POLITICS <G>: Trolls!

Looking in, I noticed this thing going on on that
Gaelic list... I'm still "on sabbatical" at least
until I get a nice chunk of my thesis sent off to my
supervisor, but on tis one thing I thought I would
comment since I, um, seem to see it around so much...
:P

The attack in question looks somehow suspiciously
idiotic and antisocial to me. I'd wonder about the
possibility of some idiot playing an elaborate game to
try and stir people up.

http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm

I'd note that given the emotions and reaction stirred
across apparently at least two lists, if this _is_ the
work of something that just crawled out from
underneath a bridge somewhere, that critter'd have to
chalk it up as a success...

Even for garden variety psychos and idiots, as hard as
it is to actually _follow_ this sort of advice
sometimes, they ought not to be given attention or
most of all, _emotional reaction_ beyond flatly and
publically identifying them as a garden variety psycho
and/or idiot and ensuring that the essential goals are
met, i.e. in this case that no one takes the
suggestion not to cooperate with the nefarious Conlang
Military Conspiracy (whoo-hoo! does this mean I'm
lisenced to kill? <weg>) seriously and that this
person in generally dismissed as a crank. You do want
to minimise the damage done, but you don't want to let
a person like this get either their yuks or their
bizarre psychological needs met through getting you
worked up...

Oh, by the way... trolls sometimes travel in packs...
and whether the phycho kind or the gameplaying kind
(or both), tend to shill a lot, i.e., create false
identies to manipulate the environment... it's always
wise to ask yourself if there might be more identities
than humans posting at any given time.

Oh and um... if you want to discredit a crank, raising
the troll issue publically is a nice way to do it. If
people think possibly someone is having it on with
them, it may nicely dissipate any good narrative flow
the other person has going. I never suggested using
this as a kind of tactical psychological warfare, tho.
Put that dirty thought out of your heads :). However,
using any and every means to discredit Ms. Gunn, for
example, passing along And's bit of info, coupled with
an edifying discussion of trolling, might magnify the
effects of such a hypotherical tactic :).

Just some random thoughts :)

Stephen

P.S.: How does using Navajo for encryption constitute
"abuse", anyway?

______________________________________________________________________
Post your ad for free now! http://personals.yahoo.ca

Reply