, raising the stakes with inflammatory remarks maligning the motivation of the accuser. If a person pursues his/her perceived enemy from site to site, that is most certainly a troll.
Trolling is often described as an online version of the breaching experiment, where social boundaries and rules of etiquette are broken. Self-proclaimed trolls often style themselves as Devil's Advocates or gadflies, challenging the dominant discourse and assumptions of the forum they are "trolling" in an attempt to subvert and introduce different ways of thinking. Detractors who value etiquette claim that true "Devil's Advocates" generally identify themselves as such for the sake of etiquette, whereas trolls often consider etiquette to be something worth trolling.
Trolls are sometimes caricatured as socially inept. This is often due to fundamental attribution error, as it is difficult to know the real traits of an individual solely from their online discourse. Indeed, since intentional trolls are alleged to knowingly flout social boundaries, it is difficult to typecast them as socially inept since they have arguably proven adept at their goal of inciting conflict.
The terms "trolling" and "troll-posting", like the term flamebait, originated as a fishing metaphor: like people who troll for fish, trolls were "baiting" reactions of anger, shock, or argument. Later, the verb became a noun; a "troll-poster" was simply called a "troll", an intentional comparison with the ugly, mean-tempered troll of folklore.
Prior to DejaNews' archiving of Usenet, accounts of trolling were sketchy, there being little evidence to sort through. After this time however, the huge archives were available for researchers. One early troll was Brad Weage, who frequented the PLATO system in the middle of the 1970s, but this is poorly documented. Another poorly documented case is the 1982–1983 saga of AlexAndJoan from the CompuServe forums. Van Gelder, a reporter for Ms. magazine, documented the incident in 1996 in an article for his publication. Alex (in real life a 50+ shy Jewish psychiatrist from New York) pretended to be a highly bombastic, anti-religious, post-car-accident, wheelchair-bound, mute woman named Joan "in order to better relate to his female patients". This went on for two years and "Joan" had become a hugely detailed character with an array of emotional relationships. These began to fall apart only after "Joan" coaxed an online friend of hers into an affair with Alex.
The first reference to "trolling" in the Google Usenet archive was Miller (1990, February 8). In serious literature the practice was first documented by Donath (1999), who used several anecdotal examples from various Usenet newsgroups in her discussion. Donath's paper outlines the ambiguousness of identity in a disembodied "virtual community":
Donath provides a concise overview of identity deception games which trade on the confusion between physical and epistemic community:
Calling someone a "troll" makes assumptions about a writer's motives that are impossible to determine, whereas using the verb (calling a post "trolling") describes the reception of a post without making assumptions about motives. Such assumptions would generally be an example of the fundamental attribution error; i.e. inferring that behavior results from a person's nature or personality rather than examining behavior in the context of events surrounding the behavior. In other words, "trolling" may have more to do with context than with personality. Also, it may be possible to troll unintentionally. Regardless, both users and posts are commonly labelled as trolls when their content upsets people.
The term "troll" is highly subjective, and some posts will look like "trolling" to some while seeming like meaningful contributions to others. For example, a so-called "troll" may be playing "Devil's advocate" by stating conservative opinions in a liberal forum. Behavior which might be considered a simple rampage or an emotional outburst in other environments is often tagged with the term "troll" in internet discussion.
The term is frequently misused to discredit an opposing position in an argument. This usually amounts to an undefensible ad hominem argument: many views that have met with opposition and even the ridicule of experts have subsequently been found to be justified, so the label "troll" used this way is actually likely to indicate a correct but controversial position that is stirring up flames precisely because it has challenged a doctrine others actually realize is wrong. (It is quite possible to stir up controversy with a wrong argument, but these can more effectively be met by simply responding to the substantive issue.)
Possible reasons people use more slang monikers in Internet-mediated discussion include the feeling of anonymity and impersonal perceptions of other conversants.
Regardless of the writer's motives, controversial posts are virtually guaranteed, in most online forums, to earn a corrective or patronizing or outraged response by those who do not distinguish between real physical community, and a mere exchange of words and ideas. Customs of discourse, or etiquette, that originated in such physical communities are often applied naively by newcomers to the Internet who are not used to the range of views expressed online - especially due to increased anonymity.
Trolling takes distinct forms in different media; it started on newsgroups, and as the internet has evolved, so has trolling.
Common types of troll messages or activities:
Some trolls may denounce a particular religion in a religion newsgroup — though historically, this would have been called "flamebait". Like those who engage in flaming, self-proclaimed or alleged Internet trolls sometimes resort to innuendo or misdirection in the pursuit of their objectives.
A variant of the second variety (inflammatory messages) involves posting content obviously severely contradictory to the (stated or unstated) focus of the group or forum- for example, posting cat meat recipes on a pet lovers forum, posting evolutionary theory on a creationist forum, or posting messages about how all dragons are boring in the USENET group alt.fan.dragons.
Cross posting is a popular method of choice by Usenet trolls: a cross-posted article can be discussed simultaneously in several unrelated and/or opposing newsgroups; this is likely to result in a flame war. For instance, an anti-fast food flame bait might be cross posted to healthy eating groups, environmentalist groups, animal rights groups, as well as a totally off-topic artificial intelligence newsgroup.
An example of a successful troll is the well-known "Oh how I envy American students" USENET thread which got 3000+ followups.
Most discussion of what motivates Internet trolls comes from other Internet users who claim to have observed trolling behavior. There is little scholarly literature to describe either the term or the phenomenon. The comments of accused trolls might be unreliable, since they may in fact be intending to stir controversy rather than to advance understanding of the phenomenon. Likewise, accusers are often motivated by a desire to defend a particular Internet project and references to an Internet user as a troll might not be based on the actual goals of the person so named. As a result, identifying the goals of Internet trolls is most often speculative. Still, several basic goals have been attributed to Internet trolls, according to the type of disruption they are believed to be provoking.
Proposed motivations for trolling:
Since there is a wide spectrum of possible motivations for trolls, some of these functions being benevolent and others, clearly malevolent, to typecast users as "trolls" in the negative sense is often rash.
Some users of internet forums are considered to be "trollhunters". While they do not actively seek conflict, as trolls do, they willingly enter conflict when trolls emerge. Often, trollhunters are as disruptive as trolls. A single troll-post may be ignored, but if ten trollhunters "pounce" following a troll, they will drive the thread offtopic.
Regarding troll-related conflicts, there are five groups into which users might be classified:
In the "attention-seeking" cases, trolls seek the conflict provided by trollhunters, whereas in the "cry for help" cases, they seek the consolance and compassion offered by moderators.
In general, popular wisdom advises users to avoid "feeding" trolls, and to ignore temptations to respond. Responding to a troll inevitably drives discussion off-topic, to the dismay of bystanders, and supplies the troll with the craved attention. When trollhunters pounce on the trolls, ignorers reply with: "YHBT. YHL. HAND.", or "You have been trolled. You have lost. Have a nice day." However, since trollhunters (like trolls) are often conflict-seekers themselves, the loss usually is not on the part of the trollhunter; rather, the losers are the other forum-users who would have preferred that the conflict not emerge at all.
Literature on conflict resolution suggests that labeling participants in Internet discussions as trolls can perpetuate the unwanted behaviors. A person rejected by a social group, both online and "IRL", may assume an antagonistic role toward it, and seek to further annoy or anger members of the group. The "troll" label, often a sign of social rejection, may therefore perpetuate trolling.
Better results normally ensue when users take the moderator role and describe more constructive behaviors in a non-judgmental, non-confrontational way. Trolls are excited by trollhunters and frustrated by ignorers, and neither of these emotions produce positive results for the forum. Engaging trolls results in "flame wars". Trolls frustrated by the "ignore strategy" may leave the forum (and either troll elsewhere, or become constructive users) or may become progressively more inflammatory until they get a response.
A major debate on the Internet is whether or not trolls perform any useful function. Because "troll" is such a broadly-applied term, if all definitions thereof are to be accepted, the answer must be non-definitively, "yes and no".
Users performing many useful, but controversial, functions are often decried as "trolls", and in these cases, so-called "trolling" may actually benefit the forum in which it occurs. For example, the presence of a radical right-winger described as a "troll" may allow a conservative "lurker" to feel more comfortable expressing her viewpoints, which seem very moderate in contrast. On the other hand, if trollhunters mount a flame war against this right-wing "troll", the conservative bystander may feel less comfortable expressing her views, to the detriment of the forum. As much as trolls claim to "fight groupthink", they may actually encourage it by solidifying opinion against them.
Even though useful content and productive users are sometimes decried as "trolls", the general consensus is that pure "trolling"—seeking conflict for its own sake—benefits only the troll and trollhunters, and has no place in any forum. Most forums reject the claim that pure and intentional trolling serves any useful purpose.
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